Cannonball.

Review #2559: Cannonball.

Cast: 

David Carradine (Coy "Cannonball" Buckman), Bill McKinney (Cade Redman), Veronica Hamel (Linda Maxwell), Gerrit Graham (Perman Waters), Robert Carradine (Jim Crandell), Belinda Balaski (Maryann), Mary Woronov (Sandy Harris), Diane Lee Hart (Wendy), Glynn Rubin (Ginny), James Keach (Wolf Messer), Dick Miller (Bennie Buckman), Paul Bartel (Lester Marks), Stanley Bennett Clay (Beutell Morris), Judy Canova (Sharma Capri), Archie Hahn (Zippo), and Carl Gottlieb (Terry McMillan) Directed by Paul Bartel (#955 - Eating Raoul, #2231 - Death Race 2000, #2440 - Private Parts)

Review: 

Yes, the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash inspired quite a few movies. Once upon a time, in the 1970s, a couple of people got together and wanted to go cross-country across the United States really really fast. It was devised by car magazine writer/auto racer Brock Yates and Car and Driver editor Steve Smith that ran a couple of times in the 1970s (1971, 1972, 1975, 1979) that liked to celebrate the interstate highway and protest against traffic laws.* Various things came about involving speed limits and car rallies (One Lap of America and Gumball 3000, specifically). Believe it or not, Yates actually was planning to do a movie screenplay but was instead beaten to the punch by Samuel W. Gelfman, a producer who hired Paul Bartel and David Carradine (fresh off Death Race 2000 [1975]) to make a movie that would be distributed by Roger Corman's New World Pictures. The resulting script was cobbled together from Paul Bartel and Donald C. Simpson (this was Simpson's only credited screenplay, as the following year saw him named vice president of production at Paramount). Released in July, it was released one month before The Gumball Rally from Warner Bros. (the car race movie with Michael Sarrazin as star). Bartel later stated that while he was never interested in cars or racing, he decided loading the film with cameos and gimmicks that interested him would work out for him (which included a scene of Bartel playing the piano, naturally). The movie (which includes a gauntlet of cameos from Roger Corman to Sylvester Stallone) was not as big a success as Death Race 2000. Yates did get his screenplay made into a film, albeit with an all-star ensemble cast in Hal Needham's The Cannonball Run (1981), complete with a cameo appearance. Coincidentally, both movies had funding from Hong Kong companies: Cannonball had the involvement of Shaw Brothers Studio while The Cannonball Run had the involvement of Golden Harvest (and even the involvement of Jackie Chan as one of the stars).

It's a movie with a very macho Carradine that goes around driving through the mayhem that comes from exploding cars, mid-wit brothers, cars piling onto themselves, and good ol' scrappy fun. Sure, it does plod along at 93 minutes with an array of jokes and action set-pieces that are pretty hit and miss. But I enjoy the general enthusiasm that comes through to say that it is at least curious to sit through once, perhaps as part of a double-header with Death Race 2000 (or, to see the comparison of familiar faces, The Cannonball Run, a movie my dad surely liked enough to have on DVD). If you like Carradine and cars, this is somehow second of a sort-of-trilogy of Carradine, cars, and New World distribution. In 1978, Carradine happened to do another vehicle-related car movie with Deathsport (1978) for New World (with Allan Arkush and Nicholas Niciphor as director). It's the usual type of understated macho performance from Carradine that coasts through the experience with a few kicks and the same number of expressions as say, Clint Eastwood (in other words: fine?). McKinney and his loosely defined adversary position is at least interesting to see play off Carradine here and there, but it mostly is a film for bits and pieces of things (most significantly with Miller, the "that guy!" king). Hell, he probably is almost outshone by R.Carradine and Balaski taking the time in doing the race (which even sees them take a competitor to the hospital). It's a movie built for theatrics: guys playing country songs in a fast car will eventually go by the wayside for a stunt jump over an unfinished bridge (which is cool). Strangely enough, this and Cannonball Run share the same type of conclusion: the lead doesn't actually win the race because a last-second snafu (okay it's a bit dourer in this film as compared to the other one, but still) with its own type of punchline in bringing the wreck back home. It's a movie where you either go "cool", "eh", or "nope", pure and simple. As a whole, it certainly is a step down from Death Race 2000 (1975) in terms of entertainment with the second and last collaboration between Bartel and Carradine, but it still is worth a watch for those who like offbeat movies on the road that is sometimes funny but generally involving to see to the end.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*In a movie, it's whatever, but here's an easy take: follow traffic laws. People shouldn't die because some pissant had to go 100 on a 75 or because some moron doesn't use their turn signals. 

