O.C. and Stiggs.

Review #2243: O.C. and Stiggs.

Cast: 

Daniel H. Jenkins (O.C.), Neill Barry (Mark Stiggs), Paul Dooley (Randall Schwab), Jane Curtin (Elinore Schwab), Jon Cryer (Randall Schwab, Jr), Laura Urstein (Lenore Schwab), Victor Ho (Frankie Tang), Ray Walston (Gramps), Donald May (Jack Stiggs), Carla Borelli (Stella Stiggs), Stephanie Elfrink (Missie Stiggs), Amanda Hull (Debbie Stiggs), James Gilsenan (Barney Beaugereaux), Tina Louise (Florence Beaugereaux), Cynthia Nixon (Michelle), Greg Wangler (Jefferson Washington), with Dennis Hopper (Sponson), Martin Mull (Pat Coletti), Melvin van Peebles (Wino Bob), Tiffany Helm (Charlotte), Dana Andersen (Robin), and Bob Uecker (himself) Directed by Robert Altman (#900 - Nashville, #1433 - M*A*S*H, #1890 - The Delinquents, #2061 - Health)

Review: 

"[O.C. and Stiggs] was about how two teenage boys spend their summer, and it was also about cultural anarchy. Teenage exploitation films were all the rage at the time… I agreed to do it because I hated teenage movies so much. I thought I could do it as a satire of a teenage movie. But of course, it was sold as a teenage movie. It was a suspect project from the beginning."

It is strange, I'm not actually that much of an expert on the filmmaking of Robert Altman and yet here we are with something a bit on the odd side for a filmmaker with such a long and winding road over the span of multiple decades. This strange time would come around particularly after the double-edged sword of 1980's Health and Popeye, neither, where the former barely had a release and the latter wasn't as successful with audiences or critics as one hoped. Afterwards, he did a handful of plays and TV productions to go with smaller-scale films, such as Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) and Streamers (1983). But O.C. and Stiggs would be an attempt to get back in Hollywood. ...which went a certain type of way. For context, O.C. and Stiggs were originally characters in stories written for National Lampoon magazine by Ted Mann and Tod Carroll, most notably with the 1982 story ""The Utterly Monstrous Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs". One of the producers of this film was Peter Newman (who had been the production executive of the Jimmy Dean play that Altman had made into a film), who was interested in what he saw of the Stiggs stories. Newman had made an agreement to help produce the film, which would have had Mike Nichols eventually make the film after he finished his other commitments...and then one day Newman, in a conversation with Altman, found someone willing to do the film right then and there, complete with fast tracking for MGM because of their desperation for a teen-movie hit. It was shot in Arizona for MGM away from executives and screenwriters in 1983 that saw a party atmosphere (gambling, smoking pot, here is an informative article about that). While Mann and Carroll were given credit for the story, Carroll elected to take his name off the screenplay (which was credited to Mann and Donald Cantrell) for a film that Mann wasn't particularly big on anyway, calling it "of little interest and believe that the chatter of an ordinary street corner schizo is of equal weight and consequence." MGM hated the film in screenings done for the film in 1984 before limited screenings were eventually one in 1987. Of course, by 1987, Altman was already on the next thing, receiving some notice with Secret Honor (1984) to go along with subsequent notice with his TV production Tanner '88 alongside Vincent & Theo (1990) before his "comeback" with The Player (1992).

