Deep Personal Commitment

A number of years ago the production company I was working for at the time was casting a new film and on this particular day there was what seemed like swarms of familiar That Guys coming through those doors practically nonstop. One of them, as it turned out, was Craig Wasson, star of BODY DOUBLE, GHOST STORY, ELM STREET 3 and others, still even then looking exactly like you’d expect Craig Wasson to look. I didn’t really interact with him at all but noticed that as he was leaving he happened to turn and say something to another actor who was there, commenting how they’d met before at such-and-such a place. The moment was almost exactly like a scene in BODY DOUBLE in which Wasson, playing the role of a working actor in Hollywood, appeared in such a scene opposite Gregg Henry which turns out to get the plot going. No one else around seemed to pay any attention to that interaction, but all I could think right then was that it suddenly, unexpectedly, was like I was viewing that movie happening right in front of me. Considering the layers upon layers in that film, suddenly for a brief moment BODY DOUBLE, of all films ever made about Hollywood, seemed to have actually come true.


I bring this up for a reason—a number of months ago in a piece I wrote on DRESSED TO KILL while discussing the structural experimentation in Brian De Palma’s thrillers I made a reference to the form being ‘possibly fumbled’ in the case of BODY DOUBLE, leading to some people leaving comments to defend the film. I felt compelled to reply that I certainly wasn’t trying to trash BODY DOUBLE since it’s not a movie I dismiss or even dislike. Some of it is extremely effective and I certainly have an appreciation for how iconic some of its imagery is (he said snickering, but you probably know what I mean). It certainly isn’t a case of my being offended by any of its content (sex, violence, yadda yadda yadda) but that was of course one of the main criticisms the film received upon its release on October 26, 1984 which had some calling for De Palma’s head on a platter while also receiving enthusiastic reviews, if not outright raves, from both Vincent Canby and Roger Ebert. It’s just that, for me, there’s a certain disconnect I feel while watching it, as if there’s an element within the film’s basic aesthetic that I feel resistant to as if the dreamlike interludes which drift through his other films that don’t have much to do with pure logic either simply don’t work for me here and I just emotionally check out. I don’t want this to happen. I want to love this film. If somehow I had never been aware of its existence then heard about what it was I would assume it had to be the greatest movie ever made. After all, how could it not be, right? Nevertheless, there’s something unexplainably off every time I take another look at it, much as I may admire certain sections, like the film is missing a key ingredient that prevents it from resonating very much with me. There’s always the hope that someday the whole thing will click together in my head and I’ll fall to the floor in total praise—I’ve never seen it in a theater so maybe that has something to do with it. And yet, an occurrence like that time I saw Craig Wasson is pretty much proof that the movie has always stuck with me, just as all of the director’s films stay with me and deep down I have a certain admiration for it. It’s De Palma—I guess there’s no getting around that.


Though I’ll try to avoid spoilers in this very twisty plot, Hollywood actor Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) has a terrible day where his performance in the low-budget horror film VAMPIRE’S KISS is ruined when he suddenly comes down with a massive case of claustrophobia in the middle of shooting a scene that gets him fired then when he goes home to his girlfriend and finds her with another man. Needing a new place fast he finds himself in luck when a series of chance encounters results in a friendship with fellow actor Sam Bouchard (Gregg Henry) who just happens to need somebody to take over his house-sitting gig so he can take an acting job in Seattle. At the ultra-modern residence high up in the hills Sam alerts Jake to a small bonus via his high-powered telescope, the beautiful woman across the way in the canyon who puts on a little show every night, dancing erotically and ultimately pleasuring herself in full view. Jake quickly becomes fixated on the woman who he soon learns is the wealthy Gloria Revelle (Deborah Shelton) but he soon also realizes that she is being stalked and harassed by several people including a very imposing-looking Indian. As he begins to follow this woman who is already being followed by someone else, Jake soon finds himself drawn into this web of intrigue down a path that results in murder and also involves a porn actress who goes by the name of Holly Body (Melanie Griffith), with his claustrophobia possibly coming into play at the exact wrong moment.


I feel like I should be doing tequila shots while watching BODY DOUBLE. Not in any kind of drinking game way—it just seems like it would make sense to do shots, as many as I can manage, while making my way through the sleazy vibe of this look at Los Angeles and the obsession of certain women that can happen out of nowhere in this town. Nothing in the film is very realistic in terms of plot or anything (Screenplay by Robert J. Avrech and De Palma, story by De Palma) but little about Los Angeles seems very realistic on the surface anyway and it all serves as part of De Palma’s quest for total cinema. As a film it’s a parlor game of layers and mirrors, with the famed doubling of Angie Dickinson in DRESSED TO KILL serving as the obvious jumping off point, presenting visions of fantasy that are as phony as they are right in front of us, deliberately obscuring things at times to the point that I wonder if the blatant rear-projection seen behind Wasson a few times as he drives his convertible is just part of the game in this portrayal of mixing the fantasy of movies with the stone cold reality of the town. The lead character is an actor but there’s no glamour to any of it--even in just a few scenes the portrayal of how demoralizing the profession can be has probably never been so harshly portrayed (based on this, don’t tell me De Palma doesn’t have sympathy for performers) and almost hidden within the murder plotline (Is it even possible to write about this film without revealing its secrets?) is the stark contrast of the glamour of such a gorgeous woman—the ultimate fantasy of beauty that we all strive for in one way or another, particularly in this town—and what really is going on with her behind those windows, a drama so horrible for her (seriously, imagine a version of this movie from the point of view of Gloria Revelle, which seems even more bizarre but kind of depressing) that we can only ever guess at it. On the one hand it’s totally addictive to wade all through this nastiness with Pino Donaggio’s memorable theme always wafting through the background, but on the other I always feel somewhat removed from it even as I get lost in how brilliantly executed certain moments might be.


It’s not even the film’s fault but part of my own problem may have to do with its basic look which while technically pristine is something I always have an innate negative response to, but I suppose I have a deep dislike to that whole pastel 80s style which here represents the neon glare of Los Angeles. Or maybe that East Coast energy from some of De Palma’s previous films has been replaced by a more laidback West Coast feel which may be appropriate but still feels off, not the sort of rhythm I respond to in his work--Guy Boyd’s investigating cop (Dennis Franz can’t always play this role, after all) kind of drones on through his prolonged exposition sequences as if we’re getting Henry Jones when we really need Simon Oakland (all respect to the great Henry Jones, of course), though I like how Boyd’s voice drips with contempt every time he calls Wasson “Scully”. Unlike the stunning anamorphic compositions of DRESSED TO KILL and BLOW OUT this film, featuring generally strong work by Director of Photography Stephen H. Burum, takes in various minor landmarks throughout the city presented in the more square 1.85 format. That Beach Terrace Motel rendezvous point down in Long Beach certainly is ideal for this and it certainly goes with the view seen through a telescope as Jake Scully continually peers at Gloria Revelle’s late-night shows—hell, since the movie is about somebody who suffers from claustrophobia keeping the frame closed in almost seems like a given—but even through shots laid out like photos in a fashion magazine done in the best giallo style, among each of De Palma’s films shot in this format (he’s gone back and forth through his career and I’d be curious to learn why) this is the one I honestly wish were filmed in full 2.35:1 ratio instead. This would of course demand a different aesthetic for De Palma’s entire visual approach and maybe even reveal the film I’m looking for each time I watch it. Still, I suppose it’s a fair question to ask if it would make more or less sense to have a film about a character with claustrophobia presented in a wider ratio? Would the wider ratio accentuate the irony somehow? I don’t really have the answer to that but, then again, I’m not Brian De Palma.


And there are points when his extended dialogue free sections, particularly Wasson following Shelton through that high-end mall in Beverly Hills, as I wonder how he’s able to stay so close to her without being noticed, if it’s really possible to look at what’s going on in a boutique dressing room from the sidewalk, until I eventually get lost in all that imagery, lost in those giant sunglasses she’s wearing, but then I’ll just as randomly get snapped out from it again. Not to mention how I always check out from any reality in the film, even a fake reality, at the point of a certain love scene involving a 360 degree camera movement, one of those attempts to intermingle reality and fantasy the director is fond of attempting that in this case, for me, simply doesn’t work. The Hitchcock game is part of all this with elements of REAR WINDOW and VERTIGO tossed in together through De Palma’s own preoccupations, along with his style of deliberately holding things back is at times which is as frustrating as it is exhilarating, such as a key car crash happens offscreen just like the most important murder more or less does. The film also continues De Palma’s preoccupation with his continuing theme of a protagonist trying to save a helpless female and in a sense the resolution—hell, maybe the very foundation of the story—is like an extension of the bitter end of BLOW OUT, only here with this hapless doofus going up against that ridiculously enormous power drill/phallic symbol any chance of success feels futile almost from the beginning. As it turns out, no one appreciates what Jake Scully tries to do when he succeeds any more than when he fails, so there’s almost nothing to feel any relief about. Of course, it was the 80s—for someone as clueless as Jake Scully, there was probably no way to win, particularly in Hollywood. But De Palma keeps it all going even past that point and the final scene either disregards such bitter feelings or just admits to the madness as part of the expected 80s happy ending. I’m still not sure how much the final scene shown as the credits roll is really supposed to be part of the ‘film’ anyway but that’s part of the point—it’s all a film, every single frame of it.


