CREEMEDIA

CREEMEDIA

Boy Howdy’s Movie Dregs of 1979

by Bduoard Dauphin

It’s that time of year—when everyone from Rex Reed to Rex Humbard to Wreckless Eric is listing their ten best movies of the past twelve months. You’ve probably seen the lists already as the accolades pour in for the likes of Apocalypse Now, Norma Rae, Manhattan, China Syndrome and Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes.

Ten best lists bking simple to compile, your “Drive-In Saturday” reporter would like to call your attention to the dregs ofl 979, the flicks that represented the sewer re mnants of a decade. Make no mistake about it: 1979 was the pits-j perhaps the worst year for movie-goers since... well, 1978.

Not that the past year was a total disaster. If you want to look on the bright side, consider at least that 1979 did not include a single John Revolta movie. Whew! Thanks, John.

Be advised that The Dauphin was warned away from certain films which can’t as a result qualify for the Ten Worst List. Not even with promises of drugs, liquor, screening room groupies and a private encounter session with Bo Derek could we be lured to And Justice For All, The Runner Stumbles, Old Boyfriends, North Dallas Forty and The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.

So here then we have the Ten Worst Films Of The Year. And we’d like to salute their makers, awarding each producer a crushed Boy Howdy beer can and an autographed copy of Don Ho’s recording, “Tiny Bubbles. ” For in the pond of cinematic brilliance, these movies did indeed make tiny bubbles.

As usual, they’re in no particular order cause once you get down into theslime, everything smells the same.

THE CHAMP— Does anyone know why this movie was made? Jon Voight is a washed-up prize fighter. Faye Dunaway is his ex-wife, now a snooty fashion designer. And child actor Ricky Schroeder is their tow-headed son who likes training racehorses. Voight looks like Rachel Sweet could kayo him with one punch. Dunaway is pudgy—better lay off those Ring-Dings, darling. And Shroeder is so sugary and cute, his performance made the picture restricted for diabetics.

THE LAST EMBRACE—At the screening of this film, critics a) looked at one another baffled, b) got up and left, c) caught up on their sleep, d) all of these. The answer of course is d) all of these. Roy Scheider is in this picture and I think 1 caught a glimpse of Janet Margolin, world’s oldest ingenue. There’s something about a Jewish brothel on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and there’s a chase scene at Niagara Falls and someone falls off the Canadian side... or was it the American side?.. .I’m getting drowsy

ROCKY II—When he got decisioned at the .end of Rocky, he shoulda hung up his athletic supporter. But the lure of a sequel is stronger than a good comer man’s smelling salts. And so Rocky Balboa returns. Formerly a Philadelphia slob (redundant), he’s now a nouveau riche Philadelphia slob. Rocky shops for jewelry, tacky clothes and a new home but material goods aren’t the answer— not while another man wears the heavyweight crown. The Story Continues. Does anyone really care?

PROPHECY—Nature runs amok in this mishmash. A band of do-good environmentalists comes up against raw reality in the form of horrible mutations bent on destruction. The bleeding hearts are sincere and boring. The villains are insensitive chemical dumpers. All the Indians are land-loving and mythic. And the mutations look like rejects from Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips. Who would you root for?

AGATHA—When the high point of a movie is watching a very short man dance with a very tall woman, you know you’re in trouble. Dustin Hoffman is the shrimp, a reporter on the trail of a mysteryVanessa Redgrave is the beanpole, the woman behind that mystery. In fact, she’sAgatha Christie, the woman behind numerous mysteries—all of them far more exciting than this movie. Hey, Dustin, how’sthe weather down there?

THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN—You’re Joe Tynan, a well-liked liberal Senator from an important Eastern state. Your marriage is falling apart. Your daughter thinks you’re a shit. Your mistress is from the Deep South and, with her accent, you can’t understand a word she says. In short, your life is a mess. So what do you do? Why, run for President, of course! A movie as boring and predictable as tomorrow’s headlines. Bring back Richard Nixon.

FEDORA—This film is like a whodunit where they solve the mystery halfway through. Where do you go from there, right? William Holden, looking olderbutno wiser, ventures to the Mediterranean hoping to lure a legendary screen goddess back before the cameras. When he finally meets her, she is just as beautiful and youthful as he remembers her from decades ago. Hint: she hasa daughter. Hint: there is an elderly female retainer. Strictly old-hat.