Sure, one could see the truth that Carroll and Mann had tried to seek out in their characters in "middle-class America" in a coming of age. Of course, I had a feeling that somehow, this film would remind me of Health (1980) in that "oh it seems kinda funny, but you just know only five people would like it in theaters". To see O.C. and Stiggs is to see a movie wrapped with plenty of seething amusement for the time and place it exists in. Imagine a film set in suburban Arizona of all godforsaken places and think that this would be a normal teen movie, although you do get a song courtesy of King Sunny Adé and His African Beats. Screw it, I kind of enjoyed this movie, which just manages to hit the sweet-spot when it comes to chaotic hellraisers. The few people that actually saw the movie upon release basically took the movie seriously without thinking of all the caricatures that are present in a world of self-absorbed weirdos (just get a look at the bomb shelter near the end). These folks really believe they are living the American Dream (consider one quote involving "Arkansas is one of the United States. All America is the same" coming from one of the parental figures to go alongside the other one that, well, is a bigot) that happens to have smug self-satisfied avengers for leads. It is a contorted and twisted film that happens to have a bevy of riches for its supporting cast (speaking of people in little-seen Altman films, Paul Dooley...) to support our two leads. It may seem mean, but the madcap bitterness is the point, and I think you could really interpret Mann's statement about the film as being bitter at being outclassed by a director who made a prank film at the expense of both writers and studio executives. Jenkins and Barry (each first-timer film stars) may not have ended up being a duo that had multiple films to engage in madcap stuff together, but I think they do pretty well together here. They smirk and engage with the world as if they were a trickster God, which actually seems pretty in line with what teenagers really seem to be to the ones around them: silly jerks with every-changing fashion sense (others probably had at least one person they treated like crap as a friend growing up anyway). The object of their bullying is Dooley, who is delightfully smarmy and amusing in the ways one would expect from a portrayal of a 1980s conservative in his suburban element, one that sees past the strangeness of his family in the known alcoholic to all but herself with Curtain and the stunted weirdo in Cryer to go along with a son-in-law who has the most decisive moment to finally speak after so many casual snipes at his Asian heritage. It is probably apt of something that Hopper appeared in this film the same year that he did a daredevil stunt in front of college students involving a chair and sticks of dynamite. Altman having Hopper doing a riff on the role he did in Apocalypse Now (1979) is crispy in its amusement, actually, one who gets to casually say lines such as calling guns a "disease" with worthwhile conviction, particularly when he gets to go loose for the climax. One sees plenty of presences of once and future presences in film/TV (such as a young bemused Nixon to go with a typically "on" Mull to go with a goofy codger in Walston), which probably takes the cake when one sees Bob Uecker ramble to essentially nobody for his cameo sequence. The 109-minute experience gives plenty of anarchy to see among the odd suburbanites (take one look at the places) that lands more often than not in Altman's practical joke among those looking for a typical teenage comedy in the 1980s without some sort of abject shot at society as one knows it.  I found this movie by the stupidest of ways, googling random films to maybe transfer over to USB (after finding a copy on the Internet) for later use (this goes along with "amusing" perspectives on obscure stuff). I can't say the film is for everyone, but if one manages to find this film (Internet or otherwise), I recommend seeing the film in all of its zany idiocy as an Altman movie wrapped in the underbelly of artificiality for delightful hit-or-miss entertainment.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Next up: Time enough at last with Nothing But Trouble.

Health.

Review #2061: Health.

Cast: 

Carol Burnett (Gloria Burbank), Glenda Jackson (Isabella Garnell), James Garner (Harry Wolff), Lauren Bacall (Esther Brill), Paul Dooley (Dr. Gil Gainey), Donald Moffat (Colonel Cody), Henry Gibson Bobby Hammer), Diane Stilwell (Willow Wertz), MacIntyre Dixon (Fred Munson), Alfre Woodard (Sally Benbow), and Dick Cavett (Himself) Directed by Robert Altman (#900 - Nashville, #1433 - M*A*S*H, and #1890 - The Delinquents)

Review: 

"HealtH could have only been made when it was made, and that was the end of the Carter era."

Somehow, at the end of this little blurb about talking about a film that did not get a proper release is a joke. But I'm sure you already came into that with a film made by a director as noted as Robert Altman that has the dubious achievement of having never received a proper home video release. You may or may not already know that Altman was an interesting presence amongst filmmakers you could say have their own style of filming. He may not have had the best of times with his initial feature efforts such as The Delinquents (1957), but his lengthy time spent in television work would shine well when he got to do regular film work after the massive hit of M*A*S*H (1970). Over the next ten years he would direct in a variety of genres that went from the Western (McCabe & Mrs. Miller) to horror (Images) to psychological drama (3 Women). Some films ended up better than others, as evidenced by Quintet (1979). Altman had at least one film released from the year of 1969 to 1980 that went from That Cold Day in the Park (1969) to Popeye. Now back to this film (sometimes referred to as HealtH or H.E.A.L.T.H.): it was shot in the Don CeSar Beach hotel in St Petersburg Beach, Florida for a number of months in 1979. He rushed the film to production just to make sure that it could be done for 20th Century Fox while Alan Ladd Jr was still around. He wrote the script in collaboration with Frank Barhydt and Paul Dooley. It was planned for a released in the winter of 1979, but changeover at the studio led to shuffling for test previews in the spring of 1980 with ideas of getting it seen in full by the summer (the aforementioned Popeye film somehow went better despite being filmed in 1980 for release in the winter, incidentally). It did not end well, and Altman had a falling out with personnel, particularly with one that didn't return his calls for weeks on end that led to being labeled as "scum" by the director. Long story short, there was no public release of the film until New York’s Film Forum showed in 1982, but there were enough film festival showings to account for a knowing of it. It certainly did not come from 20th Century Fox, who had decided the film was not commercially viable enough for release in 1980. So, what did they decide was a better candidate for release than an Altman film? Oh! Heavenly Dog.

