Bobby Deerfield (1977)

Two Hollywood heavyweights famous for intellectualizing their work succumb to bad habits in Bobby Deerfield, a plodding romantic drama without enough narrative substance to support its heavy themes. Ostensibly the story of a racecar driver mired in existential crisis, the big-budget misfire gets lost in a maze of pretentious dialogue and vague characterization. Despite all their obvious effort to craft something surpassingly sensitive, producer-director Sydney Pollack and director Al Pacino ended up making something utterly artificial: The storytelling lacks the depth found in Pollack’s best dramas, and Pacino’s performance is so internalized it validates every criticism about self-indulgence ever lobbed his way. Bobby Deerfield is especially disappointing because Pacino and Pollack should have comprised a dream team for fans of thoughtful movies. Based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque and written for the screen by the literate humanist Alvin Sargent, Bobby Deerfieldbegins with narcissistic Formula One driver Bobby Deerfield (Pacino) watching a nasty crash that injures one driver and takes the life of another. Jarred by the realization that his career involves courting death, Bobby starts wandering around in an angst-ridden haze, eventually visiting the hospital where the surviving driver is recuperating. While there, Bobby meets a fellow troubled soul, Lillian (Marthe Keller), who has a whole different set of issues with human mortality. Even with Pollack’s consummate skill for constructing love stories, the dynamic between Bobby and Lillian holds zero interest. Bobby’s such a cipher it’s impossible to care whether he finds love, and Lillian’s an ice queen—thus, since their interaction is the whole movie (aside from a few moderately distracting driving scenes), Bobby Deerfield is a 124-minute spiral into a black hole of downbeat boredom. The movie is skillfully made and the acting is strong, within the limitations set by the murky writing, but who cares? Digging the good stuff from the muck simply isn’t worth the effort.

Bobby Deerfield: LAME

Footsteps (1972)

          Nominated for a Golden Globe as the best TV movie of its year, Footstepsis a hard-driving character drama set in the competitive world of college football. Yet instead of focusing on the tribulations of athletes, as is the norm for the genre, Footstepsexplores the psychology of a ruthless coach whose belligerence, drinking, and shady ethics have made him a pariah among top schools. Richard Crenna, putting his customary intensity to great use, stars as Paddy O’Connor, a cocky ex-player with a good record of guiding teams toward victory, but a bad record of holding onto jobs.
          When the movie begins, he arrives in a small Southwestern town to start work as a defensive coordinator at a regional college. Since the school’s head coach, Jonas Kane (Clu Gulager), once played for O’Connor, O’Connor bristles at taking orders from a former subordinate. O’Connor also angles for Kane’s job, sleeps with Kane’s secretary to get inside information, cozies up to a deep-pocketed sponsor (Forrest Tucker) in order to have a star player moved to defense, and makes passes at Kane’s girlfriend, beautiful drama teacher Sarah Allison (Joanna Pettet). For a while, O’Connor gets away with his behavior by delivering a winning season, but things come to a head when moral crises reveal how conscience sometimes inhibits ambition.

          Although it suffers from brevity, running the standard 74 minutes for a ’70s TV movie, Footsteps is quite solid. Featuring a script co-written by future Oscar winner Alvin Sargent, the movie has several compelling confrontations. Moreover, the O’Connor character is such a force of nature that it’s fascinating to parse how much of his act is bluster and how much is justifiable confidence. Though generally not the deepest actor, Crenna slips into this role comfortably and delivers a virile performance. The supporting cast is fine as well, with Bill Overton doing strong work as O’Connor’s star player. (Ned Beatty is wasted in a tiny role.) Veteran TV director Paul Wendkos accentuates the story’s inherent tension with tight compositions placing actors in close proximity, and the filmmakers employ trippy effects like solarization and split-screens to enliven big-game montages that were obviously cobbled together from stock footage.

Footsteps: GROOVY