It’s almost not even a question of good or bad from my viewpoint, as De Palma’s expertise is always present, his command of displaying point of view is at times masterful. There’s just something in my wiring that’s preventing me from going for the ride the way I can in some of De Palma’s other films which, for me, find a genuine emotion to connect to through all that cinematic delirium whether it’s John Travolta’s desperation in BLOW OUT, observing the stalking of Angie Dickinson and Nancy Allen in DRESSED TO KILL or even just suffering through Lolita Davidovich’s whining about her marriage in RAISING CAIN. Here the dreamlike vibe is there along with the sinuous drops of sex and violence but it all feels a little too clinical as if I’m looking at it from a distance (or through a rear window, I suppose) and with these characters (every name sounds like it’s a reference to something, I just can’t figure out what) there’s no actual emotion in the blending of these two women in Jake’s life through his eyes, which may be the film’s single biggest flaw—Shelton’s Gloria Revelle is intentionally left blank, Griffith’s Holly Body with her clothes on is all business and, amusingly, never quite realizes she’s in a thriller and Wasson’s Jake is just kind of a wimpy schmuck (enjoyably so—he can’t even pretend he’s talking on a pay phone convincingly so what kind of actor is he?). I’m not saying this is a bad thing and certainly there are any number of Italian giallos that I enjoy which could hardly be called emotionally believable but coming from De Palma it just feels like in this one particular film there’s something I’m just not connecting with, even though as I watch Craig Wasson trail Deborah Shelton from Beverly Hills down to Long Beach I’m always feeling like I should. It’s almost like the entire film is a joke that I’m almost but not quite getting the punchline of, which I admit is possible.


I barely even know what to make of some of this stuff as the movie gets lost in De Palma’s own apparent obsession to stop everything to make a ridiculous porn film/music video in the early days of MTV (actually, Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax” is still a pretty damn good song) and while this may be where a fair amount of my disconnect comes from that doesn’t mean that I don’t get completely absorbed by it anyway. Almost while thinking about any random scene even while criticizing it there are points where I can let any critical or intellectual process drop away and just get lost in whatever it all is, but this is my responding to the moments of pure visual De Palmaness as opposed to the actual story--I’m not sure that the gimmick of claustrophobia is really strong enough, or visual enough, in the end to base so much of the film on (and I’m trying very had to not compare this to a certain plot point involving acrophobia). Not to mention that when the final piece of the puzzle is all put together I always wonder, is that really it? Shouldn’t there be an extra twist on a twist somewhere? But asking that indicates that the plot is really what the film is when it’s really all about the layers, the subtext, that music, the question of unreality which always seems to be there in Los Angeles at certain times of day or night. I actually love the moment when Wasson says to her that he’s not following her when, of course, that’s exactly what he’s doing and the fact couldn’t be any more obvious and when Jake Scully is asked why he’s following Gloria Revell to begin with he can’t come up with an answer because, well, there is no answer beyond that he’s already seen her. Or he thinks he’s seen her. Maybe there really is no difference.


Watching Craig Wasson in this role can be a bizarre experiment almost as if the movie knows he’s never going to be anything other than this ‘hopeful’ actor, who as Jake Scully seems like a decent enough Midwest guy who has gotten beaten down in his journey through the Hollywood maze and started to drink maybe a little too much a little too often. Hell, he can’t even bring himself to confront his girlfriend when he walks in on her cheating. A few years after this film Wasson appeared in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS, in one scene being thrown into an open grave as dirt is shoveled on him just like what happens to him here and I have to believe this brief allusion was absolutely intentional. Then many years later I saw him in a film production office and BODY DOUBLE was all I could think of. As a screen presence, for better or for worse, that’s turned out to be his destiny. There’s an awkwardness to Wasson’s performance here in how he can’t become the Jimmy Stewart figure he no doubt wants to be deep down and yet as the lead character of BODY DOUBLE Wasson is absolutely, completely Jake Scully.


Deborah Shelton is undoubtedly gorgeous but the schematics of the film have her be more of a figure than an actual character, let alone a human being, but considering how the actress seems to have been dubbed (apparently by Helen Shaver) the element of distance actually makes sense. Interestingly, while going through the film I found myself realizing that the actress actually sometimes seems more compelling when certain shots are freeze-framed than when she’s in motion and this actually adds to the inherent unreality of the whole thing. But at the least, within what is a mostly silent performance there is something kind of hypnotic about her. Gregg Henry, who went on to work with De Palma several more times, kind of rules in the role of Sam Bouchard (I guess I can’t say anything more than that) and Dennis Franz offers a few laughs in his small role as Jake’s director, apparently based by the actor in his mannerisms on De Palma. As the fearless porn star Holly Body, Melanie Griffith takes a role which really doesn’t come into things until well past the halfway point and shoots the movie’s energy to the stratosphere providing an unexpected quality to her already off kilter nature as she casually lets Jake know what she will and will not do in a role. Declining at first to go for a drink with Jake because “I don’t even know you” right after they’ve just shot a sex scene together, Griffith is absolutely fantastic in her relatively brief screen time, hugely enjoyable to watch in every second she has onscreen (he said snickering, but we should really avoid spoilers) and in providing the movie with a much needed dose of humor, very funny as well. What the hell, let’s just say it—All hail Melanie Griffith in BODY DOUBLE. Barbara Crampton of RE-ANIMATOR appears briefly as Jake’s girlfriend, seen only when he walks in on her. She doesn’t get a line but I like the look she gives him, after a flash of guilt, which indicates that this isn’t something she’s about to apologize for. It’s the sort of look that stays alive through an entire movie, reminding us what kind of world this is.


As much as I may feel something isn’t quite resonating for me with the end result of BODY DOUBLE I remain kind of awed by some of what De Palma achieves here. I just wish all of the elements were somehow able to come together in a more satisfying way so I could feel as strongly about it as I do several of his other films but I suppose that veil of resistance is going to remain for the time being. The director’s frank admission of its flaws on the DVD documentary (as well as commenting on the things people hated about it, which isn’t the same thing) got me to feel better about some of my own conflicted thoughts regarding the film and writing about it has certainly insured that I’ll never be able to fully shake it from my head, just like I never fully shake some of those women I encounter on those Los Angeles days when I’m about as effective in what I want to do as Jake Scully is. I may still have these issues with the film and I may still feel that it is irrevocably flawed, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep watching. And watching.

Such Is Life

Released in October 1983, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN remains an odd duck in the history of the James Bond franchise but it was probably never going to be anything but that. Though it was star Sean Connery’s long-awaited return to the legendary role that made him famous even the casual observer could probably tell that the film wasn’t part of the usual series—no UA logo, no gunbarrel intro, no James Bond theme, no martinis ordered shaken not stirred, no familiar recurring actors, not to mention the whole thing just has a different overall feel. Less discussed at the time was how the film is essentially just a remake of 1965’s THUNDERBALL, the fourth in the series that Connery starred in, and even Roger Ebert’s positive review makes absolutely no mention of this fact. It’s possible that most people didn’t realize this was even the case, coming before the widespread popularity of cable and watching films on video countless times—probably the most recent exposure anyone had to THUNDERBALL, eighteen years old at the time, was during a handful of ABC airings on the Sunday Night Movie (fun fact: the network premiere of the film was in 1974, nine years after it opened). The background history of NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN is an extremely complicated one, beginning during initial attempts back in the fifties to make a film out of Ian Fleming’s character, who had already appeared in multiple books at that point. The unsuccessful outlines worked on by Fleming, Kevin McClory and Jack Wittingham (who each get story credit here) were eventually taken by the author to create his original novel THUNDERBALL, creating endless legal wranglings that continued through the next several decades. Specifically, producer McClory’s claims to the property allowed him to serve as producer on the official version of the film THUNDERBALL but it also granted him the rights to that basic story featuring the character of Bond and some of the elements within, though legally he was not allowed to do anything else with the property for not less than ten years after that film’s release. No doubt at the time, who would have been looking ten years into the future? What film series could possibly go on that long? But even his legal right to undertake this new production (not the first attempt he made at it, either) was a question mark through much of the shooting, with it constantly in legal jeopardy from Albert Broccoli’s EON Productions, the unit in charge of the Bond series and injunctions were even taken out against the film in the days prior to its release.