I can't promise you a good punchline for the end of this review, but I thought it tickled me. There are two sides that can come with talking about a film not appreciated in its time: the part where you call it a hidden gem that deserves your attention or one that you believe was best left to rest in the dustbin. This is a film that at least one person liked watching on the Fox Movie Channel enough to record it and try to put it online. As for me, I enjoyed it about as much as I thought would happen for an attempt at a satire of politics of the time that is a frenzied hodgepodge of observations that come from looking at a health food convention that really is looking at the conventions that come with America. In other words: showmanship has run amok, and one can still see the carnival atmosphere that we call politics now more than ever. Granted, it isn't exactly packed with a developed story, and it definitely isn't on the same level as, say, Nashville (1975), but it really did deserve an audience to judge it for themselves rather than letting it being thrust into the shadows (for the decade of the 1980s, Altman was left with making films on small-scale budgets, with varying respect). To me, the movie stumbles around two timelines to make light of: the end of the Jimmy Carter era (beaten in a landslide by Reagan in the fall of 1980) and the Dwight Eisenhower-Adlai Stevenson elections of the 1950s that incidentally saw the candidate with vast media drawing Powe win each time. Life is messy, and Altman made a whole movie about the odd carnival of hucksters in health and beyond. The film isn't really wrapped in an involving plot of note, so it really does verge its entertainment on just how much you like the people involved in said film. This namely involves folks who can be pegged to sentence-descriptions such as Garner and his general huckster observer persona or Jackson in a spry and uptight impersonation of Stevenson right down to the speeches. Of course, those 50s elections didn't have a third-party worth mentioning, so Dooley is more just there as the ignored option, but I like Dooley and his huckster self that seems too much for these fellow hucksters, so it shouldn't surprise me that he had a hand in writing this. Woodard is probably the only sane observer of said proceedings, which includes a man of great bluster in Moffat or the always enduring presence of Gibson. Burnett is basically there as the wishy-washy presence that is mildly funny in tension, but one wonders if there was more one could do with this role (this reflects perhaps most on Cavett, who might as well be trying out a mild sedative). At least Bacall and her slogan-happy presence of feeling oneself is amusing in just how much of a puppet one can be with slogans (in being used and using others). It is interesting to make a film about two women running for president and have one of them go on to win to form a new leadership of sexless strength. As a whole, the movie is merely fine, but 20th Century Fox should have known better than to think that it was going to work out nicely to skip over releasing this film (one that cost $6 million!). It isn't a great sort of missing gem or far from easy to ignore, instead falling along the middle with a few amusing moments that with a proper release would've nurtured a possible cult favorite. As it stands now, the only way to enjoy it is for those who enjoy digging further into Altman films or for those who like to watch bootlegs.  But hey, don't take my word for how the film worked when it came to satire and its targets, take it from Ronald Reagan, who was reported to have seen the film in 1982 and called it "the world's worst movie". That I think tells you all you need to know about Health.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

The Delinquents (1957).

Review #1890: The Delinquents.

