Amph What was the last movie you saw? (Ver. 2)

The Hole In The Ground (2019) which was about the most Irish damned thing I've screened in ages. Moody and atmospheric, which made it a proper horror film, but the writing was straight paddy.

 

Lebowski I need to revisit. I watched it on video when it first came out and I recall finding it feeling longer longer than it was. But I'm not sure if I had been giving it my full attention.

Moving on, I've managed to finish off my 1970-1974 list of films to see these past couple weekends (minus the 007 films from that era, which I plant to visit separately), as well as a 1980 oddity.

So, since this'll be a long post with 4 reviews, I'll be spoiler tagging them to make them collapsible. I'll need to make a second post for the fourth, as it will otherwise exceed the image limit for a single post. But since that one isn't from the 70's, it works thematically!



Airport (1970)
Viewing Experience: Streaming (Prime Video)



“Keep digging. If another pilot comes up with an idea like that, hand him a shovel.”

Spoiler

A case of seeing the spoof long before the original (though Airplane spoofs the second Airport film and another movie called Zero Hour more directly, this is still the origin point of that trajectory). Also fitting to have watched this during the week of multiple strong snow storms hitting the northeast (we could have really used one of those “conga lines” last weekend!).

Although I went in long-knowing that Airport is considered the start of the 70’s disaster genre, I had only recently found out that it had three official sequels (four, if you count a TV movie that recieved overseas theatrical releases called Starliner One aka Airplane ’84 aka Airplane ’85 aka Airplane 2000… a film about a hypersonic plane and space shuttles released a year *after* the space shuttle-centric spoof Airplane II). Even so, I hadn’t expected them to wait until the final 30 minutes to make it an actual disaster movie (even Earthquake delivered the goods an hour into the movie and that was stretching it!)- that is, unless you count a plane getting stuck in the snow early on a disaster. But that would make it a member of the Weather Inconvenience genre instead.



The overall tone, no pun intended, manages to stay pretty grounded. There are a few bursts of campy, slapstick humor (sometimes literally) that mostly feel out place, though. Most of the character manage to keep the soap opera drama interesting enough to hold your attention as things build (even though this is the type of film where most characters are rarely given full names). The mounting pressures of normal airport operations under these conditions helps a lot, i think (though it also makes the main character’s wife’s complaints about missing a dinner all the more absurd. It’s like, lady, it’s a freaking *blizzard*. It’s not exactly a daily meeting he can reschedule!). And when things do go south, you actually do feel for a couple of the characters.

The film probably would have been helped, though, if they had developed the bomber’s character more, or at least introduced him much earlier in the film. It almost feels like he should have been the initial point of view of the movie. They could have easily scaled back, or cut entirely, some of the other character subplots.

Despite my criticisms about the humor in the film, i must admit that the sociopathic, stowaway old lady is amusing. She’s also infuriating. If you’ve ever worked in retail or service, she’s like every terrible customer quality rolled into one, nice-on-the-outside-so-she-doesn’t-become-a-“Karen” con artist.



Oh, and it must be emphasized that George Kennedy rocks in this movie. He steals every scene he’s in and just kicks ass. He was good in Earthquake, but he’s great here. Amusing that I initially mainly knew him from his later parody work in The Naked Gun films when, here, his career was marked with several films that would, themselves, be heavily parodied.

Two odd things about the movie are that, one, it is an oddly pro-mistress film. None of the wives come out of this film for the better, but, shy some needed hospital stays, it really ends up being win-win for the mistresses. And, two, I just have to assume there was some kind of product placement promotional deal made with Boeing, given how many compliments Boeing and the 707 get by name throughout the film.

“This pro-mistress film has been brought to you by Boeing. Boeing: If you gotta bone, bone on Boeing.”​

(If that’s the case, it’s somewhat ironic that there was only one 707 used in the film- and it crashed in March of 1989.)



Visually, the film relies a lot of animated split-screens to cover phone conversations and other communication dialogue sequences. Not to a distracting Hulk-degree, and not in a way that seems too dated, though it does evoke techniques of the era more than not. The wide scope accommodates those effects well, in addition to the exterior runway and interior concourse sequences.

The visuals are accompanied by an almost jazzy score by Alfred Newman (the same famous film composer who composed the famous 20th Century Fox/Studios fanfare). It is his final score, as he died before the film was released. He received his 45th Academy Award nomination posthumously for his work here, setting a record for the most received by a composer up until that point in time (he would later be surpassed by John Williams’ 50 nominations [as of 2019]).



Airport was first 70mm film to be shown at Radio City Music Hall and went on to surpass Spartacus and become Universal’s biggest moneymaker at the time (adjusted for inflation, it grossed a domestic total in the range of a modern lower-tier Marvel film). Its eventual television debut was tied (with Love Story) for the highest-rated film on TV, holding that record for three years (until an airing of Gone With the Wind in 1976).

It would receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, though this would perplex Burt Lancaster, who called it “The biggest piece of junk ever made.”, despite it being one of the most profitable films of his career.

