1980 Week: The Earthling

          A staple on cable TV in the early ’80s and also one of the final statements of actor William Holden’s long and venerable career, the US/Australia coproduction The Earthling is a strange movie that feels like a conventional one. Slickly directed by Peter Collinson and boasting gorgeous location photography of Australian forests and mountains, The Earthling has such a literary quality that it seems as if it was extrapolated from a short story, although the narrative was written directly for the screen. Holden plays a dying man who returns to the Australian wilderness where he was raised so his life can end where it began. His plan hits a bump when he witnesses a car crash that leaves a 10-year-old boy orphaned. Instead of escorting the child back to civilization, Holden’s character yells at the frightened youth and tells him to fend for himself, until finally agreeing to become the boy’s guardian. Holden’s character then drags the kid along as he ventures deeper into a remote forest.

          Some movies about inspirational relationships between old and young characters concern the teaching of life lessons. The Earthling has some of that stuff in its DNA, but it’s also about the teaching of death lessons. Had the filmmakers done a better job of defining their characters, the movie could have become a timeless meditation on using compassion to overcome the impermanence of human existence. Instead, The Earthling is something like a rough draft of that hypothetically fascinating movie.

          The picture is murky right from the start. Patrick Foley (Holden) arrives in a small Australian town, where he briefly reconnects with a childhood friend named Christian (Alwyn Kurtis). This simple scene should have allowed the filmmakers to answer basic questions, such as why Patrick has an American accent and why he left home. Instead, the scene is a prickly argument about how Patrick doesn’t appreciate the people who love him, culminating with Christian’s accusation that Patrick’s plan to die alone is characteristically selfish. Like so many other things in The Earthling, this crucial scene kinda works and kinda doesn’t. The main thrust is clear, inasmuch as it’s impossible to misunderstand how the filmmakers want viewers to perceive the main character, and yet the details are so fuzzy that it’s hard to genuinely believe what’s happening.

          And so it goes throughout The Earthling. Patrick and the orphan, Shawn (Ricky Schroder), bond simply because the story needs them to bond, not because the filmmakers present evidence of real human connection. It doesn't help that tow-headed Schroder is the quintessential Hollywood kid actor, exuding innocence as he cries glycerin tears. Still, the wreckage wrought by Holden’s years of offscreen hard living lend gravitas and poignancy to his characterization, meaning that he’s in a different—and superior—movie than the one occupied by his costar.

The Earthling: FUNKY

Open Season (1974)

          Presenting horrific behavior in a matter-of-fact style, Open Season is unusual among the myriad ’70s movies about the corrosive effects of violence. Whereas many ’70s films engaging this subject matter use vigilantism as a prism for exploring morality, Open Season takes a decidedly nihilistic approach. The principal characters are three average Americans who spend their annual camping trips hunting human beings for sport. Some brisk but pointed dialogue late in the movie explains why: The friends became addicted to killing people while serving in Vietnam. Pretty heavy for a European exploitation movie that caters to the international audience by featuring several American actors. Sleekly filmed by UK director Peter Collinson (helmer of 1969’s The Italian Job), this slow-burn thriller stars Peter Fonda, John Phillip Law, and Richard Lynch as the hunters.

          Their characters are introduced effectively at a backyard barbecue, the apex of suburban normalcy, before they kiss their wives and children goodbye and depart for their annual getaway. Upon reaching the boondocks, the dudes drink heavily and zero in on a young couple traveling the same roads. Nancy (Cornelia Sharpe) is a sexy blonde, and her companion, Martin (Alberto de Mendoza), is a clean-cut dweeb whom the hunters correctly guess is having an extramarital affair with Nancy. The hunters pretend to be cops in order to pull over the couple’s car, and then the hunters abduct the couple, transporting their hostages to a lakeside cabin miles from civilization. The hunters toy with the couple, forcing Martin to do housework while cleverly manipulating Nancy into believing she can seduce her way out of trouble. After the men have their fun with Nancy, the real gamesmanship begins—the hunters release Martin and Nancy into the wild with a 30-minute head start, and then the hunters gather high-powered rifles and begin their pursuit. 