Cast: 

Tom Laughlin (Scotty White), Peter Miller (Bill Cholly), Richard Bakalyan (Eddy), Rosemary Howard (Janice Wilson), Leonard Belove (Mr. White), Helen Hawley (Mrs. White), James Lantz (Mr. Wilson), Lotus Corelli (Mrs. Wilson), and Christine Altman (Sissy Wilson) Directed by Robert Altman (#900 - Nashville and #1433 - M*A*S*H)

Review: 

"The danger of writing a script is that everybody has the same voice. I think when they don’t have the same voice it makes the film better. So when you have five different sources in there, five different voices, it seems closer to reality. I’m trying to push the actor into becoming a real creator—creating that part. Bringing things to it that the writer and/or myself couldn’t bring."

Here we have a couple of firsts. This was the first feature film in work of Robert Altman. The Kansas City native returned from service in the Thirteenth Air Force with the interest of writing, but his minimal success in that field (one film script got sold) had him move back, and his next assignment was with the Calvin Company, an advertising, educational, and industrial film production company. He directed many industrial shorts for the company before he got his first foray beyond that with television in the early 1950s. This was the first starring role for Tom Laughlin. Yes, before he got into the act of trying to write and direct his own films, Laughlin was an actor, starting in 1955 with a handful of television appearances and one film to his name before this feature. If you can believe it, Laughlin and Altman did not get along during production, mostly because of the way that Laughlin wanted to do the film (Laughlin described himself as a "Stanislavsky actor", not a Method actor), complete with actually preparing for a tired moment by running laps, and Altman later called him a "pain in the ass" while finding the best way to settle things: he simply told Laughlin what he wanted in a certain scene; for his part, Laughlin described the film as "very amateurish" along with expressing a dislike of Altman's lack of organization, and at one point he started rolling the cameras to shoot a scene rather than wait for Altman to arrive (because he felt guilty given whose money it was). Tying this all together is the debut production of Elmer Rhoden Jr, a Kansas City-born exhibitor of films that was president of a theater chain that encompassed six states. Wanting to tap into the teen market in an era where there was plenty to go around from rock and roll to hot rod features, Rhoden Jr made his first effort into producing, complete with using the theater chain as a way to get his film regional success. With a budget of roughly $63,000, he recruited Altman, who would write along with recruit the people required for said production in terms of casting and location picking, complete with recruiting people from his industrial films and a mix of California talent (including cooperation from the Kansas City Police Department) to go alongside Altman's wife at the time (Corelli, who divorced him when he began having Hawley as his mistress) and Altman's daughter as actors in the film. Rhoden would make two further features as a producer before he died in 1959, dying a couple of months after suffering a heart attack (owing to his alcoholism) at the age of 37.

Admittedly, if you did not know that Altman was the director or that Laughlin was the star, you might not be inclined to pick it out among the oodles of delinquent films. But the film is a decent one in the ways that matter most from folks making their first attempt at breaking into features, regardless of how they thought of the other. Laughlin would get his chances to act and direct by 1960 while Altman would get to direct on a regular basis in television before he got his next chance to direct in features again with Countdown (1967) before hitting the big time in the 1970s. The Delinquents isn't exactly anything special, but it was a modest success that did all the things one might see from seeing people (not quite teenagers but not quite just 30-year olds) try to play juveniles and do the mildest form of "bad things" (you see a mildly involving switchblade fight to go with robbery hijinks and partying). You can see the idea of Altman wanting to have loose and free dialogue go with his favoring of trying to not go through all of the Hollywood channels. One can see the seeds of the observer of chaos even in a movie that Altman might have been only loosely fine with in the long run. He got to make a movie on his terms but saw it changed with voiceovers to start and end the movie that present it as a tale of violence and immorality...that sees delinquency as a disease that could be treated with either more attention from parents or youth groups. I think Altman just wanted to make a movie where teens just go around on a cruise about town without an easy endgame, and in that sense, it is a neat little movie, efficient in 72 minutes in going where it wants without seeming stifled by boredom. The parental figures present their cases of thinking they know what is best for their kids in this age (which isn't like when they were kids, obviously). Laughlin may have the screen presence of a rock tumbling down a well, but it is a graceful presence that handles what is required in someone trapped in expectations on all sides without becoming just a Method punching bag while Howard maneuvers panic with mild success. Bakalyan and Miller won't exactly set a new presence as "hoods of tomorrow" like the poster might say, but they are capable threats that you would expect from a film like this that keeps things firmly on the level. As a whole, things come, things go, but some things are forever, whether that involves actors or directors getting their first true chance to make an impression mean something. Regardless of how the experience went, The Delinquents is a solid feature for its headliners that makes quite the curiosity for those who wish to seek it out as an average but fascinating piece of chaos.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

M*A*S*H.