THE MAIN EVENT—Still another boxing film. Barbra Streisand goes broke and discovers hier only asset is a punchy fighter played by paunchy Ryan O’Neal. He wants to retire but she won’tlet him. She sees him as her ticket back to financial solvency or at least free admission to Madison Square Garden. She gets him back into training and—guess what—they fall in love. Perhaps the only boxing movie in history where the leading lady has a fighter’s nose. Barbra sings the title tune.

A LITTLE ROMANCE—A cute American tee nager and a snot-nosed Frog kid find each other in Paris and a pubescent romance is kindled. Her parents are tedious and rich; his are just tedious. Enter Laurence Olivier as—what else—a charming boulevardier who’s really a pickpocket. They run away to Venice; cops and family follow. (I was hoping all would drown in a i canal) The child actors are insipid and Olivier makes you believe Maurice Chevalier may actually have left a void that cannot be filled.

PROMISES IN THE DARK-Latest in the “Would You Pull The Plug On Your Incurable Friends And Let Them Die” films. Depressing beyond belief. After half a n hour, I pulled the plug on the projector and went home.

So there they ^re—ten turds arranged neatly in a row. Stay tuned for the films of 1980—they 1 may even be worse!

Quadrophenia: Pass Those Purple Hearts

QUADROPHENIA Directed by Franc Roddam (The Who Films Ltd)

Here’s Jimmy. He looks like a punched-up Paul Weller, he whines too much, his parents are drunk and crazy, his sister’s a snivelling bitch, and he thinks no one understands him. He’s heavy on amphetamines. He likes the Who. He hangs pictures of naked women jon his bedroom walls. He looks in the mirror a lot. Jimmy is a simpering geek.

Jimmy is a Mod.

And here’s Jimmy’s cousin and/or buddy Kevin. Kevin is cool. Kevin wears a black leather jacket, he’s been in the army, he rides a motorcycle that puts Jimmy’s puttering scooter to shame, and drinks lots of beer. Kevin couldn’t care less about his looks. He likes Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, thanks, and who cares if he’s misunderstood?

Kevin is a Rocker.

Question: Who would you rather be?

Quadrophenia’s Modscape is so completely divorced from mid-60’s-America-as-we-know-it that these cultural translation problems are typical and frequent. Let’s face it: this Jimmy guy is a wimp, nobody you’d wantto bring home for breakfast, let alone a party. Me, I wanted him to OD, I wanted him to get his face smashed in, I wanted this English Richie to get pounded by every single English Fonzie that bopped onscreen to Gene Vincent.

I don’t know, we don’t re me mber Mods here, we really don’t, they aren’t a part of our history. When ex-Mods or ex-Rockers like Bram Tchaikovsky or Andy Summers visit and tell us how accurate the film is, we can only shrug. In England, those too young, too old, ortoo outside to have been a part of it still have vague cultural memories to fall back upon. They can appreciate Quadrophenia on two levels, as film and as history. Americans can just scratch their heads and wonder what Woodstock’s going to look like in 10 years.

But Quadrophenia is every bit the rock’n’roll film The Kids Are Alright is; in some ways, more so. The plot follows PeteTownshend’s original skimpy framework and fleshes it out, giving it the depth of characterization it’s always needed. And while music plays a vital role throughout, it’s the attitude—the attitude thatThe Kids Are Alright only touched on in early, random moments—that gives Quadrophenids Mods their own identity and gives non-Anglo viewers an identifiable thread to follow.

“Life stinks, Ineed a drink.” Pere Ubu said it best a few years ago and that’s the celebration of life Quadrophenia is: get as fucked up as possible, move to the music, bash your head against the watt", do it in the alleyways, blah blah blah, and make it back to work on Monday mornings. That’s what invalidates Quadrophenia’s “too-English” put-downs; anyone wvho has problems relating to thatkind of lifestyle shouldn’t be reading this magazine in the first place.