Like any Bond film, opinions on it tend to vary wildly as to what are its strengths and drawbacks maybe moreso in this case with even a fan edit circulating online a few years back that attempted to slightly recut the film, as well as placing more Bondian music in it but that website seems to have disappeared. As for me, I think that some of the film, directed by Irvin Kershner (THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK), is certainly enjoyable but it hasn’t really aged very well. Without a strong story it contains no real forward momentum, not nearly enough action, feels chintzy around the edges and has a climax that goes on forever. Connery is certainly terrific, no surprise, but for a number of reasons it never really settles firmly on a consistent tone or even a vibe that would be right. All of that said, I have a certain fondness for the film if only for the phenomenal supporting performance by Barbara Carrera, an actress who’s a personal favorite of mine, here undertaking the best role she ever had in her career. The actress not only uses her part to run away with the film she basically demolishes it in her path to the point that without her there really is no film and I mean that pretty much literally. So it’s not like I really mind that NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN exists. When you come down to it, it’s at least sort of a James Bond film and there’s nothing really wrong with that. I just wish it were better and considering what an event it was that Connery was returning to the role it’s a shame that it isn’t.


Shortly after being “killed” in a field exercise, the still alive but barely active James Bond (Sean Connery) is ordered to spend time at the Shrublands health spa to get into better shape and “eliminate those free radicals”. Meanwhile, the still active SPECTRE, run by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Max von Sydow) is about to begin their greatest plot, to steal a pair of American nuclear missiles. Part of their plan involves using Air Force pilot Jack Petachi (Gavin “Chuck Cunningham” O’Herlihy) who has just undergone surgery to have one of his eyes be the exact replica of the President and use that eye to enable them access to pull off the crime. Recovering from the surgery at the same clinic where Bond happens to be staying, Petachi is under the thumb of gorgeous but deadly SPECTRE assassin Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera) who keeps a close watch on him as well as noticing Bond nearby, leading to their quick departure and once the hijacking has been accomplished Blush murders Patachi. Bond is soon pressed back into service in an attempt to locate the missiles, sending him to the Bahamas as well as the south of France in an attempt to locate SPECTRE mastermind Maximilian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer) who keeps his lover Domino Petachi (Kim Basinger) who also happens to be Jack’s sister, close at hand.


The plotting of both THUNDERBALL and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN is fairly generic in terms of how the basic Bond film template is generally perceived (along with getting spoofed in AUSTIN POWERS) but in each case the story winds up being somehow oversized and lacking in incident at the same time—nuclear missiles are stolen, Bond is sent to investigate, he essentially wanders around meeting people then it all climaxes with a big battle in a giant underwater setting. And that’s pretty much it. Not to mention how, just like in THUNDERBALL, it doesn’t do much for momentum to have the hero spend most of the first act chilling out in a health clinic. Part of the problem apparently was that in making this film, a remake already on shaky legal ground, the filmmakers were forced to adhere to the basic structure of the original book while staying away from the other film and having to come up with a script that could be approved by lawyers—let alone actors and producers to say nothing of just trying to make it any good—seems like such an impossible task that it’s amazing they were able to have any pages to shoot at all. The screenplay credited to Lorenzo Semple Jr. (also heavily worked on by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais) offers clever flourishes throughout (seriously, I want to shake the hand of the man who decided to have James Bond say, “Well, to be perfectly honest, there was this girl in Philadelphia…”), enough that maybe there even should have been more but beyond the witticisms there isn’t very much in the way of actual plotting to give the story any sort of thrust. Part of what’s good about the movie and the script is that it just treats Bond as Bond, practically not dealing with the actor being older at all. The issue is dealt with in a few spare lines of dialogue (“Still in pretty good shape…”) and since they certainly don’t try to make Connery look like anything other than his age it never needs to be spelled out. The star looks great actually, in better shape than in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER and certainly more engaged with everything around him than he was in his last few outings for the official series. Connery grounds the movie, he centers the movie, and his genuine authority provides something to look forward to in scene after scene but too much of what he has to work off of unfortunately fails him.


More than trying to make a Bond entry which blatantly apes the EON house style in any real way director Kershner clearly approaches the film in terms of making a sort of lighthearted spy lark (maybe for a double bill pairing with his 1974 film S*P*Y*S?) which is fine since there’s nothing saying he should have to make this a copy in any way beyond what he technically has to remake. There’s just not enough going on storywise too much of the time and what’s there is more than a little lopsided, mistakenly believing that all it needs is the presence of Connery to work—the film spends so many scenes not in a rush to do anything beyond Bond and the various bad guys sussing one another out that when at around the ninety minute mark it suddenly decides to focus on the ‘plot’ it does so at the extent of all the elements that have been enjoyable up until then so the momentum grinds to a halt. There’s a striking lack of incident to the narrative with much of the pacing lackluster to the point that it never really gets going and as a result sequences like Bond at Shrublands or the hijacking of the missiles seem to go on for much longer than they actually do. Of course, this was all true of THUNDERBALL as well—speaking as a longtime Bond fan the things in that entry I’ve always enjoyed the most are the ‘Bond on vacation’ stuff where it just feels like he’s hanging out in the Bahamas. The equivalent with this film that is a little more globe-hopping is just Connery hanging out wherever he is, luxuriating in the part he’s so famous for and doing a great job with it as he plays straight man to all the people who are annoying him. This is fine and, in a way, it’s really the reason the film exists anyway. He never seems particularly concerned about, well, anything at all including those stolen missiles with an awful lot of lounging about going on at the expense of decent action, with the exception of a pretty great motorcycle chase, and by a certain point that kind of catches up with the film. Bond goes to investigate in the Bahamas but nothing really happens beyond meeting Fatima Blush—I’m not entirely clear on why either of them are there in the first place—so the whole section seems to barely matter. Bond then goes to the south of France and, except for seeking out Domino, for a while he doesn’t do anything there either. THUNDERBALL had what felt like endless scenes of Bond flying around Nassau in a helicopter looking for where the missiles might be hidden underwater and that wasn’t all that compelling either but at least he was doing something.


Photographed by Douglas Slocombe (the first three INDIANA JONES films, among many other credits) the film looks great—he’s provides the various stars with fantastic close-ups—but never achieves any feel of genuine scope or epic nature and there’s a vague sense around the edges that the film didn’t quite have the budget it needed. Maybe part of the uncertain tone is that the cool jet-set 60s are just more fun than the glossier 80s which has a kind of style to it but maybe looks a little garish now like the women’s gowns that are very heavy on the shoulder pads. On the other hand, the bank of video games in the casino might date the film but they also look like a clever jab at the sort thing nouveau riche types in the south of France, bored with all that baccarat, might have done at the time and at least it’s a touch that is slight different. The legendary Domination sequence pitting Bond against Largo where they play a game battling each other for the world might also feel somewhat dated in its graphics but provides enough tension that at least for several minutes something is actually happening. It’s very well played between all involved and as goofy as it is it’s still one of the best scenes in the film. Odd, certainly, considering how it’s just two guys playing a video game and yet for once it feels like something is actually at stake.


Connery plays every scene he’s in exactly right and the actor is so good that for the first time while watching this film recently it occurred to me what a shame it was that he never did more work in actual comedies, even farce. His charm and strength carry this movie as much as humanly possible and there’s a genuine electricity to his very presence that makes the film compelling even when there’s nothing else to be compelled by. Maybe it’s not saying very much to make a statement like ‘Sean Connery is terrific in his performance as James Bond’ but considering how fed up he was with the character back in the sixties to the point his disinterest was sometimes apparent—making me wonder how good he actually would have been in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE—it’s hugely enjoyable here to watch how strong he really is in the part and his absolute confidence is undeniable.


Matched up against Connery is the rather awesome Barbara Carrera as Fatima Blush (a character name that originated during the earliest Fleming outlines) in a Golden Globe-nominated performance that is simply amazing, ferociously sexy and one that not only takes over the film it almost transforms it into something more than just the lark it would be otherwise. The actress takes what in other hands might be a stock henchman role and turns it into something else entirely almost beyond camp, beyond cartoon, probably having just as much fun as her character is as she does something with this character that she probably never got another chance to do in her entire career, making each second truly, vividly memorable. She provides the film with an undeniable intensity during every shot she appears in as she literally dances and glides through scenes in those ultra-high heels, a vitality that is undeniably there even when she isn’t doing much beyond staring straight ahead but adding a great deal when she does more than that (Am I making my admiration for Barbara Carrera clear enough? I guess she kind of drives me crazy). Her final scene with Connery is completely ridiculous beyond words but the way both actors play off each other in the moment allows it to be truly memorable. As good as the scene is, of all the mistakes that NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN makes, that the film allows Carrera to depart so early, right before the ninety-minute mark of a 134-minute film, is pretty much disastrous and just brings everything down. There’s nothing else in the film to live up to her energy—the very cool Connery needs somebody to play off of, after all—and it’s hard not to wonder about an alternate version that might have dared to be genuinely different, maybe killing the rather dull Largo character off early on in a surprise twist and allowing Fatima Blush to take over SPECTRE’s mission. It’s not something the producers of the film would have likely done back then—and, considering all the legal issues they might not have even been able to—but it says something about the film’s production that it wasn’t able to keep track of what was genuinely working compared with what wasn’t.