Review #1433: M*A*S*H.

Cast: 
Donald Sutherland (Hawkeye Pierce), Elliott Gould (Trapper John McIntyre), Tom Skerritt (Duke Forrest), Sally Kellerman (Maj. Margaret 'Hot Lips' O'Houlihan), Robert Duvall (Maj. Frank Burns), Roger Bowen (Lt. Col. Henry Blake), Rene Auberjonois (Father John Mulcahy), David Arkin (Sgt. Major Vollmer), Jo Ann Pflug (Lt. 'Dish'), John Schuck (Walter "The Painless Pole" Waldowski) Gary Burghoff (Cpl. 'Radar' O'Reilly), and Fred Williamson (Dr. Oliver "Spearchucker" Jones) Directed by Robert Altman (#900 - Nashville)

Review: 
"I equate this work more with painting than with theater or literature. Stories don't interest me. Basically, I'm more interested in behavior. I don't direct, I watch. I have to be thrilled if I expect the audience to be thrilled. Because what I really want to see from an actor is something I've never seen before, so I can't tell them what it is. I try to encourage actors not to take turns. To deal with conversation as conversation. I mean, that's what the job is, I think. It's to make a comfort area so that an actor can go beyond what he thought he could do."

The 1970s were an interesting time try and push the envelope with films, so it only makes sense to cover one that its director described one that didn't get released but instead escaped. Robert Altman was the right man at the right time to have a breakthrough through directing a film as transgressive as this one. Altman had a long and strange path to this film, with his first writing credit being a co-story effort on Bodyguard (1948). In the next few years, he would direct industrial films for the Calvin Company in his native Kansas City before getting a chance to direct with The Delinquents (1957), an independent hit. It led to Altman having plenty of chances to direct for television, which he would do for over a decade that helped him hone his craft in making things on budget. Altman returned to feature directing with Countdown (1968) and That Cold Day in the Park (1969), although neither had been particularly successful. When it came time to do a film version of MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors, several directors rejected the chance, but Altman was the one who ultimately agreed to do it. The 1968 novel had been written by Richard Hooker [Hiester Richard Hornberger Jr], who had served in the Korean War for the 8055 Mobile Army Surgical Hospital that was based on his dramatic and comedic experiences there. The film's success would inspire a broadly popular television series two years later that would match the success of this film. Ironically enough, Altman was not fond of the book or the show, describing the book as "just terrible" and the series as an "antithesis of what we were trying to do", while Hooker also disliked the show. To add on to this, screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr, who had disowned the film for its deviation from his script, would win an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Altman, knowing that 20th Century Fox was focusing their attention on their bigger budgeted war films (Patton and Tora! Tora! Tora!), aspired to make his film under budget and without too much trouble so he could sneak through without too much interference from the studio.

The film has quirks to it that would become trademarks of Altman's films over the following three decades, such as overlapping dialogue, an ensemble cast, and improvised performances, which ultimately prove forthright in making a chaotic and irreverent classic. There is a mix of familiar and new actors present, such as Sutherland (who would have a breakthrough in his career starting with films such as these), Gould (who rose to prominence in his previous role in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice), and Duvall (man of stage, television and occasional film who would become a bigger presence in this decade), while others were fairly fresh in film, such as Skerritt and Kellerman (both having breakthroughs after plenty of prior television work), or Bowen, Auberjonois and others (such as Bud Cort) making their first appearances in film. Each of these actors have their part to play in making this satire come alive with plenty to say and do, most of which resulting in an effective dark comedy. Sutherland does well with such mischief that is balanced from the seriousness of the horrors of war on the operating table that makes for inspired anarchy with his counterpart in Gould, who never seem to be out of step with each other in driving humor through situations without needing to hit one over the head too many times. Skerritt accompanies the action at times with steady timing, while Kellerman and Duvall both make for formidable balances (and targets) of authority to poke around with (although admittedly the film is much rougher on the former in terms of crudeness of jokes). Bowen and Auberjonois step in at times to round out the cast with straight-laced dignity (or at the very least the appearance of it), while others do fine with brief moments (such as a quietly sardonic Burghoff). On the whole, this is a fine film wrapped in cynicism, right down to the title song "Suicide is Painless" from Johnny Mandel and Mike Altman (Robert's 14-year old son), which was mandated by the elder Altman to be "the stupidest song ever written." The film packs a caustic punch for 116 minutes involving the nature of war and the people who have to make the most of it in their own way. It manages to pull through without too many crude stumbles after a half century because of a game cast and capable direction from Altman in making an apt film to mark the beginning of a new decade and new perspective for film.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Nashville.