The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Review #2554: The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Cast: 

Clint Eastwood (Josey Wales), Chief Dan George (Lone Watie), Sondra Locke (Laura Lee Turner), Bill McKinney (Captain Terrill), John Vernon (Fletcher), Paula Trueman (Grandma Sarah Turner), Sam Bottoms (Jamie), Geraldine Keams (Little Moonlight), Woodrow Parfrey (Percy Long), Joyce Jameson (Rose), Sheb Wooley (Travis Cobb), Royal Dano (Ten Spot), Matt Clark (Kelly), John Verros (Chato), Will Sampson (Ten Bears), William O'Connell (Sim Carstairs), Madeleine Taylor Holmes (Grannie Hawkins), John Quade (Ciril E. Forebaugh), Frank Schofield (Senator James Henry Lane), Buck Kartalian (Shopkeeper), Len Lesser (Abe), and Doug McGrath (Lige)

Directed by Clint Eastwood (#1252 - Space Cowboys, #1310 - Million Dollar Baby, #1476 - Pale Rider, #1501 - Unforgiven, #1550 - Gran Torino, #1638 - Bird, #1757 - Sudden Impact, #1831 - High Plains Drifter, #2487 - The Rookie)

Review: 

"When people stop me in the street, it tends to be about Josey Wales. They seem to like that one. I rented it recently, it still holds up."

As we approach the Semiquincentennial of America, I suppose it only makes sense to cover a film that came across in the dawn of the Bicentennial fifty years ago. The movie was based on a book called The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales (titled Gone to Texas in later editions), which was published in 1973 with the writer being listed as Forrest Carter. He had sent the book unsolicited to Eastwood's office with a letter talking about "Eastwood's kind eyes", and go figure, producer Robert Daley felt it looked like a good idea to approach it to Eastwood, who soon agreed to work with optioning Carter's book. When Philip Kaufman looked at the book for the first time, he thought, well, that it was written by a "crude fascist". He co-wrote the screenplay with Sonia Chernus, which included the characters of Terrill and Fletcher that was not previously included in the book. It didn't help with filming, as disagreements with Eastwood in the shooting led to Kaufman's firing in favor of Eastwood, which he once said was "the worst moment of my life"*. It was his fifth film as a director, after the release of The Eiger Sanction (1975). The resulting film made over eight times its $3 million budget back with audiences when released (premiering in late June for a festival before going into release in July and August). As for Carter, he actually was born Asa Earl Carter, an Alabama-born segregationist who for whatever reason decided to try and rebrand himself as a writer with Cherokee background that lived in Abilene, Texas. Sure, there were rumbling questions about who Carter really as early as 1975 (only a few years prior, he ran a failed campaign for governor of Alabama), but Carter kept the facade on long enough to have written three further books, one of which was The Education of Little Tree (which was adapted into a film in 1997). He died at the age of 53, which apparently came after choking on his own vomit after a fight with his son. Plans to do a movie based on his second novel with the Wales character in The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales (1976) did not come to pass with Eastwood involved. In 1986, Michael Parks directed and starred in The Return of Josey Wales, which dealt with confronting corrupt lawmen in Mexico.