Once Carrera is out of the film there’s nothing else to have really much of an interest in and certainly nothing to build to. Domino dealing with the death of her brother has zero emotional impact and the big climax that moves things to North Africa (featuring submarine effects shots from ICE STATION ZEBRA) and taking place underwater, above ground and in some kind of underground cavern all filmed in the most listless way possible, is frankly one of the dullest final half-hours ever put on in an action-adventure spectacular. Several days after watching this section I can barely remember a single thing about it. Seriously, if you’re going to make a movie that has a nuclear missile planted by terrorists underneath the White House you should allow us to actually see this happen, don’t just toss it in via dialogue as if the notion was inserted during a rewrite the night before. There’s so little tension to anything that happens here the film barely seems to notice when the threat the entire plot has been centered around gets resolved. The final scene feels basically like the whole thing is shrugging its shoulders when it realizes there’s nothing else to do so it just decides to roll the end credits.


None of the other actors live up to Connery and Carrera, with some of them not even getting a chance. Kim Basinger isn’t bad at all—she and Connery play a rather charming first scene together and she has one terrific silent moment after he departs the massage. But the part is such a nothing as scripted so while she brings more life to it than any number of official Bond girls did to theirs, too often there’s nothing for her to play and the actress doesn’t have the experience yet to overcome that. Klaus Maria Brandauer is a great actor and has been praised in some places for this performance but to me he underplays to the point of distraction, chuckling to himself as if he doesn’t have any real ideas how to approach this character otherwise. The conceit of playing Largo as more of a sadistic businessman than larger-than-life villain makes sense (Phillip Seymour Hoffman probably pulled this off better in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III) but there’s nothing to him beyond that and ultimately Brandauer just blends into the scenery, a main bad guy that’s forgotten about as the interminable climax plays out around him. Bernie Casey is Bond’s CIA contact Felix Leiter which was probably forward thinking casting at the time and is nice to have around but like almost every other Leiter he doesn’t get to do very much. Max von Sydow has what is essentially a cameo as Blofeld, Edward Fox is M, Alec McCowen is Q, Pamela Salem is Moneypenny, Pat Roach of RAIDERS legend is the giant Lippe who Bond fights at Shrublands and Valerie Leon, also in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, is the beautiful woman who catches Bond later in the Bahamas. Rowan Atkinson makes his first feature appearance as Nigel Small-Fawcett of the British Embassy in the Bahamas, a broadly comical part that starts out like it’s going to be a running gag but ultimately is just a cameo. Actually, for a long time I’ve thought he might be an interesting Q but his involvement here and in JOHNNY ENGLISH (there’s a sequel coming!) would probably mean that’s not going to happen.


Also in the debit column is Michel Legrand’s music which has the reputation as being one of the worst Bond scores ever. Watching the film this time I didn’t think it was quite that bad and the recurring motif taken from the title song to underscore this more mature Bond’s casual nature works rather well. But while I can maybe see how using Legrand would have made sense since like John Barry there’s a connection to the jet-set nature of the sixties but too often what’s there is all wrong and like Eric Serra’s trainwreck of a score for GOLDENEYE—the one that really is the worst Bond score ever—it all too often adds next to nothing, overwhelmed by this film that it should be complimenting and at times just disastrously dropping out altogether, although the motorcycle chase is one of those old-school action scenes that wisely goes without any music at all (the soundtrack CD features a fair amount of music that was unused so maybe things could have been even worse). It’s not always badly done, particularly some of the lighthearted stuff, but it feels like it’s in the wrong movie. Maybe it’s just that James Bond films, even unofficial ones, were never meant to be underscored by xylophones. I actually don’t entirely mind the title song in an early 80s easy listening sort of way (since it’s sung by Lani Hall, that must be my fondness for Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 talking) but its placement at the beginning of the film over what is supposed to be a suspenseful action scene is disastrous, almost deflating the entire film even before it starts. I also can’t help but find it a little interesting though that both this film and the also unofficial CASINO ROYALE from 1967 featured Herb Alpert (Hall’s husband) on the soundtrack but let’s face it, those are the kinds of things I focus on.


NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN was released several months after the official Roger Moore entry OCTOPUSSY and it may have even gotten some better reviews based solely on Connery’s presence but while the other film may have been looked at as more workmanlike at the time it has managed to age much better as well-crafted action, suspense and just as a James Bond film. At this point in time it appears that Connery’s promise to “never” play the character again has come true but a number of years later McClory tried once again to make a movie from the same basic plot (there were rumors it might star Timothy Dalton) leading to a protracted court case that resulted in him finally losing this ongoing legal battle which resulted in, among other things, all rights to NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN essentially falling in the domain along with the rest of the Bond franchise. It has its defenders and that’s fine. It’s not a movie I have any strong desire to dislike and besides—I’m the guy who’s said good things about A VIEW TO A KILL, so what do I know?. The story of why this film exists at all is a fascinating one and for anyone interested the book THE BATTLE FOR BOND is highly recommended, covering the full history of the property known as THUNDERBALL and its significance to the history of the Bond franchise, going from its beginnings in the fifties all the way to McClory’s death in November 2006, just days after the successful release of the updated CASINO ROYALE. As for NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN I can’t entirely dislike it no matter how much criticism I offer partly due to Connery, mostly due to Carrera and for the simple reason that it is, after all, a slightly different approach to Bond than what we’ve usually gotten. It just feels like an unfortunate fumble for any number of reasons. Even the name of Largo’s boat here says something—what was in THUNDERBALL called the Disco Volante now goes by the English translation the Flying Saucer, a dull, down to earth moniker in comparison with something that once sounded glamorous, other-worldly. It’s not an embarrassment for those involved. It just feels like it should have been more, that it should have been a film that lived up to the level of both the legend Connery had created with his character as well as taking full advantage of the amazing character that Barbara Carrera created in the one time she ever got to play her. But, as Bond says to Domino at one point in NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, such is life.

Mendacity Is The Great Sin

Of course, some of the directors we have the most respect for are absolutely crazy in one way or another. If they weren’t we wouldn’t feel so passionate about what they bring to their films. Really, would we have Friedkin’s SORCERER, Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW or Stone’s WALL STREET (the original, let’s not talk about the sequel) if they weren’t at least slightly cracked? But what can sometimes be disheartening is when a director’s own particular aesthetic madness gets bled out of their work for one reason or another. There are several reasons why this may happen--sometimes the well just runs dry creatively, sometimes they leave it aside in order to work on a project solely for cash or maybe they’re doing everything they can just to keep working. Sometimes a director can find a way to connect their own thematic concerns with a blatantly commercial project—Martin Scorsese’s CAPE FEAR, one of his biggest hits, certainly comes to mind. But on other occasions while they may be working on something with actual commercial potential they can’t fully bury who they are as a director and as a result wind up attempting to insert elements into a film that don’t particularly belong. Michael Cimino’s DESPERATE HOURS might very well be an example of that as a film made by a director who, for both better and worse, has a style which is arresting and at times infuriating but if it can’t be used in the right way then what’s really the point? Like CAPE FEAR, which was released the following year, it’s a remake of a film in which an outside force invades a nuclear family undergoing strife, thereby bringing them all closer together. Attempting to make more out of what at its heart is a strict genre piece is fine and whatever else you want to say about Cimino’s films they have a style, an undeniable lifeforce that prove the director’s madness to the utmost extent and the results of that intensity can at times be remarkable. DESPERATE HOURS starts out as if this might be the case, opening in a striking manner with an evocative time lapse shot under the opening credits set to a propulsive David Mansfield theme. This is immediately followed by a series of shots of a speeding sports car driving through beautiful Utah wilderness. The car stops, and out from it steps a pair of truly shapely legs attached to the gorgeous Kelly Lynch. It’s a great, absurd start to it all. But it’s straight downhill from there, with Cimino ultimately turning this seemingly straightforward thriller into a muddle.


Brilliant sociopath Michael Bosworth (Mickey Rourke), serving a sentence for manslaughter during a bank robbery, is in the middle of a parole hearing when, with the help of his attorney the beautiful Nancy Breyers (Kelly Lynch) who is secretly in love with him he stages a daring break from the courthouse, driving off with his brother Wally (Elias Koteas) and their partner Albert (David Morse). As the manhunt for Bosworth is on, we go to the upscale suburban home of Tim Cornell (Anthony Hopkins) and wife Nora (Mimi Rogers) who are currently undergoing a divorce with their two children May (Shawnee Smith) and Zack (Danny Gerard) caught in between them. Soon enough Bosworth appears at their front door, attracted by the For Sale sign out front, looking for a place to hideout and takes the family hostage. The men are waiting for Nancy to rendezvous with them but with the FBI, headed by agent Brenda Chandler (Lindsay Crouse), not believing her story for a second and watching her every move, the lawyer’s arrival is delayed as the family’s ordeal at being held captive by Bosworth continues.