          The best sequences of Open Season depict savagery casually. The hunters use good manners while humiliating Martin and shackling Nancy so she can’t escape. Worse, they treat their whole adventure like a regular hunting trip, downing beers and trading jokes even as they prepare for sadistic homicide. The filmmakers wisely eschew musical scoring during many scenes, letting the creepy onscreen events manufacture mood without adornment. When music does kick in, however, some of the misguided attempts at replicating hillbilly melodies are distracting. The acting is uneven, though Fonda, Law, and Lynch simulate camaraderie well. (FYI, William Holden makes a mark in a very small supporting role.) Best of all is the film’s final half-hour, during which a remote island becomes a killing ground. Once the characters in Open Season throw off their pretenses, the savage heart of this nasty little movie beats loudly.

Open Season: GROOVY

The Revengers (1972)

          A passable Western with a few meritorious elements, including a lively supporting performance by Ernest Borgnine and a zippy musical score by Pino Colvi that borrows textures from the work of Elmer Bernstein and Ennio Morricone, The Revengers represents a milquetoast response to the cinema of Sam Peckinpah. Whereas Peckinpah’s Westerns upended the genre by accentuating gritty realism and moral ambiguity, The Revengers has the feel and look of an old-school cowboy movie, even though the broad strokes of the story are quite grim. Had the filmmakers taken their endeavor to its logical conclusion by emulating Peckinpah’s gutsy style instead of simply copping a few of his narrative tropes, The Revengers could have been something special. As is, the movie provides about 90 minutes of so-so entertainment during the course of a bloated 106-minute running time.

          William Holden, giving a phoned-in but still authoritative performance, plays John Benedict, a former Union solider now living quietly on a Colorado ranch with his family. A band of rogue Indians led by a white man raids the ranch one day while John is away hunting, so he returns to find his family slaughtered and his livestock stolen. John ventures into he wilderness in order to find and kill the guilty parties, eventually tracking them across the border to a hideout in Mexico. Realizing he needs extra guns, John manipulates the warden of a Mexican prison into loaning the services of several convicts, among them Americans Job (Woody Strode), a runaway slave, and Hoop (Borgnine), a fast-talking varmint. Adventures and betrayals ensue.

          The Revengers moves along at a good clip, except for a dreary interlude during which John spends time with frontier woman Elizabeth (Susan Hayward), and even though there aren’t many full-out action scenes, the bits of John and his outlaw gang living on the trail have color. Borgnine easily steals the picture by playing a two-faced creep prone to vulgar aphorisms (“That one-eyed rooster got away cleaner than a fart in a high wind!”). And while Holden’s gritted-teeth intensity suits the material well, his boredom during much of the picture is evident. Worse, director Daniel Mann’s periodic attempts at comic relief are punctuated with cringe-inducing musical stings, a sure sign the filmmakers lacked confidence in their own work. Fans of south-of-the-border Westerns should find The Revengers sufficiently distracting, though anyone expecting a proper follow-up to the previous Borgnine/Holden oater will be disappointed—instead of The Wild Bunch (1969), this is more like The Mild Bunch.

The Revengers: FUNKY

Fedora (1978)

          After cresting with the acclaimed one-two punch of Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960), Billy Wilder’s monumental film career began a slow decline, despite a brief return to form with The Fortune Cookie (1966). And though Fedora was not actually Wilder’s last film—he persuaded Fortune Cookie costars Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau to reteam for the pointless Buddy Buddy (1981)—Fedora is in many ways the nail in Wilder’s creative coffin. Everything in the movie is an echo of something Wilder did better earlier in his career. In fact, Fedora is so painfully old-fashioned that except for some coarse language and a brief nude scene, the movie feels as if it was made in the 1940s.

          Frequent Wilder leading man William Holden plays Berry “Dutch” Detweiler, an independent movie producer whose career has hit the skids. Berry travels to Greece in order to contact reclusive movie star Fedora, with whom he had a brief affair in the 1940s. Although she’s unofficially retired from acting after abandoning her last movie midway through production, Fedora is as a legend from Hollywood’s Golden Age who, incredibly, still has her looks. Upon arriving in Greece, Berry discovers that Fedora is a virtual prisoner inside her estate on a private island, and that the people around her will use any means necessary to repel intruders. Nonetheless, desperation coupled with growing concern for Fedora’s welfare compels Berry to solve the mystery of her circumstances.