Some irony: while the Who ride their greatest wave of success since Tommy, even going to the pitiful extremes of endorsing dopey clothing styles, 11 people die in Cincinnati while waiting to watch the band play “Dancing in the Street.” ■Meanwhile, intheU.K., a new Mod revival ■emerges that, with very few exceptions, saps the I original movement’s honesty and energy and I guarantees two years worth of futile, nostalgic I musical whining.

No big deal. Cultural differences aside, Ito recapture an era that, unfortunately, too many Ipeople are intent upon recapturing. But it works. That it manages to keep an 80’s perspective is an added plus, a push out of the nether regions of Cliff Richards-type nostalgia. Phil Daniels as Jimmy plays the confused wimpo superbly, Leslie Ash as the flaky, bubble-headed bitch couldn’t be better—special kudos for her hot-stuff back-alley diddle, too—and even Sting makes all the right moves. Everyone comes out ahead in this thing, even Booker T. & the MGs, which is OK by me. See it before it happens here, then go home.

Dave DiMartino

1941: It’s So BAD It’s Good

1941

Directed by Steven Spielberg

(A Universal Pictures/Columbia Pictures

co-production)

Cast: Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John “I’m not asfatas Brando yet”Belushi, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, Warren Oates, Robert Stack, Treat Williams, Eddie Deezen, Bobby DiCicco, DianneKay, and Slim Pickens.

Steven Spielberg, the man who brought us Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind has delivered a new film, starring John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Tim Matheson, TreatWilliams, etc., called 1941. The much-publicized 1941 is an astounding motion picture—with a budget of a reported 32 million dollars (Apocalypse Now was 31 million—did someone say something about one-upmanship?) it should be, and is.

Conceived as a comedy, and being sold as one, 1941 should induce more belly-deep guffaws than it does. One shouldn’t complain, though, as there is at least one sight-gag per scene. If the quote “Quantity is quality and the American Way” strikes a responsive chord in the funny muscle between your ears, then this is the flick for you. If not, go discuss Ingmar Bergman with a grapefruit and write your congressman;

The story is set in Los Angeles after the Slant attack on Pearl Harbor in uh, 1941, and basically the theme is humorous paranoia, spurred by the threat of a Jap invasion, not by shark-infested Jacuzzis, as rumor has it in The Land of a Thousand Hockey Pucks.

In the opening scene, Spielberg sends up his old blockbuster Jaws, by having a voluptuous blonde get out of a car, take off her robe and dive into the ocean. She treads waterfor a few moments, an aquatic movement here, an aquatic movement there, and then the famous theme (nusic DA-DUM, DA-DUM, DA-DUM, but instead of a shark, we get a Japanese submarine ascending from the depths, its periscope leading the way. Some may groan at this, thinking it is the director’s ploy for “hooking” the audience—but you have to give a lot of credit to the millionaire-director for laughing at himself.

The plot is easy enough to understand, but following it is another matter. It is very commendable of Spielberg to put money into the pockets of all the bit actors and erstwhile shoe salesmen that make up the huge mob of soldiers, sailors, geeks and USO girls etc., because God knows, quaaludes are five bucks a piece or more. But this excessive bulk is too busy, what with the maniacal P40 pilot Wild Bill Kelso (John Belushi) screaming through the skies of CaBf omication like one of H unter Thompson’s more intense hallucinations, a patriotic motor-pool mechanic Sergeant Tree (Dan Aykroyd) and crew running over cars in the streets with his tank, as well as paint factories, and fire hydrants, a delirious USO dance hall scene with an egg-hating Army Corporal Sitarski (Treat Williams) chasing succulentUSO hostess Betty (DianneKay, who should call me because 1 want to show her my one-eared elephant trick) who can’t stomach him, but has the hots for Wally (Bobby DiCicco) a jitterbuggingzoot-suited fruit.

Meanwhile, an Army Air Corps officer, a pilot-school flunk out named Birkhead (Tim Matheson) is airborne with the General’s secretary Donna (Nancy Allen) who steadfastly refused the young Army Air Corps officer’s advances on the ground, but will throttle his joystick on a mile-high pillow of air only to have their brief liaison coitally interrupted by Wild Bill Kelso (Belushi) who mistakes them for the enemy and shoots them down over Hollywood BK/d. And what of the General? He’s in a theatre making sure he still knows all the lines in Walt Disney’s Dumbo.