The release of DESPERATE HOURS came in October 1990, a little under ten years since the disastrous initial release of Cimino’s epic HEAVEN’S GATE with only YEAR OF THE DRAGON (his other teaming with Rourke) and THE SICILIAN coming in between. Whether by accident or design much of this film feels like an attempt to make nothing more than a commercial thriller, something that people might actually go to see (total domestic gross: $2.7 million). And there is a sense that Cimino is trying to adhere to the rules of this genre while also attempting to present everything in his patented FORCEFUL manner with big, smashing close-ups and a roving camera designed to intimidate the viewer, but right from the beginning almost nothing about it works at all. As many times as Bosworth holds the family members at either gun or knifepoint, very little tension ever arises from what’s happening and it plays a little as if in trying to somehow go against the norm he deliberately miscast several of the roles to make things more interesting and proceeded to intimidate those actors into trying to be more like what the parts demanded. All this approach results in is a number of people who have done very strong work elsewhere flailing about, as if either getting the wrong kind of direction or just not receiving much of any direction at all, although to their credit every now and then I spotted someone performing a small bit of business as if valiantly trying to bring something genuine to things.

Even the camera blocking feels somewhat awkward at times—unless I’m mistaken, this is the only film Cimino has directed that wasn’t shot in Scope and the more square 1:85 format just doesn’t seem to work for him. Maybe it was done to emphasize the claustrophobia of this family trapped in their own house but too much of the time things are framed in a way that is not only ineffective but kind of strange, as if the director doesn’t quite know how to stage things in such a ‘normal’ and enclosed space. Along with this is an editing style that seems like a jumble (supervising editor was Peter Hunt, director of ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE and who also cut the early James Bond films) which might be consistent with Cimino’s own style but seems all wrong for a story that by nature demands a certain amount of suspense. The screenplay credits Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal along with Joseph Hayes, writer of the original novel, play and film it was based on (the original also had a THE in the title) and his name included there indicates a certain amount of fidelity to the source but however much sense the scenario made when it was first presented (admittedly, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the Bogart film but both leads make the exact same threat to the wife when they first make their way into the house) what the lead character decides to do here in this context, the film’s entire reason for being, just comes off as bad planning. Bosworth goes right for a house with a For Sale sign in front, taking hostages immediately even after finding out that it isn’t empty so maybe there’s supposed to be something existential to what he’s doing, in looking for ‘a place to relax’ as he puts it, as if he really doesn’t want to get away. But based on what has already been said about him in dialogue he should be too smart to do any of this so in the end instead of seeming extremely intelligent he just comes off as a psychotic killer who likes to talk a lot.


On occasion Bosworth lets loose a few lines about what this whole country has come to as he calls out the Cornells on what he feels is the hypocrisy of their lives (“Mendacity is the great sin that’s destroying America and I’m a living reproach to you because I’m an honest man”) but these touches, along with an observation how the Hopkins character served in Vietnam, don’t result in much of anything beyond him just spouting off for a few minutes although they do make me wonder if Cimino did some work on the script himself, somehow trying to give Rourke dialogue that can validate why he decided to make this movie. Some of that dialogue as well as the camerawork that lingers among the wilderness as if yearning to stay in that more peaceful setting feels like something approaching a theme and, at the least, it feels like Cimino is more interested in these elements than the Screenwriting 101 notion of embittered wife Mimi Rogers telling estranged husband Anthony Hopkins at the beginning she needs somebody she can ‘trust’. The dialogue between the two recurs a few times later on but since the film and its director never seem to pay much attention to their conflict it doesn’t have any real effect. Throughout, it feels like Cimino never seems very interested in this family in the way Scorsese found something to do with the Bowdens who were terrorized by Max Cady in CAPE FEAR and considering the nature of the two films and their source material, there are interesting parallels to draw—to contrast with Nick Nolte’s personal conflict in that film, something more could have been done with Hopkins’ corporate lawyer who left his job to defend criminals and is now placed in a Paul Kersey-like position but after one mention the whole thing gets more or less dropped. Instead, Cimino always seems to be dwelling on the wrong things, or at least the wrong things for this movie—Elias Koteas crashing the getaway car into a lake so it won’t be found, Mickey Rourke lingering in front of the house before he decides to burst in, the mountains and leaves in the autumnal Utah locations, Kelly Lynch’s legs, Kelly Lynch’s hair—as if hoping that the very nature of the story will allow the suspense to emerge naturally but that never happens. He just doesn’t seem very interested in dramatizing this family being terrorized so the movie never really has any emotional effect.


As I think about how the tension which needs to build in this film never seems to happen it occurs to me that much of Cimino’s talent lies in presenting big, sprawling stories which is where much the power of THE DEER HUNTER, YEAR OF THE DRAGON (easily my favorite film of his) and, what the hell, HEAVEN’S GATE comes from. The seeming eons we spend lingering in that wedding in THE DEER HUNTER comes to mind, as well as any of the endless sequences of immigrants playing music in HEAVEN’S GATE or how YEAR OF THE DRAGON spends more time on the character of Mickey Rourke’s police detective than any other film would take the time to do but maybe he just doesn’t have the sensibilities for what in the case of DESPERATE HOURS needs to be a tightly plotted, compact narrative with nail-biting suspense. If anything, some of the things said by Bosworth here makes it feel like this film’s lead character represents Cimino himself (they’re both named Michael after all, just like De Niro in THE DEER HUNTER), bursting into this domestic drama and forcing its leads to act with Mickey Rourke, damn it, or else. If the film were better, or even if it were just more balls-out crazy, there would be more to this notion but it just winds up kind of half-baked, an acting exercise more than a film with a believable reality. To mention one notorious touch that does display some madness, speaking as a dumb male it’s not like I mind seeing Kelly Lynch topless (frankly, I doubt she’s ever looked better in a film) but the director’s apparent preoccupation with featuring her this way in multiple scenes, complete with dialogue that describes the character as having ‘her brains between her legs’, just makes it seem like he’s out for his own sleazy pleasures. As much as Cimino may be trying here and there to put something, anything, extra into this would-be madness—and there is that feeling throughout—ultimately it’s just a thriller that might work best if it were approached by somebody who actually wanted to make a thriller. Since Cimino seemingly doesn’t have much interest in it, the bulk of the running time is taken up with awkward scenes which have a feel and rhythm that is certainly odd but never particularly intriguing. It all builds to a climax that feels like the director is getting lost in his own interest of the blood being spilled, the house being riddled by endless bullets and all the laser rifles aiming at Rourke, almost never deciding what this sequence, let alone the entire movie, is even supposed to be about. And if he can’t, then there’s not much hope for anyone who sees the film.


Mickey Rourke is very much Mickey Rourke here but like the film it feels like he never becomes as unleashed as he should be. It’s hard not to think that the actor would be perfectly happy with tossing the basic setup out the window so he could leave this house and turn the film into something else altogether. Maybe through no fault of his own the character of Michael Bosworth never becomes as special as he’s made out to be at first and if the material were stronger his performance probably would be as well—ultimately, when it comes right down to it, he’s just the bad guy. Anthony Hopkins seems sort of lost as if he’s not quite sure why he’s playing this role or why he was cast—interestingly, this film was shot pretty much concurrently with SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, which came out several months later and shot him to status of legend. In comparison with his work in the Demme film that won him the Oscar, here he seems a little lost, somehow out of place as this suburban husband and father. By a certain point it feels a little like he just decided to approach it as a chance to live a boyhood fantasy of playing Frederic March in a movie airing on the late show. As his wife, Mimi Rogers isn’t given a chance to do much other than act either angry or terrified and Lindsay Crouse as the FBI agent with a decidedly odd southern accent seems to be deliberately playing things as ludicrous as possible which all things considered may the right choice. Given dialogue like, “My earrings are killing me. I’m in a real bad mood,” she must have been perfectly aware of how insane all this is and she at least seems to be having fun with it.

The gorgeous Kelly Lynch has an impossible part to play as this defense attorney, getting her clothes torn off by Mickey Rourke while trying to come off as a femme fatale for the FBI. But she really does look great as if she should really be appearing in the best noir ever made or in some Technicolor Hitchcock film. To give her some credit, the actress seems to be trying valiantly with a definite forcefulness to her presence that comes across as if she’s trying to please Cimino and Rourke as much as her character is trying to do nothing but please Bosworth. Shawnee Smith (who I generally like a great deal otherwise) isn’t given much to play as the captive teenage daughter other than being obnoxious. The always dependable Elias Koteas does manage effective moments throughout, as if he’s somehow connecting with his director’s kamikaze style but David Morse, playing the one smart enough to keep saying how they should just leave the house, turns in a rare weak performance for the actor during much of his time on screen, almost as if he doesn’t trust the words he’s been given to say. But the prolonged sequence late in the film depicting his character’s escape through the wide open spaces of Utah leading up to his final moments is actually some of the strongest, most resonant stuff in the film, turning what had been an annoying lunkhead up to that point into someone almost sympathetic. Out of nowhere, both he and the film itself seem to connect with the surroundings as the law closes in, as horses nearby cross a stream, becoming lost in this beautiful wilderness as the character finds a serene calm amidst all that’s around him. It doesn’t necessarily have much to do with the rest of the film but the moment has more resonance than just about anything else here. For once, Cimino’s own madness brings something out of this material that he never seems to connect with otherwise.