          Fedora hinges on a massive plot twist that appears mid-movie, but the “twist” is obvious and predictable. Furthermore, the disastrous second half of Fedora comprises a lengthy series of dialogue scenes that trigger explanatory flashbacks. Alas, neither the dialogue scenes nor the flashbacks add much in the way of believability or dimension. Given the great heights to which Wilder and frequent writing partner I.A.L. Diamond had soared in previous films, the clumsiness that pervades their script for Fedora is shocking. So, too, is Wilder’s lack of directorial taste.

          Excepting a pithy running gag involving an obsequious hotel manager, most scenes drag on at torturous length. The casting of the Fedora role is calamitous, with leading lady Marthe Keller stuck doing an anemic Dietrich/Garbo imitation. The score by Miklós Rózsa is musty and oppressive. And the hard-boiled voiceover delivered by Holden serves virtually no purpose, since most of the information contained in the voiceover gets repeated during regular scenes. Worst of all, the basic storyline—about a vain movie star who ruins peoples’ lives in order to fight the aging process—is a sickly cousin to the plot of Wilder’s behind-the-scenes masterpiece Sunset Blvd. (1950). Therefore, despite sleek production values and an enjoyably cynical performance from Holden, the experience of watching Wilder struggle to reclaim past cinematic glory is just sad.

Fedora: FUNKY

1980 Week: When Time Ran Out . . .

It’s hard to imagine a more fitting title for the final big-screen release from producer Irwin Allen, who became synonymous with the disaster-movie genre after making The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). By the time this enervated flick hit cinemas with a resounding thud, time had indeed run out for Allen’s formula of jamming as many movie stars as possible into melodramatic epics about mass destruction. The disaster this time is a volcano that threatens to consume an island in the Pacific, so the usual Allen contrivances seem especially silly. For instance, tanned B-movie stud James Franciscus plays the requisite cold-hearted businessman who tries to convince island residents that the volcano’s not going to erupt. Really? Then what’s with all the lava and smoke, to say nothing of the corpses left over from scientists conducting tests in the mouth of the volcano? Similarly, the endless scenes of people climbing hills and crossing ravines—running from lava as if the stuff possesses malicious intent—are ludicrous. And while much of the cast comprises such second-stringers as Edward Albert, Barbara Carrera, Alex Karras, and (of course) Allen regular Ernest Borgnine, Allen clearly wrote big checks to get a trio of major stars involved. William Holden plays a hotel owner more concerned with his love life than his professional obligations, Paul Newman plays a heroic oil-rig boss who spots trouble that others can’t recognize (naturally), and Jacqueline Bisset plays the woman caught between them. Never mind that late-career Holden looks so desiccated from alcoholism that he seems more like Bisset’s grandfather than her would-be lover. Anyway, it’s all incredibly boring and shallow and trite, with any potential for excitement neutralized by indifferent acting, leaden pacing, and questionable special effects. Not even Bisset’s spectacular cleavage or Newman’s irrepressible charm can sustain interest. Instead of being a disaster movie, When Time Ran Out is merely a disaster.

When Time Ran Out . . .: LAME

21 Hours at Munich (1976)

          A notorious terrorist action at the 1972 Olympics is re-recreated in this serviceable TV movie, which conveys a handful of important geopolitical nuances. Hampered by miscast leading actors and underwhelming dramaturgy, the picture is, predictably, most arresting during its opening and closing moments—the bloody siege on the Israeli compound in the Olympic village and, later, the tragic standoff between authorities and terrorists at a German airport. In between these vivid docudrama sequences, 21 Hours at Munich presents myriad scenes of political wrangling and tense negotiations. Had the acting and writing been more impassioned, the picture could have become a crucial dramatization of an intense moment in world relations; as is, the movie tastefully avoids pure sensationalism but gets stuck in flat recitations of well-known events.

          As directed by efficient TV helmer William A. Graham, from a script co-written by venerable Hollywood lefty Howard Fast, 21 Hours at Munich begins with a newsreel montage setting the uplifting mood of the Olympiad. Then the story proper begins with Palestinian terrorists led by Issa (Franco Nero) taking nearly a dozen Israeli athletes hostage. The filmmakers wisely eschew full-on melodrama during this sequence, focusing on the relentlessness of the attackers and the stalwart resistance of the Israelis. Next, viewers are introduced to Munich Chief of Police Manfred Schreiber (William Holden), and the haggling between various factions begins. There’s some deeply interesting content buried in the morass of the film’s middle section, including ugly buck-passing by political operators who don’t want to end up with Jewish blood on their hands if the situation deteriorates. Yet Issa and Schreiber remain the central figures—and, unfortunately, neither role is performed especially well.