Sure, you might wonder how it goes to make a movie about an ex-Confederate guerilla (incidentally, Jesse James was one of them), particularly with a person that believed that the "values of a civilization never died so long as they’re kept alive in legend.” Simply put, there are people who really thought there was a lost cause to a group of losers who never won a war, never deserved a monument to being traitors, and never did anything meaningful for the United States of America besides dying, because goddamn it, you should know the war was fought over slavery before you leave high school*. But, and this is the important part, it is such a worthwhile movie to see a tale of a man at war with himself that becomes whole again (besides, some people called Dirty Harry "fascist", it didn't stop them from making four more of those movies), or at least much as possible when the iron in his words is akin to the iron of a pistol. All he wants to do is move on and pick up what was broken in him from the war and move on. As Eastwood once said, man becomes his most creative in war, so you can only do so much to clean the blood stain from the tapestry. It isn't even that much of a revenge tale, because McKinney (and to a lesser extent in adversarial nature, Vernon) is not present in the movie as much as, say, George is for the 135-minute runtime, as if to suggest that it matters to see the frontier for what it really is beyond the cliches matters more than if one is going to rattle the sabre right into a man's heart, which, well, yes. It's a violent movie that also has plenty of offbeat moments, such as the moment where one says that hell is coming to breakfast. Everything collides for a reckoning of the soul, whether that's Eastwood and his ambivalence, George and his straightforward nature or otherwise. New order, old order, we thrive on the myths and tales we tell for ourselves, regardless of where they may spring from. As a whole, The Outlaw Josey Wales freewheels history and the usual conventions of the Western for a pretty solid result in offbeat entertainment that is expertly filmed and executed by Eastwood and company for a movie that reckons with community and what really matters to live or die on the frontier.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*If one goes by this interview, Kaufman has never seen the film: Philip Kaufman: The Hollywood Interview | The Hollywood Interview

*If I remember correctly, my dad had a license plate cover of the Confederate battle flag. And yet, I turned out the way I did. 

Cleopatra Jones.

Review #2511: Cleopatra Jones.

Cast: 

Tamara Dobson (Cleopatra Jones), Bernie Casey (Reuben Masters), Shelley Winters (Mommy), Brenda Sykes (Tiffany), Antonio Fargas ("Doodlebug" Simpkins), Bill McKinney (Officer Purdy), Dan Frazer (Captain Crawford), Stafford Morgan (Sergeant Kert), Mike Warren (Miller Anderson), Albert Popwell (Matthew Johnson), Caro Kenyatta (Melvin Johnson), and Esther Rolle (Mrs. Johnson) Directed by Jack Starrett.

Review: 

Okay, I guess I should have heard of this movie earlier with a title like that. But maybe it is apt to get around to a movie made for Warner Bros. that wanted to cash in on the blaxploitation craze that came around with movies such as Shaft (or, if one wants to go with the one that came out a bit earlier, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song [1971]....or earlier with Cotton Comes to Harlem [1970]). Max Julien wrote the story (he originally wanted to a spy movie for Columbia Pictures) and co-wrote the screenplay with Sheldon Keller while also producing the film with William Tennent. At the helm as director was Jack Starrett, the sometimes actor/sometimes director behind such movies as Run, Angel, Run! (1969) and Slaughter (1972). Apparently, Julien envisioned his long-term girlfriend Vonetta McGee for the role, but the considerable casting call from Warner Bros. led to the eventual pick of former 6'2 model Tamara Dobson. The Baltimore native actually started out as a beautician in her studying at the Maryland Institute College of Art prior to being discovered, as, well, a 6'2 person who could model that later saw her involved in commercials. Rated PG, Cleopatra Jones was a decent hit with audiences and inspired a sequel with Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold in 1975. Sadly, those were Dobson's only starring roles, with her other film appearances (Norman... Is That You? [1976], Chained Heat [1983]) being supporting roles before she eventually became a commercial property owner; she died in 2006 at the age of 59.*