These feelings of the director and character trying to connect with the land in the midst of a world gone mad, coupled with some of Rourke’s pertinent dialogue, might be as close to a theme as the film ever gets but by the time we circle back around to the final shot, the same angle that opened the film, as the end credits roll what we’re left with is a thriller that has all the requisite elements except for knowing how to be a thriller. Even that striking opening theme doesn’t really amount to very much, with the score dwindling down into overemotional histronics when it would make sense to amp up the tension. By the time the film ends and it plays over the closing crawl it just sounds like music noodling around in search of a theme, which seems apt considering the movie. Michael Cimino has only directed one film in the years since DESPERATE HOURS, 1996’s THE SUNCHASER which starred Woody Harrelson and about which I remember next to nothing beyond it being somewhat odd and idiosyncratic. That’s probably what a Michael Cimino film is supposed to be anyway. DESPERATE HOURS can never quite reconcile between being a genre piece and its director’s own approach to filmmaking. Sometimes that’s enough to get a movie to become something more than it might have been in other hands but in this particular case it makes the final result all too much of a head scratcher.

The Final Irony Of Life

And just like that, several weeks ago became one of those stretches where I found myself thinking about Martin Scorsese films even more than usual. For one thing, there was the premiere of the new HBO series BOARDWALK EMPIRE, which he directed the pilot of and I wound up entranced by just the feeling of true Scorsese that was in every frame of that hour and fifteen minutes. It got to the point where if I was flipping by it during one of HBO’s countless reairings over the next several days I had to keep going otherwise I knew I was just going to sit there and watch the whole thing (at this point, I feel less excited about subsequent episodes of the series). And then in the middle of that week was the twentieth anniversary of GOODFELLAS and just thinking about that meant that I had to stop everything and watch the entire movie once again. So I did. And thinking about it reminded me how I’ve been stalling for a while on writing a piece about THE KING OF COMEDY, keeping the DVD sitting up on top of a pile, taunting me, daring me to put it in to absorb its punishments and think about it some more. But what is there really left to say about THE KING OF COMEDY? Connections to TAXI DRIVER, prescience for where media was going, improv, dark comedy, discomfort, Larry David and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, reality TV. What else is there? The film was made at an interesting point in pop culture when the intimate talk shows of the 70s (the period where the script by Paul D. Zimmerman originated) turned into what the cult of celebrity began to become during the flashier 80s with both Entertainment Tonight and Late Night With David Letterman going on the air right around that time. Its reputation has undoubtedly grown since its unsuccessful release in early 1983 but I could believe that it would be thought of even more highly by people if they actually wanted to see it. Sometimes I’m not sure I want to see it. Until I realize that I can’t help myself anymore and I’m simultaneously loving it and desperately hoping for certain scenes to end. And what does all this mean? What does THE KING OF COMEDY really mean?


Part of this interest is personal due to the long ago memory of being downtown with my family in New York City one weekend day long ago and stumbling across a film shoot which was for THE KING OF COMEDY. Naturally, I was most excited to see Jerry Lewis who we spotted walking to his trailer. Maybe I’d somehow heard of Robert De Niro but I only cared about Jerry Lewis. Memories are kind of vague, but I remember seeing from a distance a scene being shot between De Niro and Sandra Bernhard in the Mercedes that they apprehend Jerry Langford in but it doesn’t appear in the film and of course there’s no way I could really say where it would occur in the story but I imagine it taking place possibly during a longer buildup to the kidnapping (This wasn’t the only Scorsese film I ever saw being shot—several years later up in Westchester I spent much of a day for an upcoming mob movie which at the time was going by the rather bland title MADE MEN. That title was later changed). I didn’t see it in the theater during first run—even though it’s rated PG it really isn’t a film for kids at all—and I think when I finally got a look at it on cable for the first time I probably barely even understood what it was. But I’ve always remembered that day and it’s really only one of many reasons why this film remains so fascinating to me, so unnerving and, in its own way, very funny. And there are times when I still can’t bring myself to watch it.


Autograph hound and aspiring stand-up comic Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) takes advantage of a chance encounter he has with the great talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) to use it as an in to do is act on the show. Though he is able to get his tape to Jerry’s staff he is eventually rebuffed by being told that he isn’t quite ready yet and further attempts to contact Jerry, including showing up at his weekend house unannounced with hopeful lady love Rita (Diahnne Abbott) result in his getting thrown out. As a result Rupert, together with fellow Langford obsessive Masha (Sandra Bernhard) decide to use their knowledge of Langford’s movements through New York to kidnap him in order for Rupert to achieve exactly the sort of fame that he wants.


It’s very much an eerily prescient look at the direction that what we know as entertainment was going to head down, crashing into a brick wall of where it now is in Reality TV and TMZ hell, taking what might be expected to be a comedy at first glance and turning it into something else. What that something else is turns out to be much darker and nastier, somehow able to get under the viewer’s skin, almost as if it’s trying to get at what’s lying underneath every stupid comedy ever made in which there’s some kind of wacky stalking or kidnapping going on. There’s a pain in THE KING OF COMEDY that comes from what’s constantly simmering beneath the characters’ skins that never quite gets released and one thing which always sticks out for me is the static nature of those medium shots that makes up many of the compositions, holding these powerful players and bizarre non-entitles desperately clinging onto the rungs of showbiz in the frame with no one ever breaking out of them, breaking out of this fixed form. It constricts any sense of actual human feeling and adds immeasurably to the tension, wrapping around each scene like a coil. Working off the brilliantly cutting script by Zimmerman (a former Newsweek critic who died in 1993), whether Scorsese had any specific plan in dialing back the expected flamboyance in his direction (visually speaking, that tilt downward on two separate establishing shots of the theater might be the most blatant Scorsese touch in the film) that we know and love him for, even with several fantasy sequences that are never quite announced as such right away, doesn’t really matter. Keeping the camera as still as he does, sometimes seemingly refusing to cut away in order to give us some relief, adds immeasurably throughout to our discomfort and feelings of total constriction as if we’re tied up to a chair like Jerry Langford ultimately is.


Nothing in THE KING OF COMEDY gives the audience the kind of relief that might be expected. When are we supposed to laugh? How are we supposed to laugh? How can we spend time any amount of time watching the character of Rupert Pupkin, either in a movie theater or at home, with that haircut and mustache of his that would make anyone wonder ‘who the hell is this guy’ without feeling the urge to flee the room? In his own way he’s even creepier, more threatening than Travis Bickle who could at least express enough oddball charm to get Cybill Shepherd’s Betsy interested in him for a few minutes. Even when his ranting comes with all delusion stripped away, like when he lets loose on Masha out on the street, there’s still no way to know quite how to read him beyond how it’s clear that to him achieving what he wants, whatever that ‘fame’ is, is a form of revenge against everyone he has ever met. Much of what we ever learn about Rupert, whose last name no one ever seems to get right, has to be taken from bits we see and hear—from Rita’s response as she remembers him from high school (“Mr. Romance”), his behavior amidst the cardboard cutouts of celebrities in the ‘hovel’ he lives in as he deals with his mother who is, presumably, no longer alive but he still engages in shouting matches with her (voice provided by Scorsese’s mother, of course) in the next room anyway and the self-hatred born in his childhood that emerges from the hostility in the act that we finally hear, that the world finally hears. Actually, his routine is a remarkable piece of writing in how the rhythms of comedy are all correct and yet while it’s not only tremendously unfunny it’s also somehow just totally wrong. What Shelley Hack’s formal but curt Cathy Long tells him about his timing doesn’t seem to be at all incorrect, clearly gleamed from hours of Pupkin watching stand-up comics on variety shows through the years. It’s what is contained within that timing that’s the problem but by a certain point that doesn’t matter since the audience is laughing anyway, exactly as they’ve been conditioned to. In applauding his proclamation of how he’s made it on to the show it’s clear—the audience loves Rupert Pupkin because ultimately there isn’t any difference between what he’s saying and any act that does have one liners that work—he’s on TV, he’s been introduced by Tony Randall and everything he’s saying sounds like jokes so it has to be hysterically funny. And, to him, he’s become exactly what they want to be.


And casting Jerry Lewis as Langford still plays now as a stroke of genius—really, he doesn’t need to act at all—and that alone allows the film to sell the reality of this alternate universe Carson figure doing his show out of New York. It plays as if Jerry Langford is the version of Jerry Lewis who never met Dean Martin yet made it big anyway, working totally alone, with any joy gotten from performing having seeped out long ago. We barely see anything of the actual Jerry Langford Show but with Lewis carrying the authority of his fame we really don’t need to (just as well maybe—an actual attempt by Lewis to do such a show a few years later didn’t last long). Mixed in with the vibrancy of the New York location shooting (maybe incidental to the film’s themes but integral to the feel it gives off) and Pupkin’s own blandly realistic fantasies of total celebrity is a world of mirrors (just as Rupert Pupkin is some sort of unexplainable mirror image of Travis Bickle), indicated throughout by touches such as the entryway Langford walks through as he enters his tasteful, totally bland luxury apartment, what is seen behind them in Masha’s townhouse as well as the Chinese restaurant scene featuring Rupert gesticulating wildly in an attempt to impress Rita, yet behind him is a man (played by Chuck Low, best known as Maury in GOODFELLAS) who spends a few moments in the middle of the scene totally imitating his wild gesticulations, something that never gets explained or paid off in any way. And from those mirrors small pieces get reflected onto the characters—the very first time we see Rupert in the film the audio is overlapping from the clip of The Jerry Langford Show as the host is saying, “I shall adhere to your request, sir.” It’s if such a phrase coming from Langford is always reverberating through Rupert’s head as he pursues what he believes fame is, right through to the film’s final moment when it feels like nothing but the blank reflection that is Rupert Pupkin staring right back at us.