          Italian-born Nero’s only qualifications for playing an Arab extremist seem to be abundant body hair and wide-eyed intensity; he’s creepy but a bit cartoonish. Holden’s casting as a German cop represents an even bigger stretch. Although Holden commands the screen effortlessly with his innate charisma and precise timing, the veteran star’s presence represents an obvious (and pandering) attempt to make this story palatable to U.S. viewers. (The supporting cast is not impressive, with Shirley Knight delivering a particularly lifeless performance as a fraulein who gets caught up in the drama.) Still, 21 Hours at Munich gets points for trying to show events the way they happened—or, in cases where imagination was required, the way they might have happened, Plus, the fact that the picture was shot on many of the locations where the events actually took place lends a certain gravitas.

21 Hours at Munich: FUNKY

Ashanti (1979)

          Briskly entertaining, shallow, and slightly trashy, Ashanti hides its lurid nature behind a veneer of social relevance—since the thriller concerns modern-day slavery in Africa, ponderous opening text suggests the film will be a serious exposé, when in fact Ashanti is simply an old-fashioned potboiler. Taken for what it is, however, the picture is fun to watch (or least as much fun as a movie exploring distasteful subject matter can be), because it boasts ample star power, exotic locations, and a zippy storyline. Sure, some of the plot twists are a bit convenient, but not to such a degree that they disrupt the B-movie flow of what’s happening.

          Michael Caine stars as Dr. David Linderby, a World Health Organization physician working in a remote African village with his beautiful, African-born wife, Anansa (Beverly Johnson). Because Anansa is black and dressed in regional clothing, she’s mistaken for a local girl by an Arabian slaver, Suleiman (Peter Ustinov), whose minions kidnaps her along with several villagers. The movie then cuts back and forth between Anansa’s attempts to escape captivity and David’s efforts to rescue his bride. David’s principal accomplice is a mysterious Brit named Brian Walker (Rex Harrison), who introduces David to a series of mercenary helpers; eventually, Brian puts David together with Malik (Kabir Bedi), a nomad who wants revenge against Suleiman for the death of his family.

          As directed by the versatile Richard Fleischer, Ashanti zooms along from one colorful episode to the next, with Ustinov’s flamboyant performance providing the main driving force. Cooing his lines in a mellifluous accent and peppering his savagery with courtly manners, Ustinov makes Suleiman into an oversized villain straight out of a comic book. Bedi counters him nicely with steely-eyed intensity, and Johnson—famous offscreen as the world’s first black supermodel—smartly operates within her comfort zone of evocative poses and intense glances. Harrison, William Holden, and Omar Sharif provide the comfort of familiar faces during their brief appearances.

          And if Caine gets a bit lost in the shuffle for much of the movie—Ashanti was made around the time he segued to phone-it-in mode for popcorn pictures—that’s fine because he brings the requisite action-hero heat during the pulpy climax. To be clear, Ashanti isn’t special or even all that credible, but it accomplishes everything it sets out to accomplish and it ends before wearing out its welcome. When a movie has nothing to say (despite any intimations to the contrary), there’s a lot to be said for efficiency.

Ashanti: GROOVY

The Towering Inferno (1974)

          The biggest box-office success of 1974 and in many ways the climax of the ’70s disaster-movie genre, The Towering Inferno is terrible from an artistic perspective, featuring clichéd characters and ridiculous situations spread across a bloated 165-minute running time. Still, it’s fascinating as a case study of how Hollywood operates. First and most obviously, the movie represents producer Irwin Allen’s most successful attempt to mimic the success of his underwater thriller The Poseidon Adventure (1972), because Allen outdoes the previous film with bigger spectacle, bigger stars, and bigger stunts.