With big hat brims and big fur robes (apparently, the fashion was done by Giorgio di Sant' Angelo) and choices that might as well have come from someone wanting to do a James Bond movie (right down to having a climax in a junkyard), how could you not like this movie? Hell, the Corvette Stingray is modified so our leading lady's hair is not impeded to go along with a "CLEO" license plate and karate chopping people. Not bad for a "Special Agent to the President" that had to deal with all of this mainly because she got a poppy field to be destroyed via airstrike (in the intro to the film), I suppose. You know, it may not be a great movie, but I love stuff like this every now and then: a movie that just cuts loose and throws any damn thing to the screen with commitment of entertainment that shows the best of both worlds in terms of "the times" (namely in ass-kicking in the name of community). Admittedly, Dobson is more interesting for the stuff around her/action set pieces than her acting, which is pretty green. The community part is more important anyway when you've got some charm displayed by the support around her, mostly in the sheer ridiculous nature that comes with Winters, who not only has big hair (hey, wigs were cool) but also has an interesting gender balance of male henchmen and, uh, female servants. At least when one goes for hammy (hey, Winters had two Academy Awards already, you can do anything), you get some entertainment value (PG rating or not, you still get scenes featuring people being shot or thrown to their deaths). Casey makes a solidly sensible pairing for the small time you get to see him with Dobson. You get some adequate slice of life from folks such as Fargas or the Popwell/Kenyatta connection or the varying levels of "how funky is this white cop?*" from others for a movie that doesn't strain in hokum for its 89-minute runtime, which is more than can be said for lesser action films. It might not hit all of its marks, but it will do just fine winning converts on a late-night watch around the bend.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day

*Interestingly, Dobson believed that the character of Jones was not so much a "women's libber" but instead saw her as a "very positive, strong lady who knows what she has to do" (in this case defending the neighborhood from drug pushers)

*No joke, the movie ends right as the police captain mildly raises his fist to say "right on!" 

The Shootist.

Review #1453: The Shootist.

Cast: 
John Wayne (J.B. Books), Lauren Bacall (Bond Rogers), Ron Howard (Gillom Rogers), James Stewart (Dr. Hostetler), Richard Boone (Sweeney), Hugh O'Brian (Pulford), Bill McKinney (Jay Cobb), Harry Morgan (Marshall Thibido), John Carradine (Beckum), Sheree North (Serepta), Rick Lenz (Dan Dobkins), and Scatman Crothers (Moses) Directed by Don Siegel (#893 - Dirty Harry and #920 - Invasion of the Body Snatchers)

Review: 
"I think in America I'm looked upon as the equivalent of a European director--which is quite laughable. I've never had a personal publicity man working for me. So all this came out of the blue--all this publicity. The cult was not engineered. It festered, in a sense. And erupted. And it did me a lot of good."

"The guy you see on the screen really isn't me. I'm Duke Morrison and I never was and never will be a film personality like John Wayne. I know him well. I'm one of his closest students. I have to be. I make a living out of him."

Time waits for no man, where a life and a career each have a beginning, middle, and eventually an end. In a career that spanned a half century, John Wayne appeared as a star or in a small part in over 150 films in a variety of genres (with the Western and war genre being the most prominent) with plenty of collaborations taking place that would serve him and others well in too many films to list. By the time of this film, he had been survived a diagnoses of lung cancer in 1964 (which led to having surgery to remove a lung and four ribs) along with other health problems for the rest of his life, which proved especially apparent for filming here (with compromised breathing during filming in Carson City alongside influenza). He was driven to do this film because of the desire to star in the title role, which apparently had been rejected by several actors such as Paul Newman and George C. Scott. Wayne finished the film but found himself diagnosed with stomach cancer in early 1979, which led to his death on June 11 at the age of 72. The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Glendon Swarthout with a screenplay by his son Miles and Scott Hale. At the helm as director was a careful craftsman in Don Siegel, who had started his career as a montage director for Warner Brothers before becoming a director with The Verdict (1946), the first of a career comprised of noirs, action films, and Westerns (with this being the fifth-to-last film of his career). 

