No Way to Treat a Lady (1968)

Director: Jack Smight Writers: John Gay, based on the novel by William Goldman
Stars: Rod Steiger, Lee Remick and George Segal

Index: 2025 Centennials.

I love plucking films I’ve never heard of out of filmographies entirely due to research. Rod Steiger was a giant of American cinema, which means that there’s no shortage of films I could have chosen to celebrate his centennial.

This is one I’d never even heard of before, but he’s both the lead and the villain, he was at the height of his powers a year after In the Heat of the Night and he plays a character who plays other characters to strangle women and taunt the police. The fact that it’s based on a William Goldman novel was just a bonus.

As the film starts, he’s Fr. Kevin McDowell, an Irish priest with red hair whistling his way down the road to visit Mrs. Molloy, widow and lapsed Catholic, so that he can drink her port, tickle her mercilessly and then strangle her to death. It’s clearly all to do with his mother.

The Wizard of Oz (1925)

Director: Larry Semon
Writers: L. Frank Baum, Jr. Leon Lee and Larry Semon, based on the story by L. Frank Baum
Stars: Dorothy Dwan, Oliver Hardy, Curtis McHenry and Larry Semon

Index: That's a Wrap!

While the production values of this take on L. Frank Baum’s classic story don’t come close to the famous 1939 version, there’s a lot here that might surprise. And hey, they’re a heck of a step up from The Patchwork Girl of Oz in 1914, a film written and released by Baum himself!

He died in 1919 so didn’t have a hand in this but his son, credited as L. Frank Baum Jr. even though his name was Frank Joslyn Baum, did. However, it’s hardly faithful in its adaptation, even by the low standards of other versions, including 1939, which changed a lot more than the colour of Dorothy’s slippers. After all, the Wicked Witch of the West only got 26 pages in the original book!

She isn’t in this version at all and I wish that Dorothy wasn’t either. It’s not that namesake Dorothy Dwan isn’t a capable actress; it’s that the character has no substance. When we first set foot in Kansas, a clearly aged Aunt Em and a stunningly rotund Uncle Henry are working their fingers to the bone, while Dorothy has no interest in helping. She isn’t even dressed to help! She flits around gathering flowers and looking precious, as if that’s all the world ever wants. I wanted her to break a nail and pout in the corner, so I could get on with the movie.

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)

Director: Jeff Burr
Writer: David J. Schow, based on characters created by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper
Stars: Kate Hodge, Viggo Mortensen, William Butler, Ken Foree, Joe Unger, Tom Everett, Toni Hudson, Miriam Byrd-Nethery and R. A. Mihailoff

Index: Make It a Double.

I seem to meet a lot of actors who starred in Texas Chainsaw flicks, most of whom don’t pick them for their Doubles. Ken Foree did and so did R. A. Mihailoff, both of them picking III, so I’ll get to review it twice before tackling 2 for Bill Johnson. Nobody so far has picked the first and best, not even Gunnar Hansen.

For those new to the franchise, the first was an indie film in 1974 with a cast of unknowns. Contrary to its provocative title, it features no sex, no gore, no swearing and very little blood, but it still carries an immense impact through bones and screams. It’s a freaky, scary feature. The second, released in 1986, is wildly over the top, an acid trip of a black comedy dressed in horror clothing. It’s outrageous in many ways but it isn’t scary at all.

This third film aimed to restore scariness to the franchise only four years later and it does a decent job of it, the darker script by horror novelist David J. Schow tying in urban legend and grounding it all in effective locations. He also ignored 2 entirely, providing opening text that only referenced the first film. It’s there to tell us that a member of the cannibal clan saw trial, W. E. Sawyer by name, and he died in the gas chamber. Leatherface, the jury believed, is a persona he wore along with his human flesh mask, so he’s long gone.

That Man Bolt (1973)

Directors: Henry Levin and David Lowell Rich
Writers: Charles Eric Johnson and Ranald MacDougall
Stars: Fred Williamson, Byron Webster, Miko Mayama, Satoshi Nakamura, John Orchard and Teresa Graves

Index: Make It a Double.

Fred Williamson’s second Make It a Double choice is a couple of years older than Bucktown but he was already established, especially with blaxploitation staples like Black Caesar and its sequel, Hell Up in Harlem. What surprised me is that this isn’t another of them.

In fact, it rather relishes how it keeps us on the hop as to what it actually is. Sure, there’s a blaxploitation feel at points, but there’s much more James Bond, much more kung fu movie and much more general seventies thriller, the colour of the lead the most unusual aspect.

That Man Bolt is Jefferson Bolt, who’s trying to be Jim Kelly when we first see him, stripped to the waist and working through a kata even though he’s locked up in a Macao jail. He’s not Jim Kelly but he looks good anyway. And then in comes an Aussie to cut him loose and ferry him over to Hong Kong. That’s Carter.

Bucktown (1975)

Director: Arthur Marks
Writer: Bob Ellison
Stars: Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, Thalmus Rasulala, Tony King, Bernie Hamilton, Art Lund and Tierre Turner

Index: Make It a Double.

I’ve reviewed Bucktown for Pam Grier’s First Thirty but it was also one of Fred Williamson’s two Make It a Double picks. While it came at a crucial time for her, it’s definitely a better film for him, giving him a good introduction then building him far more than I expected.

It initially feels like an episode of a TV show. Everything kicks right in: the opening credits, the funky music and the action. The very first scene is cops lusting after a hooker, but they rush off to beat up a black guy at the station as a train pulls in.