A troubled production for its director that went considerably overbudget, the film flopped upon first release and looking up the numbers, I’m surprised to see how little it actually made as if people really were scared away by it. Deep down it is a comedy but it’s a Scorsese comedy, with nothing about it ever amped up to a ‘wacky’ farcical nature and certainly never fully telling us when the laughs are coming (“You don’t say folks here’s the punchline, you just do the punchline.”). When they do come—particularly around the time the kidnapping happens—the ridiculousness of those cue cards that haven’t been arranged quite right (“It’s not grammatically correct but I think you get the idea.”) are mixed with Langford’s deadly seriousness at his plight. Rarely has there ever been as odd a combo seen in a film as De Niro, Bernhard and Jerry Lewis playing a scene together, lending things a genuine sense of danger to it that anything could happen coming from any of them. Maybe it’s just my own response but as Sandra Bernhard strips down to bra and panties in front of Jerry saying, “Never had this much fun before. Good, old-fashioned all-American fun,” immediately followed by a hard cut to the opening of the Langford show Rupert is about to appear on (well, that’s stating a theme right there) the way the edit happens somehow feels as violent, as furious as any moment during one of Jake LaMotta’s fights. It’s impossible not to wonder what was going through Jerry Lewis’s head while shooting some of this as he was faced with the heavily improv style of Scorsese and De Niro who apparently tossed anti-Semetic remarks at Lewis from off-camera while shooting the agonizingly awkward sequence at the country home, so the anger Langford displays here reads as absolutely genuine (“I made a mistake.” “So did Hitler!”).


The absolute fearlessness of De Niro’s performance, playing a character truly determined in all of his own clueless insanity while coming off as less appealing than Travis Bickle and Jake LaMotta combined, remains much of the reason why the film can be so difficult to watch. With the fantasy sequences merging right into what is presumed to be the reality, he always seems to be performing for a camera that isn’t there, maybe like how Kurt Russell approached the character of Stuntman Mike in DEATH PROOF and he just doesn’t stop, with seemingly no clue whatsoever of what the people he deals with probably think of him. Sandra Bernhard’s own form of danger coming from her comedy matches up with him ideally, with her own apparent madness mixed in with a total cluelessness like Masha couldn’t possibly comprehend the nature of what she’s really involved with. But it’s the anger in Jerry Lewis’s presence that stands out more than anything and it’s remarkable to watch both in the context of our own awareness of his place in showbiz lore and just as a performance. The way he stays still, brooding, steaming whenever Rupert won’t stop talking, the way he calls him ‘pal’ right after asking him his name but most of all in that unforgettable scene where Jerry Langford, in the most patient, reasonable way possible tries to explain his own mindset to his kidnappers. With sweat dripping down his face due to this ordeal yet somehow remaining totally calm as he tries to explain to his kidnappers that ‘he’s just a human being’, earnestly contrasting with Rupert’s earlier declaration how he knows that Jerry is ‘just as human as the rest of us, if not more so’. It may be the closest we’ve ever seen to the real Jerry Lewis and it may not be but it all feels totally genuine as an expression of the insecurities that even somebody like him can have in his life, as close as we ever get to understanding Jerry, or ‘Jerry’, as a human being. This one speech aside, the movie manages to keep Jerry Langford and his innate unpleasantness somewhat inscrutable right up to the end because, after all, the average person watching this can never fully relate to him. In some ways that’s what makes the expression on his face the last time we see him so fascinating.


Placed up against her costars, Diahnne Abbott probably has never gotten as much recognition for her performance as Rita as she should have. Married at the time to De Niro (as well as being the concession girl in TAXI DRIVER) her presence here is somewhat fascinating, with so much to her character never explained. She’s clearly become jaded in whatever her life has been and she’s not an innocent at all, but finds herself wanting to believe what Rupert says about Jerry almost against her better judgment probably because she understandably doesn’t want to be stuck in that bar forever. And the blandly formal officiousness of Shelley Hack as Cathy Long, herself a mirror image of Cybill Shepherd’s Betsy from TAXI DRIVER, in her various dealings with Rupert Pupkin may be one of the most unsung supporting roles in all of Scorsese. In addition to the numerous real-life figures who are either playing themselves or a close approximation of to correctly add to the verisimilitude (particularly Fred de Cordova who was Carson’s actual producer in the role of Langford’s producer, playing things as naturally as possible) one surprising appearance would have to be future star Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio who can be seen standing next to De Niro as the crowd waits for Jerry Langford to emerge from the stage door—check it out at 2:35, she’s there plain as day and I still can’t believe I never noticed her until relatively recently. The Clash can even be spotted out there on the street as Rupert walks away from Masha, credited as “Street Scum”.


It seems somehow significant to me that on the very day last December when I was laid off from the job at the Entertainment-related news program where I worked the cast members of Jersey Shore, which had just premiered, were coming in for an interview. I couldn’t have cared less about it then and now months later as that show is huge it’s almost like the timing of what happened made sense. I actually saw a few of the more famous cast members at Fred 62 a few months back. I still don’t care. There isn’t anything that’s ever going to get me to care about any of that crap. It’s all just people getting famous for no reason. Jersey Shore will run its course, like these things always do, and another piece of crap will take its place but we’ll be left with these bogus celebrities in pop culture forever, all of them talentless Rupert Pupkins, as they continue to appear on other bullshit reality shows or whatever. We won’t be able to get rid of them. The film may have flopped back in ’83, leading De Niro and Scorsese to not work together for another seven years as the director regrouped in his career, beginning with the low budget AFTER HOURS but once the name Rupert Pupkin has entered your brain you can never get rid of it either and there are plenty of people out there who justifiably love the movie. One certainly imagines Larry David seeing it in an empty theater back then and a light bulb going off over his head about the possibilities of its tone (well, the director did appear on CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM a few times) and I also remember how when Scorsese appeared on Conan O’Brien’s show back in the mid 90’s it was one of the main things Conan wanted to talk about saying, “It was about a nobody who goes on television and becomes famous. I relate to this movie!” Jerry Lewis told Peter Bogdanovich in an interview years later that “it was a wonderful movie” except that he felt it didn’t have a finish and, yes, there is a kind of ‘what now?’ to the final moments. We can’t even be certain of the literal reality of what we’re seeing in how we’re deliberately removed from any sort of point of view, keeping that lack of release going right until the instant the credits roll. As it turned out, they didn’t really need a finish. By now, real life has provided it anyway.

Never Too Old To Be Crazy

I get the feeling that I’m not supposed to like BLAME IT ON RIO. I mean, I’m supposed to express more refined taste, right? A fairly skeevy adult sex comedy released just on the cusp of when the carefree 70s really gave way to the 80s once and for all, it’s long since become a slight pop culture punchline but looking at it now I found myself pretty much enjoying it. At least, that’s what I was doing when I wasn’t worried that the vice squad was going to bust down my door based on what I was watching. Look, it’s been a pretty miserable week around here with massive heat, unfortunate deaths by beloved figures in the film world and overall life frustrations so I just needed a little something like this to get my mind off things. It has a terrific lead comic performance along with a relaxing vacation vibe and, let’s face it, the girl that the whole plot is centered around is pretty damn memorable. It’s also somewhat unusual in that it was directed by one of the most heralded musical directors back in MGM’s golden age. Wasn’t that a million years before this? Time is strange. The world is strange. It’s been really hot lately. Hey, I got some pleasure out of the movie, so that has to mean something.


Businessman Matthew Hollins (Michael Caine) lives and works in Sao Paulo, Brazil alongside best friend Victor Lyons (Joseph Bologna) and the two men are about to head off on a vacation to Rio with their families—Matthew joined by wife Karen (Valerie Harper) and daughter Nikki (Demi Moore) along with the recently separated Victor and his daughter Jennifer (Michelle Johnson). At the last minute Karen, citing Matthew’s recent disinterest in their marriage, decides to head off to Club Med for some alone time instead but the two men still go with the two girls. They’ve barely been there a full day when while cavorting at a Brazilian wedding Jennifer confesses her crush to Matthew, throws herself at him and the two wind up making love on the beach. They begin a full-fledged affair without Victor’s knowledge but when Matthew tries to break it off for the obvious reasons Jennifer tearfully confesses what’s been going on to her father. Of course, she deliberately doesn’t reveal the name of the older man she’s had the affair with so the unknowing Victor ropes his best friend into helping him find the guilty party as Matthew tries to deal with his guilt as well as his own growing feelings for Jennifer.