          The movie also reflects movie-star gamesmanship. Steve McQueen and Paul Newman agreed to costar, then fought for primacy within the story, each demanding exactly the same number of lines in the script. Even sillier, their agents arranged for the actors’ names to appear in the credits in the same size type but at different heights, so each would have “top” billing even when their names were side-by-side. Furthermore, the movie demonstrates the ease with which greed trumps pride in Hollywood. A pair of books with useful narrative elements involving burning buildings were owned by different studios, so Allen persuaded Twentieth Century-Fox and Warner Bros. to co-produce the movie, an industry first; each studio sacrificed the integrity of its respective brand for half of a sure thing.

          Somewhere amid the power plays, an actual movie got made, and The Towering Inferno is the epitome of what later became known as “high-concept” cinema. It’s about a big building on fire, and that’s the whole story. Sure, there are mini-melodramas, like the romantic tribulations of the folks trapped inside the building and the macho heroics of an architect (Newman) and a fireman (McQueen), but the thing is really about the excitement of seeing which characters will get burned to death, which will fall from terrible heights, and which will survive.

          The plot begins when an engineer cuts corners in order to rush the opening of the Glass Tower, a skyscraper in San Francisco. Once the inevitable blaze erupts, further shortcomings in the building process complicate efforts to rescue trapped occupants. (Elevators, helicopters, rope bridges, and other contrivances are utilized.) As per the Allen playbook, an all-star cast trudges through the carnage, trying to instill cardboard characterizations with life. Richard Chamberlain plays the short-sighted engineer, Faye Dunaway plays Newman’s love interest, William Holden plays the oblivious builder, and Robert Wagner plays a smooth-talking PR man. Others along for the ride include Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Dabney Coleman, Jennifer Jones, O.J. Simpson, and Robert Vaughn.

          The Towering Inferno is a handsome production, with director John Guillermin and cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp using their widescreen frames to give everything a sense of opulence and scale. Additionally, Allen (who directed the action scenes) knew how to drop debris onto stuntmen. Nonetheless, The Towering Inferno is humorless, long-winded, and repetitive. Amazingly, the movie received a number of Oscar nominations (including one for Best Picture), and won three of its categories: cinematography, editing, and original song. In Hollywood, nothing earns praise as quickly as financial success.

The Towering Inferno: FUNKY

Wild Rovers (1971)

          Even though he enjoyed a long and lucrative career directing light comedies, it’s a shame Blake Edwards made only one proper Western, because Wild Rovers reveals the writer-director’s unexpectedly lyrical approach to the cowboy genre. Starring the unlikely but compatible duo of William Holden and Ryan O’Neal, the gorgeous-looking movie tracks the adventures of a pair of cowpokes whose foolhardy decision to rob a bank triggers a series of deadly events.

          Presented as an old-school epic, complete with a musical overture and an intermission, the film moseys along at a deliberate pace, but it’s never boring; the locations and photography are intoxicating, the action is exciting, and the performances keep everything lively. Moreover, Edwards’ inventive screenplay presents a rich mixture of familiar Western tropes and witty flourishes; the best original elements include novel characterizations and sharp dialogue.

          Holden plays Ross Bodine, a veteran cowboy who’s ready to settle down even though he doesn’t have a financial stake, and O’Neal plays Frank Post, a young man still naïve enough to believe he can shape his own destiny. When Ross casually mentions one day that the only cowboys with money are those who rob banks, Frank gets his teeth into the notion and eventually talks Ross into performing a heist. The movie takes its time getting to this point, creating a persuasive sense of camaraderie between the protagonists before things get sticky, and the robbery sequence is offbeat.

          Instead of busting into a bank at daytime, the men casually intimidate the bank owner at his home during evening hours, holding his wife and daughter at gunpoint while forcing him to head to the bank and unload the vault. Charged with overseeing the hostages, Frank bonds with a puppy and protects the banker’s family from a mountain lion rather than doing anything menacing. Narrative choices like these make Ross and Frank compelling characters—we see how easily they buy into the romantic fantasy of a victimless crime, and feel their anguish when they realize how badly they miscalculated.