Getting off that train is Duke Johnson, who’s in Bucktown to bury his brother. And that’s the Hammer, who sees the cops but doesn’t do anything, just gets a cab to the Club Alabama. “Do you believe in God?” the cabbie asks him. “Then you’re in the wrong place.”

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Director: Milos Forman
Writers: Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman, based on the novel by Ken Kesey
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher and William Redfield

Index: The First Thirty.

Thirty was always just an arbitrary number for this project but it couldn’t have played out any better for Jack Nicholson. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest won him the Academy Award for Best Actor on his fourth attempt; he’d lost out in three of the five previous years, for Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail and Chinatown. He’d also lost the year before them as a supporting actor for Easy Rider.

He deserved it too, even over both Al Pacino for Dog Day Afternoon and Maximilian Schell for The Man in the Glass Booth. He’s brilliant here as Randle McMurphy, the movie’s primary focus, but he doesn’t carry it because this may be the best ensemble performance since 12 Angry Men and it isn’t inappropriate that it swept the five main Oscars, something only achieved before by 1934’s It Happened One Night.

The Fortune (1975)

Director: Mike Nichols
Writer: Adrien Joyce
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and Stockard Channing

Index: The First Thirty.

Going into this project, I believe I’d seen ten out of Jack Nicholson’s first twenty-five films; it would be fair to say that catching up on the rest was quite an eye-opening experience. I’d seen the last five in his First Thirty but found that I’d completely forgotten this and catching up on it was underwhelming. It’s not that it’s a bad movie; it’s just outshone by all the others.

It’s a Mike Nichols film, reuniting Nicholson with him four years on from Carnal Knowledge, but it feels tame in comparison. It’s set in the twenties, so just a little earlier than Chinatown, but it carries none of that film’s depth. And it’s based on a script by Carole Eastman, credited as Adrien Joyce, as she was for both Five Easy Pieces and The Shooting, but this isn’t up to the standards of either, probably because she was fired after objecting to the director’s cuts.

It probably doesn’t help that it’s a wild farce surrounded by serious dramas, much different from Nicholson’s previous comedy, Head, that was made before he had become a star.

Tommy (1975)

Director: Ken Russell
Writer: Ken Russell, based on the Rock Opera by Pete Townshend with additional material by John Entwistle and Keith Moon
Stars: Oliver Reed, Ann-Margret, Roger Daltrey and Elton John

Index: The First Thirty.

Regular readers will know I’m hardly a huge fan of musicals, but the ones I tend to enjoy do one of two things. Either the songs make sense from a story standpoint, like Singin’ in the Rain, or the entire movie is sung, like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. This follows the latter approach.

Also, it’s a psychedelic rock opera that was written by Pete Townshend; performed by the Who and very special guests; and directed by Ken Russell right before Lisztomania, so there’s plenty for me to enjoy. As I haven’t seen it in decades, my wonder going in was whether I’d adore it or despise it. What I wasn’t expecting was to end up somewhere in between the two.

Then again, I have mixed feelings about the Who. When they’re good they’re amazing, but not everything works and I was reminded very much of that in the early scenes here, which I enjoyed far more for Russell’s visual style than for the music behind it.

The Passenger (1975)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writer: Mark Peploe, Peter Wollen and Michelangelo Antonioni, based on a story by Mark Peploe
Stars: Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider

Index: The First Thirty.

As with Chinatown and the three remaining films in Jack Nicholson’s First Thirty, I’ve seen this one before. However, that was as long ago as 2008 and even then I realised that it wasn’t a one watch film. A fresh viewing at a different time in my life elevated it considerably for me.

It has a plot, but it’s not the point. Jack plays David Locke, a journalist struggling to land an interview with the rebels in a country we later learn is Chad. He’s on his own and he’s failing consistently. People guide him so far and then walk away, stranding him. His Land Rover gets stuck in a sand dune. Walking back to his hotel leaves him seriously sunburned.

When he discovers a fellow traveller dead in the next room, of natural causes, he takes the opportunity to swap identities with him. Now he’s David Robertson and he’s shed his old life that has ceased to have meaning any more. He doesn’t yet know that Robertson is dangerous, an arms dealer who has promised weapons to the very same rebels Locke failed to meet.

Whirlpool of Fate (1925)

Director: Jean Renoir
Writer: Pierre Lestringuez
Stars: Catherine Hessling, Pierre Philippe, Maurice Touzé and Harold Levingston

Index: That's a Wrap!

1925 was the gift that kept on giving when it came to new directors. February saw Josef von Sternberg debut with The Salvation Hunters and René Clair follow him just one week later with The Crazy Ray. March means the debut of Jean Renoir, whose The Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game are often described as the greatest films ever made. If that wasn’t enough, April would introduce Sergei Eisenstein with Strike.

Whirlpool of Fate is a routine melodrama but there are moments to suggest that Renoir had what it took to become notable as a filmmaker the way his father, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, had became notable as a painter. To be fair, he had co-directed a feature with Albert Dieudonné a year earlier, Catherine, but that wasn’t released until 1927. This second film was seen first and he directed it on his own.

One of those moments arrives at the start of the film, just after we’re introduced to Gudule, the young lady at its heart. She’s on horseback to lead the family barge forward. Her brute of an uncle, Jeff, walks backwards on the barge as it passes the camera at exactly the same speed, making it appear as if he’s making no progress at all. It’s not a particularly difficult shot but it shows how the young Renoir had a keen eye.