As for me, I found it decent. It’s different enough that I hesitate to include it in the disaster genre. It’s mainly a drama with a couple stand-out characters and a couple tense scenes. It doesn’t feel like its treading water, but it also doesn’t feel like a must-see at this point. But, I also don’t think you’d feel like you’d have wasted your time if you did watch it. But it feels more like a 1980’s TV show at this point (and I could actually see the setting supporting a short-lived series).

Black Christmas (aka Silent Night, Evil Night) (1974)
Viewing Experience: Streaming (Shout Factory! via Prime Video)



“The call is coming from inside the house!”

Spoiler

I was really not expecting this to be as good of a movie as it is. When you hear it summarized as “a 70’s slasher film set in a sorority house”, you come up with certain assumptions about what kind of a movie it’s going to be (assumptions made more amusing by the opening credits showing one of the actresses’s last names to be “Hussey”). And, had this film been made ten years later during the height of the slasher genre in the 80’s, that’s probably what this movie would have turned out like. But it’s not that movie- it’s not even Halloween in that regards. There is no gratuitous nudity (or any nudity, for that matter) or obvious bimbo victims, etc. If not for some language and a couple shots of gore, this could have been a borderline PG-rated horror-thriller (or, at the most, a very soft PG-13, had the rating existed at the time), even if it otherwise treats its subject matter maturely.



And while it is definitely an early entry in the slasher genre (and one that was clearly a heavy influence on Halloween itself, with the numerous first person perspective shots used for the killer. Another character even appears in a hockey mask, as far as slasher coincidences go), the characters are pretty well rounded, grounded and intelligent in their actions (except for one character trashing a piano that is clearly not his). Only an obsessively alcoholic house mother stands out as cartoonish in contrast to the rest of the cast.



That cast comes across pretty strong as well. Olivia Hussey (who would later voice Kasan Moor in Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and other characters in Force Commander and The Old Republic) holds the film up well without initially coming across as being the main character (which is probably one of the best qualities a Final Girl archetype character can have). Margot Kidder shows some of the spunk she would later bring to moments in Superman as Lois Lane 4 years later (with more agency and range than her character could show in The Amityville Horror).



John Saxon continues to win me over as a huge fan of his work (and he ended up doing this film with only 2 days notice after the original actor was unable to perform due to health issues)- he may have had a massively wide body of work during his career, but it still feels like he deserves more recognition than he received. Meanwhile, Art Hindle looks like Alden Ehrenreich in Solo in a movie release 3 years before Harrison Ford would appear in Star Wars (and, in another amusing coincidence, another set of characters in the movie have an “I love you.” / “I know.” exchange).



Most fascinating is that, in a minor spoiler for the film that isn’t exactly a spoiler (as we have known for the majority of the film that the killer is inside the house), this seems to be, more or less, the origin of the “the call is coming from inside the house!” trope. Or, at least, it seems to be one of the key pieces of media to popularize that within the wider pop culture zeitgeist (a couple films utilized it before this, as it is drawn from an urban legend that was popular around the time), while the legacy of this film helped it endure further in subsequent referential material in and outside of the genre.

One further reason that it’s worth bringing that up is that the film has a really neat human twist on the usual “police tracing the call, keep them on the line” scenario. We’re used to “tracing the call” scenes being set within a police station or other kind of command center and being represented on a screen display or, in a lower-tech situation, someone on a phone reporting the success or failure of the trace to the people in the same police station or command center room. Here, however, given the time period, it is represented by an actual technician at the mechanical communication systems hub having to physically trace the call “server” by “server” (for lack of the proper terminology for the technology of the time) within the various rows and levels of the facility. It actually makes it a much more involving process (as well as providing context for why time is needed to trace the call).



It may lack the iconic music and villainous image of Carpenter’s work, but I think i may actually enjoy this one more than Halloween itself. And I was not expecting that to be the case going in at all. I definitely recommend checking this one out (I haven’t watched the 2006 or 2019 remakes, so, unfortunately, I can’t compare them yet at this time).

Westworld (1973)
Viewing Experience: Streaming (HBO Max)



"You talk too much."

Spoiler

Having watched the first two seasons of the TV series inspired by this film, it was interesting going back to the source here. The setup here has a much more obvious, limited theme park structure to it (three themed worlds linked together much like a smaller Walt Disney World) versus the seemingly unending vistas and regions of the TV series. And the proto-Jurassic Park themes introduced here are more prominent.

In other words, while the series is more about emerging AI and the subsequent robot uprising, the film is more about the breakdown of complex systems due to corporate greed. Those breakdowns just happen to include a robot uprising (albeit one that is more of systems-gone-bad than emergent sentience). Jurassic Park definitely did it better and explored that theme in more depth, however.

The safeties of the park also seem more limited/flawed. The guns can’t fire on guests because of heat sensors. Body temperature items cannot be fired upon, whereas robots can be. That raises a question, though: shouldn’t the robots then be cold/cooler to the touch and, thus, be easily discernible from (and by) guests (especially when they get intimate with them)? And how exactly that does that help with swords and knives? How can temperature controls prevent a dumbass guest from accidentally slicing the arm off of another guest because of mishandled weaponry or improper training/ability? A modern take might be able to include nano-shifting blades that dull themselves in such situations, but the technology of this film’s reality has clearly not achieved programmable matter-levels of advancement yet.