Every actor seems to get about the same amount of time on the screen—all-in-all, very little. This adds to the confusion, and the audience cannot get just one person in the movie to cheer on. ..to, uh, identify with. An obvious downfall, you would think, but amazingly enough, it works.

In another scene, a truck driving.-Hollis Wood (Slim Pickens) is captured by the Japanese and brought aboard the yellow submarine to show the zipperheads where Hollywood is because their compass is broken and they don’t know where they are. This sequence is excellent by anyone’s standards, and the scene where Hollis Wood is fed prune juice and sent to the bathroom to excrete the compass extracted from a box of cracker-jack type candy the rice-eaters have found on his person, and then escapes frpm the submarine by tricking them into believing he has vanished down the toilet by putting his boots bottoms-up in the receptacle and making groaning noises, surpasses the “fart scene” in Blake Edwards’ 10. Always remember— humor is 90% anal.

Speaking of which, the movie is really taking much more abuse from the critics than it warrants. Sure, the film is relentlessly busy, the slapstick is often gratuitous, notenough scenes with Belushi, Aykroyd, Matheson (in alphabetical order, as Bill Murray might say), the budget seems too high, and maybe there are no nude scenes with DianneKay, but, like with Apocalypse Now, I think people expected way too much.

It’s amazing that Spielberg pulled this one down for 32 million dollars. Even though you couldn’t give the real thing to anyone intelligent, the scale model of Los Angeles used in 1941 cost in the vicinity of a million dollars alone. The ferris wheel scene, the house falling into the ocean scene, the demolition of the paint factory sequence, the tank crushing numerous cars, the planes, the several hundred extras for the mob scenes, the union, the fiteworks, new camouflage outfits and shotguns for J ohn Milius, diaper changes for John Belushi—whaddya think? Money grows on trees? 1941 is exact—the kind of movie for people who long for the days when Hollywood could still afford to make a film look “that good”. And it is that good.

How would you like to be Steven Spielberg? Here’s a guy with two huge successes under his belt, Jaws, (I wonder if he got any Jaws from Dianne Kay?) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He must have really freaked when he first read the script for 1941, because he’s done these films where he’s got nice characters, nice stories, nice settings and then WHAM! An assortment of geeks and creeps, Hollyweird, the (w) hole L .A. schtick—a venerable showcase of neurosis. Spielberg even asked John Wayne to be in 1941, and the Duke loved theidea—until he read the script. He said it was “un-American”.

How would you like to be Steven Spielberg? And how!

Mark J. Norton

Beatles Start A Legend...

BIRTH OF THE BEATLES Produced by Dick Clark (ABC)_

As the four jumpy, pre-fashionably disreputable looking leather boys clawed their way through “I Saw Her Standing There” in a smoky basement club packed with drunken German sailors and nearly audible scum, the likeness was so believable that my brain turned a completely different flavor of Jello. Surely, this1 had to be the Beatles, and the discovery of this remarkable film clip would have to rank as the producer's biggest coup since he introduced Sparks on American Bandstand.

The film was just too good though, and the clues started to register. The audience was dressed so period-perfectly, it appeared they’d all purchased their outfits ten minutes before the show. Up onstage, John looked too much like John Lennon imitating Doug Feiger not imitating John Lennon. And when Paul turned his face a certain way, he bore an unnerving resemblance to Dick Benjamin.

Still, The Birth Of The Beatles, which covered the band’s earliest days up until their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Sho w—when history was again halted for a mouthwash commercial—was a remarkably acceptable re-creation. Produced by Dick Clark, the man who brought you Dick Clark, the actors selected to portray the group bore far more than a Keith Allison resemblance to the real thing, Stephen MacKenna played John Lennon perfectly asthe bright, antagonistic leaderwith the Achilles mouth and the type of Personable Affrontory that grows on you like a benign tumor. As tong as he didn’t try to smile, fellow unknown Rod Culbertson was a dead ringer for Paul, a carnivorous pigeon preying on taste-deaf fat girls. The Ringo sub (Ray Ashcroft) had a nose that could be used for opening frozen harbors, George (Richard Dawson) lurked in fire background like a side dish of cold rice, whispering “you do the talking” a tot and prehistoric Beatles Pete and Stu maintained a podlike distance.