          Holden adds an unusual color to his standard world-weary persona, accentuating amiability over cynicism, and O’Neal gives a performance that’s as naturalistic as anything he’s ever done. Eschewing the usual rouge’s gallery of overly familiar onscreen varmints, Edwards surrounds his leads with carefully chosen supporting players—including Joe Don Baker, Moses Gunn, Karl Malden, James Olson, and Tom Skerritt—all of whom make valuable contributions. Framing the actors’ work are spectacular widescreen images created by veteran cinematographer Philip Lathrop, a regular Edwards collaborator; his crisp photography of a sequence in which Ross breaks a wild bronco in a snowy field is particularly outstanding, making the sequence a joyous celebration of the cowboy lifestyle. Even the film’s music is noteworthy, with the great Jerry Goldsmith subtly expressing everything from jubilance to heartbreak.

          The unhurried pace of Wild Rovers ensures the picture isn’t for everyone, but the film’s unexpected emotional complexities reward patient viewers with a tough, elegant statement about masculine identity. (Available at WarnerArchive.com)

Wild Rovers: RIGHT ON

The Omen (1976) & Damien: Omen II (1978)

          A massive box-office hit exploiting the post-Exorcist craze for supernatural horror but opting for cartoonish violence over gut-wrenching realism, The Omen is fabulously entertaining nonsense. Producer Harvey Bernhard saw dollar signs when a clergyman acquaintance pondered what might happen if the antichrist emerged in modern times, so Bernhard commissioned a pulpy script by David Seltzer and hired promising director Richard Donner, who had not yet become an A-lister. The story they tell involves American ambassador Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck), who adopts a mysterious infant when his own son is stillborn. The ambassador unwisely hides the truth from everyone, including his wife, Kathy (Lee Remick). But once young Damien (Harvey Stephens) reaches his seventh year, things get messy—people around the child die gruesomely, and a crazed priest tries to convince the ambassador that his “son” is an inhuman beast sired by a jackal.

          The plot crumbles under scrutiny (the antichrist’s bodyguard is a small middle-aged woman?) but the movie’s supernatural deaths are appealingly preposterous. Peck grounds the picture with anguished determination, and Billie Whitelaw is all kinds of creepy as Damien’s nanny. Gangly British actor David Warner adds an enjoyable presence as a doomed photographer, and Leo McKern is memorably kooky as the dude who says Damien’s gotta die. The real knockout element is Jerry Goldsmith’s Oscar-winning score, which uses eerie chants like “Ave Satani!” (Latin for “Hail Satan!”) to infuse scary scenes with palpable menace. All in all, The Omen is fun stuff.

          The picture’s first sequel, Damien: Omen II, actually makes more sense from a narrative perspective than its predecessor—teenaged Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) accepts his destiny while being raised by his uncle (William Holden), a corporate giant whose empire the antichrist stands to inherit. However, Damien is less exciting and far less novel than the previous picture. Having said that, the perfectly cast Scott-Taylor is quite disturbing as he grows more and more comfortable in his unholy skin, plus Holden is always watchable, and the death scene involving an icy lake is memorably frightening.

          The original Omen series concluded with The Final Conflict (1981), a grim installment featuring Sam Neill as grown-up Damien trying to prevent the Second Coming, although a quasi-related telefilm called Omen IV: The Awakening followed ten years later, and the original film was pointlessly remade in 2006.

The Omen: GROOVY

Damien: Omen II: FUNKY

Breezy (1973)

          Clint Eastwood’s choice to direct this soft-spoken romantic drama was one of the first clues that he wanted his career to include more than just action pictures. Instead of the usual Eastwood tropes of cops and cowboys, the movie depicts May-December sparks between a teenaged hippy, Breezy (Kay Lenz), and her much-older Establishment paramour, Frank (William Holden). For viewers who can look beyond the skeeviness of a sexual relationship between a 19-year-old and a man three decades her senior, Breezy is pleasantly entertaining if a bit overlong and schematic. While Frank’s embarrassment at being perceived as a cradle-robber is one of several predictable plot complications, the intelligent script by Jo Heims tries to define the main characters as individuals instead of mere archetypes.

          Adding some much-needed edge, both characters acknowledge ulterior motives in the early days of the relationship, because Breezy needs a meal ticket and Frank’s excited by the prospect of a nubile partner. As her name suggests, Breezy is a breath of fresh air when she drifts into Frank’s life, because she’s as hopeful as he is cynical. Therefore it’s believable that their relationship falters whenever they venture into public—he lives by society’s rules, and she doesn’t acknowledge the existence of any rules at all. Holden, smartly cast because he was an aging matinee idol who could still believably appeal to a younger woman, delivers a characteristically professional performance; he hits all the right notes, but not with any extraordinary flair. Lenz is appealing, though she struggles with making her moon-eyed character seem like more than just a male fantasy, and there’s some irony in the fact that Lenz later found her groove portraying cynics.