The film itself was ahead of the technology curve, though only just barely. It includes one of the first mentions of a computer virus in film (though by the phrase “disease of the machine”). Yet, despite being a semi-futuristic setting, this concept is one that many of the computer scientist characters in the film are unwilling to believe in. On a production level, Westworld was also the first film to use Digital Image Processing for the pixelated POV visuals of the robots. The effect was achieved by Information International, Inc after Crichton’s initial pick of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory proved to be too expensive and time consuming to utilize.



The cast is fun and do their job. Those roles limit some of them to a degree (the ones who must play robots) but they all bring something to their character’s function. James Brolin & Richard Benjamin (who have good chemistry as friends and are the basis for one of the subplots of the show's first season), Yul Brenner (who just has a terrifying face), Alan Oppenheimer (in an underdeveloped, proto-Hammond role that is essentially the character Anthony Hopkins would reinvent on the series), Dick Van Patten (who provides suitable, but not over-used, comedic relief) and Majel Barrett (I think this is the first time I’ve seen her in a non-Star Trek, non-Babylon 5 role) being the most recognizable faces.

The final Terminator-like chase scene is interesting, though an odd shift in tone and extended focus to make at that juncture in the film. There are definitely a couple moments where the viewer is like “Just shoot him now and end it! Don’t run away again!”, and there is a fake-out mini-scene in a dungeon towards the end that really feels completely out of place and unnecessary.

So, for a take on the concept that focuses more on a plausible theme park approach, leading to a break down and extended Terminator chase, it’s a harmless enough diversion to go back and see where the TV series originates from.

 

Forbidden Zone (1980)
Viewing Experience: Streaming (Fandor via Prime Video)



(Normally, I'd insert a memorable or representative quote here, but this entire movie is nonsense)

Spoiler

I had only heard about this movie for the first time a couple weeks ago on a Danny Elfman-focused episode of The Soundtrack Show podcast. So, seeing it pop on Fandor’s listings, I figured i’d check it out while I still had the free trial that I had signed up for to see Death Race 2000 with. The version I watched was the original black & white version, though apparently a colorized version was made about 13 years ago (with the director’s approval, who apparently intended to originally have the frames colorized in China, but lacked the funding at the time of production).



Written and directed by Richard Elfman (Danny Elfman’s brother) and the first film scored by Danny Elfman (who also appears as Satan to sing one of the songs), the two of them among The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo performance group (which would later be reformed under Elfman into the Oingo Boingo of Weird Science fame). Between the Mystic Knights live shows and his score here, he grabbed the attention of Paul Reubens and Tim Burton and led to Danny scoring Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, beginning the legendary Burton/Elfman collaboration. Richard’s wife also stars in the picture as Frenchy (who is probably the only woman in the film to not go topless at some point).



However, while it is definitely achieving the style and tone it is aiming for, it really isn’t a good movie. It’s pretty terrible. But I can see how it became a minor cult classic. And it’s freaking weird. Really freaking weird. You have to go in expecting an exploitative, absurdist D-movie. One with a lot of stereotypes and content that has not aged well, with the use of blackface not even necessarily being the worst of them.

(I’ll note, in fairness to Richard Elfman, he apparently regretted the blackface back when he first saw a test screening, but lacked the funds and production control to replace it at the time. He’s since regained the rights and has digitally replaced it with clownface for an upcoming rerelease. That doesn’t excuse the initial bad decision to use it in the first place, but at least he seemingly recognized it as being such.)



So, while I can’t recommend the movie as a whole, it does have a few notable aspects of interest for the cinephile making a deep-dive. Chief among them being the music and Danny Elfman’s work. Several of the tunes are very catchy- and a couple (with the aforementioned scene with Danny-as-Satan in particular) have clear proto-Oogie Boogie and Jack Skellington vibes to them. Surrounding the rest is the more whimsier stylizings of Elfman’s later scores that make you understand what Reubens and Burton saw in his work.

This is one of the few videos including the music that doesn’t include NSFW footage or stills (there is a lot of nudity in this film, makes finding embeddable material really tricky!) that I could find:

(the song proper begins around 1:40)


There are also several fun animation-mixed-with-photo-cutouts segments that have obvious Monty Python vibes to them. I wish they had more of those in the film. The film also does a lot of interesting things with framerates, where, for instance, they’ve shot the footage at different speeds with different actors reacting with quicker and slower motions so that, when played back at regular speed, one character moves normally while sharing the same frame with another character moving at faster speeds. Another curiously-odd-but-unique effect is a moment where the lips of another actor singing a song are super-imposed over the mouth of another actor (this was apparently not the plan going in, but the “actor” on set failed to move his lips to the lip sync and so they improvised this solution as they couldn’t afford to reshoot it).

Again, do not watch this movie unless it is an act of absolute curiosity or completionism.