THE CHASE: ALL STAR CAST, OVER DONE MELODRAMA

Imagine if you had the following line up in a film: Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, E.G. Marshall, Angie Dickinson and Robert Duvall. This film did indeed have that cast. In addition to that the film was written by Lillian Helmond based on the book and play by Horton Foote and directed by Arthur Penn who would direct BONNIE AND CLYDE the following year. With all that talent combined why isn’t this film more well-known or discussed?

A lot of that could be due to the story itself. The base of the story does seem interesting but the way it’s handled here, major talent involved in its writing or not, it plays more like a soap opera than an action film which was how it was marketed. A great trailer can make a movie but if you don’t deliver what you promise an audience will remember.

The story revolves around a small Texas town that is run by and basically owned by the Rogers family. Convict Charlie “Bubber” Reeves (Redford) has escaped with another con and is heading for Mexico. His partner kills a man, steals his car and leaves Bubber to fend for himself.

Back in town Val Rogers (Marshall) is about to celebrate his 60^th birthday. The employees at the bank toast him while the wife of milquetoast and bank VP Edwin Stewart (Duvall) watches as his flirtatious wife Emily (Janice Rule) confronts Val about why she and her husband are never invited to his parties. Emily is the catalyst for much that happens in the film, a woman intent of stirring the pot, having an affair with Edwin’s married co-worker Damon (Richard Bradford) and spending as much time with a bottle as a person can without passing out.

Val’s son has his own situation to deal with. Unhappily married for the sake of his father, Jake (James Fox) has been having an affair with Anna (Fonda), the wife of Bubber. The entire town, with the exception of his father, is well aware of the affair but no one speaks up.

In the middle of all of this is the local Sheriff Calder (Brando). Living in his office above the jail with his wife Ruby (Dickinson) Calder is intent on doing his job. The job was given to him by Val and for that reason many who are considered a class beneath Val look unfavorably on Calder, seeing him as a hired hand rather than a lawman. What they don’t realize is that Calder is indeed a man of integrity, a man whose soul will be eaten by both classes before the end of the film.

More time is spent with the whole set up of the town, a dissection of the characters who make up this city and its various classes. There is the upper crust, donating millions to the building of a college Val has high hopes for. There is the middle class, the hard partying drinking revelers on a Saturday night who resent the Rogers family while working for them none the less. There are the blacks in the town who, being in the mid-sixties still, now have rights but rarely have anyone to defend those rights for them. And finally there are the teens, bound and determined to follow in the footsteps of their parents, hard partying and drinking all the way.

The ins and outs of these groups, who is sleeping with whom, develop more tension than the chase for Bubber. In thinking back we get a better glimpse of these people, their lives and their interactions than we do Bubber. Eventually Bubber is given a chance to speak about the injustices of this town and the people in it, but that’s more of a speech than character development.

As various members of the town get drunker as the night goes on, as their resentments begin to surface thanks to the alcohol, tension builds and confrontations begin. Calder is assaulted by a group of Rogers’s employees, not because they want to help their boss but because they resent him. Beaten and bloody he still attempts to find and save Bubber before this group can get their hands on him.

In watching the movie it was entertaining enough but felt too long to reach the end. Brando gives a decent performance, Redford does what he can with the part, Fonda isn’t on screen nearly as much as you would expect and no one really stands out. Reading about the film later I discovered that the story had failed as a book and play and the movie didn’t fare much better when it was released. Producer Sam Spiegel wanted a message movie, director Penn wanted a more straight forward approach and in the end Spiegel took over and cut the film the way he wanted. Penn eventually disowned the film. Hellman, who was friends with Penn, blamed him for the way it turned out and the two parted on bad terms.

Fans of the actors involved or of Penn will want to check the film out just to see how they do here. If you like movies like PEYTON PLACE then you’ll find plenty to enjoy. But for most it will not be a fan favorite. The movie is being released by Twilight Time so the usual applies here, limited number of copies and few extras but a glorious looking print involved.

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BAD MOMS: EMPHASIS ON THE WORD BAD

BAD MOMS could be the perfect example of what is wrong with movies today. Rather than allow a combined effort by producer and director to meld together to make something memorable or at least worth watching  more than once, studios now seem controlled by corporate boardrooms who eye only the return on investment, judging by cookie cutter playbooks rather than creativity. Watching a movie like this you have to wonder if they ever looked at the script or just cut and paste moment from various movies changing the names of characters as they went.

The movie revolves around Amy (Mila Kunis), an overworked and underappreciated mom of two. She works full time yet is paid part time by a group of millennials more concerned with the going to concerts than working, has a work at home mortgage broker husband who doesn’t lift a finger to help and her two kids are the stereotypical youngsters, one an overachiever fretting over college in in 7 years and the other and underachiever who is happy with a D. Amy is perpetually late to everything and frazzled by her life.

One night she catches her husband masturbating to a woman on screen and discovers he’s been doing so for 10 months so she kicks him out. After a late PTA meeting where she says she will no longer participate by their rules she goes out for a drink and makes friend with 2 other moms also fed up. Carla (Kathryn Hahn) is the wild one, the do what she wants, ignore her kid party animal who sleeps with any and every one she can. Kiki (Kristen Bell) is the timid home keeper who abides by her husband’s rules all the time going so far as to iron his underwear while trying to corral 4 terror inspiring children. So naturally they get drunk and have a good time.