          Employing long takes, gentle dissolves, and a few tastefully lyrical montage sequences, Eastwood shows his versatility by delivering the exact opposite of the stoic cinematic violence for which he was known at the time, so Breezy is most interesting as a transitional chapter in his titanic directing career: It’s the first movie that Eastwood directed without also appearing as an actor, notwithstanding a wordless blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo. Yet Breezy also merits examination as an awkward attempt to grapple with the early-’70s generation gap. Though the picture cops out in the end, it captures some things quite well, like the portrayal of Frank’s buddy Bob (Roger C. Carmel), whose midlife-crisis lust for young flesh speaks to a deeper bewilderment about what happens when the promise of youth fades into painful abstraction.

Breezy: FUNKY

Network (1976)

          There’s a reason why sophisticated contemporary screenwriters from Billy Ray to Aaron Sorkin bow at the feet of playwright-screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, and the script that best exemplifies that reason is Network, Chayefsky’s audacious satire about a TV personality who becomes a pop-culture phenomenon by going insane while America watches. By the mid-’70s, Chayefsky was a veteran dramatist with credits dating back to the ’50s heyday of live TV, and his reputation was such that his words reached the screen more or less untouched. For Network, Chayefsky let loose with all of his literary powers, constructing an outrageous plot, symbolic characters, and wordplay so dense and dexterous that each monologue is like a high-wire act.

          Network is filled with such esoteric verbiage as “multivariate” and “sedentarian,” and the ideas the script presents are as elevated as the language. In the story, network-news anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) gets sacked for low ratings, then responds by announcing on air that he plans to commit suicide. His stunt triggers a ratings spike, but concerns his deeply principled boss and best friend, news-division chief Max Schumacher (William Holden). An ambitious executive from the network’s entertainment division, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), sees an opportunity to exploit Beale’s breakdown. Backed by Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), the omnivorous lieutenant of the corporation that just bought the network, Diana seizes control of the nightly news broadcast and turns it into a circus act featuring crazies like Howard and “Sybil the Soothsayer.”

          Concurrently, Diana makes a deal with a terrorist organization to film its insurrectionist crimes, so before long the network’s top two shows are the vulgar “news” show and the brazen “Mao Tse Tung Hour.” Firmly situated as the story’s drowned-out voice of reason, Max is briefly seduced by the lure of slick sensationalism—he ends up in Diana’s bed even though he’s married—but once he comes to his senses, all he can do is bear witness as primetime becomes a madhouse.

          Director Sidney Lumet, unobtrusively serving Chayefsky’s script, tells the story with methodical precision, orchestrating a handful of astonishing performances. Finch gets the showiest role, ranting through moments like the famous “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” speech; the actor died just before receiving an Oscar for the role. Holden, his once-gleaming features ravaged by years of drinking, is a vivid personification of an idealist-turned-cynic, and his runs through long speeches are as graceful as they are muscular. Dunaway, burdened with the most overtly symbolic characterization in the piece, is so chillingly soulless that she makes the contrivances of her role seem necessary and urgent. Duvall, adding an almost Biblical degree of rage to his previously muted screen persona, is layered and terrifying. And Ned Beatty, who pops in for a cameo as Duvall’s boss, blows away any memories of his usual bumbling characters by portraying a sociopathic corporate overlord.

          Network is filled with nervy scenes, like the vignette of network executives negotiating a contract with gun-toting terrorists, and the climax is thunderous. And although it comes awfully close, Network isn’t perfect; some scenes, like Max’s confrontation with his wronged wife (Beatrice Straight), are overwritten to mask their triteness, and Max’s final monologue to Diana summarizes the picture in a manner that’s contrived, obvious, and unnecessary. But even in that scene, arguably the most film’s laborious, Chayefsky’s language is intoxicating: In the course of excoriating the reductive nature of television, Max laments that “all of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality.” Especially since most of Chayefsky’s bleak predictions about television have come true since Network was released, this profound film has lost none of its elemental power.

Network: OUTTA SIGHT