Review #900: Nashville.

Cast:
David Arkin (Norman), Barbara Baxley (Lady Pearl), Ned Beatty (Delbert Reese), Karen Black (Connie White), Ronee Blakley (Barbara Jean), Timothy Brown (Tommy Brown), Keith Carradine (Tom Frank), Geraldine Chaplin (Opal), Robert DoQui (Wade), Shelley Duvall (L. A. Joan), Allen Garfield (Barnett), Henry Gibson (Haven Hamilton), Scott Glenn (Pfc. Glenn Kelly), Jeff Goldblum (Tricycle Man), Barbara Harris (Albuquerque), David Hayward (Kenny Frasier), Michael Murphy (John Triplette), Allan F. Nicholls (Bill), Dave Peel (Bud Hamilton), Cristina Raines (Mary), Bert Remsen (Star), Lily Tomlin (Linnea Reese), Gwen Welles (Sueleen Gay), Keenan Wynn (Mr. Green), and Thomas Hal Phillips (Hal Phillip Walker) Directed by Robert Altman

Review:
Nashville is quite an experience, that much is for sure. It takes place over the course of five days, and yet it still manages to have one of the biggest assemblages of cast that work together to make for such an interesting movie of expression. There is no real main character, nor is there ever a moment where the film loses balance over what it wants to be: a film with people as diverse in nature and as interesting as the city it sets itself in. Even some of the settings (such as the Grand Ole Opry and the Parthenon in Nashville that is used for the climax) seem to reach out as their own character, with their own kind of blemishes just like these characters. For me, my favorites in the film were not so much because of likable they were, but because of how interesting they managed to be, with Beatty, Blakley, Chaplin, Gibson, and Tomlin being the big standouts who really have their own noticeable traits and flaws that one can see in themselves or others. The scene where Tomlin and Beatty are with their (deaf) children is especially telling in making these characters significant with a good degree of subtlety. The characters don't veer too much into cliches in part because they seem so real and seem so authentic to the vision of the film.

Even minor characters (like Welles or Black) are ones that we can still relate to, even if they aren't as high up on the success trail. Goldblum (in a voiceless but constant role) is also pretty memorable, in part because of the tricycle he rides throughout the film. DoQui and Welles certainly make a good pair together in the time they share together on screen. Phillips (and the dialogue that his voice is heard from for a good part of the film) is good in conveying the reach of his character without having to show him. There are so many scenes with their own range of emotion and feeling, where even a scene where Chaplin is talking poetic about buses in a junkyard is great. The film has a great deal of quality music (all done live, and by the actors themselves), all of the songs working intricately with the scene it goes with, such as with "I'm Easy"a key standout, sung by Keith Carradine, who carries the song with the right sense of tension and emotion (fun fact: this song won the Oscar for Best Original Song that year). The film doesn't try to resolve the plot threads in a concise manner, letting it up to the viewer to see where the path of these characters go from there, especially with a climax that is great in its surprise and its final beat with the last song ("It Don't Worry Me"). Nashville is a movie that does not try to bait and switch the realities of the time it was made in, and its impact can still be felt and related to over four decades after its release.

I hope you enjoyed this review, the 900th review done since this show began 2,234 days (over six years) ago. It is obvious (to me anyway) that Movie Night has progressed significantly in terms of quality and the kind of film that gets a shot at being covered. Though the show has gone on its own kind of pace, I hope that Movie Night continues to evolve in a positive way and that you all continue to enjoy this, even if in a small way. This is still a good hobby of mine, but it is also an excellent hobby to do every so often. Thank you all.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.