Wayne helped in recruiting old friends of his to star in the film, such as Stewart (his first film role in five years, having moved his focus to television work while having a hearing impediment), Bacall (who worked with him in Blood Alley 21 years earlier), Carradine (who made several appearances in Wayne films), and Boone (who had worked with Wayne before in Big Jake but is most commonly known for his lead role in Have Gun – Will Travel). There is a great deal of familiarity and foreboding nature to this film, a quiet elegy to a time of the past when it comes to the legend of the gunfighter. We've seen these kinds of characters before in other films, and we know a good deal of where the film urges to go. And yet, there is an undeniable power to how enjoyable the final result is, buoyed by a grizzled Wayne that shows plenty of dignity that we come to expect from him without becoming wrapped in self-serving pity, an actor who lives and reacts on his own terms for consistency. He may not be known as the most sensitive actor, but one can't help but care for those moments where he stands without a gun just as much as the parts with it. Bacall follows along with reserved grace to make a worthwhile pairing in the moments with Wayne, while Howard makes a curious youthful(ish) presence to accompany Wayne with slowly-growing interest. While Stewart has just two scenes in the film, it is always nice to see him around with his stately presence nonetheless, solemn yet fitting. Boone, O'Brian, and McKinney make for worthy adversaries when the moment requires it, while Morgan, Carradine and Crothers prove amusing. There were key changes made to the script from the novel, particularly with its climax. The book had ended with Howard's character shooting Wayne after the gunfight left him mortally wounded, which led to him throwing the gun away. In the film, he shoots the bartender that shoots Wayne in the back and then throws the gun away. I like the climax and its simplicity, which accompanies a film of 100 minutes that achieves most of what it wants with a carefully sensitive nature to lead up to one more gunfight that we can't help but enjoy to see play out with the familiar faces out in play. 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Deliverance.

Review #975: Deliverance.

Cast: 
Jon Voight (Ed Gentry), Burt Reynolds (Lewis Medlock), Ned Beatty (Bobby Trippe), Ronny Cox (Drew Ballinger), Ed Ramey (the Old Man), Billy Redden (Lonnie, AKA the Banjo Boy), Bill McKinney (Mountain Man), Herbert 'Cowboy' Coward (Toothless Man), James Dickey (Sheriff Bullard), and Macon McCalman (Deputy Sheriff Arthur Queen) Directed by John Boorman (#565 - Zardoz)

Review: 
It's interesting that the film (released 45 years ago this month) was adapted onto the screen by the writer of the novel himself, James Dickey, who also has a minor role in the film as well. Notably, the stunts were done by the actors themselves, with insurance not being given in order to cut costs. It is evident early on how rough the film looks and feels, and there is a haunting sort of tone to the environment and atmosphere of the movie, right down to the river. The use of Dueling Banjos (arranged and recorded by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel though without the permission of the original writer, Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith) in the beginning of the film is incredibly fitting. This is a brutal film that manages to be consistent in its pace once it gets the ball rolling by the first hour, with its run-time of 110 minutes being an acceptable length.

The core four cast (Voight, Reynolds, Beatty, and Cox) do a fine job in how well they play off each other, particularly during the beginning parts and the scenes in the rapids; there is never a moment where their actions feel fake or unnatural, with their fear seeming quite real, with the most famous scene involving the group and the people they find in the mountains. Coward and McKinney are fine villains; stereotype or not, they definitely evoke a good sense of realistic fear. The rest of the cast doesn't have much time on screen, but they certainly do leave an impression, such as Redden and his banjo performance along with Dickey and his appearance near the end. The ending of the film is poignant in how it goes in line with the rest of the film in terms of its shock and awe, with the final shot of the film reflecting that. For some, the film likely detracts from its theme with the amount of violence it has, but I found that the movie was fairly focused enough with its characters and sense of timing that it falls as a classic.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: First Blood.

Review #025: First Blood.

Cast
Sylvester Stallone (John Rambo), Richard Crenna (Colonel Sam Trautman), Brian Dennehy (Sheriff Will Teasle), Bill McKinney (Dave Kern), Jack Starrett (Art Galt), Michael Talbott (Balford), Chris Mulkey (Ward), John McLiam (Orval), Alf Humphreys (Lester), and David Caruso (Mitch) Directed by Ted Kotcheff.

Review
This is based off of David Morrell's 1972 novel of the same name. PTSD is Post Tramatic Stress Disorder, and Stallone plays a man with the disorder. He plays him quite well. This film makes you believe that Rambo is the sympathetic character instead of the policemen (and for good reason). The actors all play their roles very well as the film isn't just a beat them up, it's a psychological film with heart that would inspire three sequels different from the first...

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.