The next morning Amy decides she’s had enough. No more perfect mom or at least pretense to be so. She tells the kids to make their own breakfast. She drops them at school with Arby’s for lunch. She goes to breakfast alone, is called by her boss asking where she is and when told to come in tells him she only gets paid to work 3 days a week and it’s her day off. And finally she faces off the prim, proper and all controlling picture of mom perfection, PTA President Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate), at the latest bake sale. This sets in motion a challenge for the lead of the PTA between the two which forms most of the rest of the film.

What we end up with is another gross out crude frolic in fun according to corporate execs. It’s not enough that nearly every teen movie these days has to have kids overindulging in sex, drugs and alcohol, the time has arrived when we want to encourage the same from parents in an attempt to show just how cool they are too. Granted life can be stressful and you want to cut lose now and then but not to the extremes on display here. Soccer moms don’t rally around a non-conformists by going to her house, getting ripped and kissing one another.

I kept expecting to see Seth Rogen or Will Ferrell show up at any moment while watching this film. It was like someone said see how these movies are made, let’s make one of those movies but instead of guys put women in the same roles. The whole time they ignore the fact that none of those movies have done major business like they did when they first began being made and were unlike anything around at the time. They are now the cliché films that were attacking cliché films when they were made. They are predictable, lame and unfunny. At least now we can say women can be the same way.

That’s another troubling thing about this movie. After years of feminists trying to prove they are equal to or better than men (and in many ways they can be) it feels as if that’s all been tossed aside to show they can be just as worthless too. The concept of Amy taking back control of her life here may sound like a good idea but in this story it just makes her look like she is more concerned with herself than her kids even though the movie tries to make you feel otherwise by the last 20 minutes.

Characters are cardboard cut outs here rather than fleshed out individuals. The jerk dad, the frazzled mom, the uptight authority figure, the hunk you immediately fall in love and bed with. They’ve all been seen before. It just feels like they took these characters from teen films and aged them just a tad, enough so they’re now adults but not too old so the kids can still relate to them.

It saddens me these days to consider the output being made on film. In search of blockbusters or quick return on investments Hollywood has tossed aside any hope of movies that will stand the test of time. With the exception of a few that have been outstanding can you name movies you’ve seen this past year that you plan to revisit in the future? I can’t. But I can tell give you at least 10 movies made from the 30s to the 80s that I could. I just hope that young people can truly realize the fast that they’re being sold product instead of entertainment. I fear that they’re not.

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BOXCAR BERTHA: EARLY SCORSESE

Thank Heaven Martin Scorsese went on to make some great movies. Had he relied on his reputation with films like these we wouldn’t be talking about him today. The movie is so bad that you have to check the credits on screen and the box itself to make sure you read it right. Yes, it is the same Martin Scorsese.

The story here is of wandering hobo Bertha “Boxcar” Thompson (Barbara Hershey) who travels with her crop duster father until he dies in a plane crash. She takes to the open rails, hitching rides on boxcars and meeting up with consistent lover and union agitator Big Bill Shelly (David Carradine). While deeply in love they never marry. Bertha hustles to make a buck and Bill moves from town to town trying to organize labor unions.

Bertha eventually partners up with gambler Rake Brown (Barry Primus) and the two con gamblers where ever they go. In a bad turn of events Bertha accidentally shoots and kills one gambler and the two hit the rails once more. On the road she meets up with Von Morton (Bernie Casey), the mechanic who used to work for her father. The three catch up with Bill and then form a team of thieves.

I’d love to tell you what happens here but for those willing to brave this movie I don’t want to spoil it. What I can tell you is that this film moves all over the place. It leaps from one scene to the next with little or no narrative structure to it. Characters just suddenly decide to do something and other pop up.

Carradine shows why he was never an Oscar contender. His acting style remained constant from one movie to the next, as if the same character was in each role. Hershey, who went on to perform some tremendous roles in her time, is young and just beginning here and it shows. She and Carradine were involved for some time and had a son together, I’m assuming during the time this movie was made.

With only one feature film prior to this you can tell this is early Scorsese. Made just before MEAN STREETS this movie has a slapdash feel to it that makes you wonder was it his decision to make it this way or was he forced to do so by producer Roger Corman. In any event I’m so glad he changed the way he did things and gave us so many more movies worth watching than this one.

I had seen this movie once before years ago and thought perhaps my memories of it were unkind. Truth be told my memories were kinder to it than my feelings for it this time around. Those who are Hershey fans solely for the reason of glimpsing her nude will flock to this film. Carradine fans who think his performance on KUNG FU was underrated might enjoy it as well. All others would do well to pass it by.

Still, for the collectors of all things Scorsese you’ll want to make a point of picking his one up before it’s gone. It’s being released on blu-ray by Twilight Time and as always limited to 3,000 copies. Yes, the quality of presentation by them is as outstanding as always. But no matter how much you polish this it remains a lump of clay rather than a diamond.

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