Sometimes I wonder if I’d be able to pick out an American remake of a French film, comedy or drama without knowing it was the case ahead of time. There’s just something about the nature of those storylines that I can’t put my finger on, an approach that just seems slightly off when played in the context of American culture. Though never referred to in the credits as such, BLAME IT ON RIO, directed by Stanley Donen, is a remake of the 1977 French film ONE WILD MOMENT but all of the plotting and behavior (screenplay credited to Charlie Peters and the great Larry Gelbart, though some research suggests the possibility that the version shot was a Gelbart rewrite) makes me think that this would all make considerably more sense if performed in French. For one thing, I suppose we Americans somewhat frown upon sexual behavior involving girls who still wear their retainer which is of course perfectly reasonable. And unless I missed something the key issue of the ages of the daughters in question is never mentioned so legality never comes into play, not to mention much in the way of actual morality—the imdb trivia page states, and who knows if this is true, that Johnson needed special parental permission to shoot this stuff because she wasn’t yet eighteen. Um, am I allowed to be watching this film?


With the story framed by both Caine and Johnson’s characters recounting their own memories of what happened right to the camera BLAME IT ON RIO contains lots of snappy dialogue, which considering Gelbart’s involvement is no real surprise and there are a number of genuine laughs through the farcical complications as well along with some pretty broad stuff like when Caine, trying to keep the secret and shrieking, “Victor, I can explain!” in mistaken anticipation of what’s about to be said at one point, then when it turns out to be nothing he has to stammer and come up what he was going to explain. It’s slick, it’s peppy, it’s got great scenery (appropriate for a vacation film, Rio is presented as essentially a tropical paradise), it’s made by professionals, but the tone isn’t entirely consistent with broad humor sliding uneasily alongside serious expressions of middle-age (not to mention teenage) angst by the leads. The plotting isn’t airtight either with some minor confusion in the drama near the end concerning how certain characters are angry at each other, then not, then angry again. It’s ultimately about the clashing of mature and immature, the fulfillment of desire and the awareness of what the consequences of those things are but with maybe more of an effort towards broad plot developments than actual motivation and in the end even with some surprise revelations everything kind of dwindles to a close. It’s not without a certain amount of depth, but it doesn’t necessarily gel into much more than the sex and laughs. With a presumed aim at being nothing more than breezy, maybe it’s not supposed to. Let’s put it this way—I occasionally chucked at a stretch of dialogue or something Michael Caine was doing and I often gazed in wonder at the beauty of Michelle Johnson. What else am I really supposed to say?


I’m trying to figure out director Stanley Donen in this context—he’s one of the most beloved helmers from the old MGM and his films from the sixties (CHARADE, BEDAZZLED, TWO FOR THE ROAD) feel as much a part of that decade in all the best possible ways. The seventies included titles like LUCKY LADY, MOVIE MOVIE and SATURN 3 then after BLAME IT ON RIO, released in February 1984 he never directed another feature. If anything, this film could be seen as a sort of thematic followup to the romantic frustrations borne out of years in a marriage in 1967’s TWO FOR THE ROAD. It’s not even that much of a stretch to imagine Albert Finney in this part but the dual feelings of romance and bitterness aren’t expressed quite as strongly here. I kept imagining this as the director’s own take on mid-life crisis (or Gelbart’s or any of the other middle-aged men involved), finding ones self surrounded by beautiful women yet unable to avoid the process of aging into somebody ‘too old to act crazy’. There’s something to all that, though maybe not very much.


And though I found myself liking BLAME IT ON RIO’s smooth vacation feel with its farcical mishaps the enjoyment was slightly hampered by the nagging feeling of how this all really is kind of wrong. The vibe is slightly sleazy even before the seduction happens—I mean, how else is a comically awkward scene with two middle-aged men walking around a beach with their topless daughters, even if it is a nude beach, supposed to play? Though it came five years later it’s easy to imagine how much the film was trying to ape Blake Edwards’ success with “10”, a film which felt more at home in the 70s it was made in than this film probably did as the world was turning towards the Reagan-crazed 80s. Even a sweatsuit that Caine wears at one point reminds me of how Dudley Moore was dressed while on the beach in that film, expressing the awkwardness at being involved with a beautiful goddess in such a paradise. But the “10” fears of mid life crisis felt somehow more tangible and though this film makes stabs at such points too often it feels trapped in a farcical vein so when more serious plot points come into it late in the game it doesn’t quite hold. Not to mention how the stunning Bo Derek was very much an adult in both age and how she behaved. Michelle Johnson is beyond cute and adorable in every possible way, at times a delight to watch both with (very flimsy) clothes and without, but since she’s still obviously a girl—gorgeous, yes—she’s maybe just young enough to make things slightly uncomfortable. Maybe because of that it makes sense how there doesn’t seem to be much motivation on her part beyond just being a cute girl who likes to jump up and down when she gets excited, adding to Caine’s exasperation. All of that said, it can’t be stressed enough how the actress fearlessly dives into playing her various nude scenes with all the glee imaginable almost more than just about any other young actress seen in the decades since has done and it really is totally admirable. Maybe these scenes don’t even make up that much screen time, but the moments certainly stand out. Demi Moore, in comparison, seems visibly uncomfortable in the one scene she has at the nude beach, looking like she’s strategically placing her long hair in front of her breasts as much as possible and it’s easy to get the impression that she really doesn’t want to be there shooting this stuff.


In his autobiography “What’s It All About?” Michael Caine offers that he thought the script was very funny, fondly recalls the making of the film itself with the exception of breaking his toe when shooting one nighttime beach scene and though he enjoyed spending time down there in Rio, writes of his ambivalence towards the enormous wealth he saw existing so close to the massive poverty in Brazil. He also recalls how he felt that director Donen went too far with how much he had Johnson go topless and in comparing it to how things played in the French version, “What had seemed so innocuous …had been made suddenly vulgar and gratuitous in our film.” He also refers to the eventual “vehemence of the critics” when the film was released but closes the chapter by noting with pleasure that the film ultimately made a lot of money worldwide, ultimately seeming pleased by the final result.


And really, I can’t help but think that Michael Caine (sometimes wearing giant glasses here, sometimes not) is entitled to express pleasure with how the film turned out, at least from his vantage point, playing this particularly delicate situation in a way that somehow keeps him endearing and sympathetic all the way through (and, since I made the “10” comparison, probably more sympathetic than Dudley Moore would have been) while playing each scene with expert comic timing. He’s approaches everything with such a particularly lightfooted nature that considering Donen was the director it got me to imagine how well the actor would have worked starring in a film made by him back in the MGM era or in the more fanciful 60s—maybe he didn’t have the singing pipes but he definitely had the comic ability along with knowing how to underplay the more serious stuff in just the right way. The charming Michelle Johnson, billed in one of the trailers as “The brightest new star of 1984!” may not have become quite such a big deal following the film’s release (later credits include FAR AND AWAY, WAXWORK and a scene opposite Meryl Streep in DEATH BECOMES HER that I’ve always liked) but her uninhibited screen nature is hard to miss and her possible lack of experience seems to add to how endearing she becomes as the film goes on. In addition to being beyond beautiful she doesn’t appear at all intimidated by the big star she’s playing opposite—it’s as if the actress wants to please Caine in how she plays off him in their scenes as much as her character wants to please Matthew. And in her enticing naiveté there’s maybe a touch of selfishness that seems totally believable, at least from my own experience.

Joseph Bologna plays the snappy patter better than the serious stuff and in some ways as an actor to him everything is snappy patter--he likes to make a big thing out of saying he’s going to make a salad. Valerie Harper as the dissatisfied wife is just a little too unpleasant (and I like Valerie Harper—when she’s in scenes with Bologna here it provides an odd link to the film of Neil Simon’s CHAPTER TWO) but her seriousness does help to drive home a few of the film’s themes in her big speech near the end while the young Demi Moore, who starred with Caine years later in the heist film FLAWLESS, doesn’t get to do much beyond brood about the affair she knows is happening behind closed doors. It kind of makes sense—from the point of view of her character there’s nothing funny about what’s going on—but at times it makes things too much of a drag and it feels a little like she’s not getting any real direction to play things otherwise. The title song is kind of annoying in a way that I still can’t get out of my head and the scenes are filled with lots of enjoyably gentle Bossa Nova-type tunes which, since I like my Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66 as much as the next guy, I don’t really mind.


Vincent Canby in The New York Times had basically nothing good to say about it, saying “there’s not a single funny or surprising moment in the film,” adding that it’s “not simply humorless. It also spreads gloom.” This really seems like a case of a film just rubbing people the wrong way at the wrong point in time. Boy, the 80s were sometimes really annoying. Maybe I shouldn’t defend the film to any great extent but though the final result doesn’t feel as effortless as it should the best parts are enjoyable enough that I never minded anything about it much at all, particularly coming in the middle of a week like this. Maybe I liked spending 100 minutes down in Rio. Maybe I like Michael Caine and his sharp coming timing. Maybe I just enjoyed being entranced by Michelle Johnson. Maybe, as a result of all this, I don’t have very much bad to say about BLAME IT ON RIO. I’m only human.