The stpry of the moptopped moptops was told without pinning the viewers’ tearducts to the mat. Events like Stu’s death, Cynthia’s pregnancy', the sacking of Pete Best and that sad day when Paul’s weiner failed to pass the SpecialK pinch had all the possibilities of true TV-movie cornography, but were instead presented without the moo. What can you do, sometimes life really is poignant, a sick-but-true fact that helps explain why so many artists choose to slit their wrists with the sharp end of greeting cards.

, The music wasthebiggestsurpriseofall. While a still-pending Apple lawsuit quashed any hope of using real Beatle tunes in the film, the performances by Beatles copy band Rain were lifelike without being overly studious. The intentional stoppyness and calculated enthusiasm of the earliest songs wore thin at times but, like the actors, it was strikingly realistic in profile.

While indulging oneself in “docudramas” like Birth Of The Beatles is about as informative as watching Steve Allen bite the bitter clarinet in The Benny Goodman Story for the twentieth time, this film wa£ far more of a Frank Gorshin-styled class impersonation than a Fred Travolena dud. It recalls, in fact, Gorshin’s immortal appearance on The Untouchables when he looks the slimy reefer dealer dead in the eye and says, “Listen, Peepers, pushers can’t be choosers.” Viewers can be though, which will hopefully go to show Beatle-slurps everywhere that they don’t have to squat on a Badfinger and like it.

Rick Johnson

...The BeeGees Finish A Joke

THE SOUND OF SOUD GOLD (NBC)

I’ve always had a soft spotfor the BeeGees. The soft spot is in my taste. Just exactly why their ratified brand of impassioned tweetery makes them anything more than another band with a dippy logo, I can’t really say, although 1 dp rate several of their later hits right up alongside such classics as “She Can’t Find Her Keys,” “Rari” and, of course, the beloved “Fin Repair Sequence” from Hindenberg.

At any rate, The Sound Of Solid Gold was basically a flighty overview of the BeeGees careen from their unprecedented fourteen consecutive pre-“Spieks And Specks” flops right up to their most recent ones. Also featured were introspective chats with the boys themselves (“If only Aboriginal hula music could be made acceptable to the masses,” Barry muttered sadly at one point) as well as a behind-the-scenes look at that great moment in modem pop history, the creation of the explosion-effect in ‘Tragedy.” Ka-boom. That particular recording session, in fact, was spread throughout the ninety minutes as a feeble wave at continuity, although you have to question production moves like playing that same tune as their personalized jet took off for th^ir American tour last summer. I kept waiting for a mid-air collision between the BeeGees plane and the list price of RSO albums.

Fellow Aussies kept crawling out of the woodwork as if drawn by a freshly opened bag of Purina Emu Chow. David Frost was on hand to ask biting questions, like “How is a BeeGees song born?” and “How is a baby koala bear bom?” but never “What do you have to wear underneath to get that falsetto, Maurice?” Robert Stigwood, the group’s manager and reigning king of cheese also put in an appearance, a Conrad Bain flake-alike who came on like a designer of furniture for the frequently bored. Put me down for an endtable.

What with this being a prime time demographics-pleasing special, there had to be guest stars. Glen Campbell, the old Canberra Lineman himself, joined Willie Nelson (you •remember his duet with Way ton “Adelaide” Jennings on “Ladies Love Ostrich”) and the Gibbs for a studio jam which included such natural pairings as “To Love Somebody” and the Everly Bros. “Dream,” but somehow excluded “Martian Hop” and “Alvin’s Harmonica.”

Also on hand were BeeGee parents Ward and June Gibb, who laughed about the recently disclosed reports of mutation-causing radioactive clouds that swept over Australia after atomic tests in the Indian Ocean in the late 40’s and early 50’s, plus the three chirpoids wives, kids, dogs and clams, who all gathered for a touching beach scene set to the strains of “How Deep Is Your Love.” In a climax as frankly moving as Bible School wallpaper, the sun sank disgustedly into the'surf as the faces of the BeeGees were - superimposed indi vidua By over the misty sky like profiles of Jesus giving orders in a cheapo religious flipk.

But never once did they introduce their conga player.

Rick Johnson