One Summer Love (1976)

         Originally released under the title Dragonfly, this offbeat story depicts the unexpected circumstance by which romance helps a troubled individual recover from psychological trauma—and though the film obviously means well, major problems with character development undercut the intended impact. Beau Bridges plays Jesse, a tightly wound young man who has spent most of his life in a mental hospital. When the picture begins, he receives permission to exit the facility, though his doctor (James Noble) wonders whether Jesse will be able to handle the harshness of the outside world. Intent on finding the family that abandoned him after a mysterious childhood incident, Jesse treks to his hometown of Danbury, Connecticut, and, eventually, enters a movie theater. The theater’s pretty candy-counter clerk, Chloe (Susan Sarandon), discovers that Jesse has no place to stay, so she invites him home even though he’s clearly unwell.

          This single moment virtually undoes the entire movie, because it makes no sense that Chloe would take in a man whom she has already seen manifest symptoms of instability and volatility. Even the tender/tough dynamism of Sarandon’s performance isn’t enough to sell the story’s central contrivance, and producer-director Gilbert Cates—who often thrived telling stories about people with emotional problems—makes several tonal missteps, not least of which is scoring the movie with music so dark that One Summer Love occasionally feels like a horror picture. Unfortunately, Bridges’ performance hurts credibility, too; while he approaches individual scenes with appropriate levels of intensity and/or warmth, he’s unable to overcome the falseness of a character who lashes out in rage whenever it’s narratively convenient for such a thing to happen.

          The weakest section of the picture, however, involves Jesse seeking lodging with a hotel owner (Ann Wedgeworth) who all but rapes the younger man. If One Summer Love was, in part, meant to be a coming-of-age story, then a physical encounter between Chloe and Jesse would have added more soul to the film. Yet the picture recovers, somewhat, once Jesse finally tracks down family members, even though the movie’s final scene is a puzzler. One Summer Loveisn’t a satisfying movie, by any stretch, but it is worth watching largely for Sarandon’s performance and for the gauzy atmospherics Cates uses to evoke the sleepy rhythms of small-town life. If logic is one of your cinematic priorities, though, take a pass on this one. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

One Summer Love: FUNKY

Two-Minute Warning (1976)

          The premise of Two-Minute Warning couldn’t be more appealing for fans of cheesy ’70s blockbusters: A sniper takes a position in the clock tower of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during a crowded football game, so cops led by Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston) must take the sniper out. Chuck Heston versus a psycho against a backdrop of tragic melodrama—pass the popcorn! Unfortunately, the title of Two-Minute Warning is itself a warning (to viewers), since virtually nothing exciting happens until the last two minutes of the game that provides the film’s narrative structure. Most of the movie comprises a long slog of “character development” in the superficial disaster-movie style, meaning Two-Minute Warning is nearly all foreplay with very little payoff.

          That said, if you dive into the movie aware that it’s a slow burn, the combination of enterprising location photography and enthusiastic performances might be enough to keep you interested. The main relationship in the movie is between Captain Holly, who spends most of his time watching the sniper through a video feed originating in the Goodyear Blimp (!), and hotshot SWAT team commander Chris Button (John Cassavetes). Holly wants to remove the sniper without gunplay, whereas Button is itching for a shootout. Watching these alpha males clash provides a smidgen of macho entertainment, though one wishes the filmmakers had found a way to make their conflict more dynamic. The lack of strong leading characters lets supporting players run away with the picture. Brock Peters stands out as a Coliseum maintenance man who tries to be a hero, and Beau Bridges has some sorta-affecting moments as an unemployed dad fighting with his wife and kids in the stands, unaware of the danger lurking behind the end zone.

          Two-Minute Warning hews so closely to the disaster-movie paradigm that the story also includes an aging pickpocket (Walter Pidgeon), a football-loving priest (Mitchell Ryan), and a bickering couple (played by David Janssen and Gena Rowlands). Yes, it’s the old “Who’s going to live, who’s going to die?” drill. Director Larry Peerce rounded out the cast with his then-wife, Marilyn Hassett, the star of his maudlin The Other Side of the Mountain movies, although casting his missus appears to be as close as he got to emotionally investing in this trifling potboiler. Since the Coliseum figured prominently in ’70s pop culture (it was used for Heaven Can Wait, North Dallas Forty, and innumerable TV episodes), the venue provides as comforting a presence as any of the name-brand actors, and Peerce shoots the location well. Overall, however, Two-Minute Warning is a missed opportunity given all the possibilities suggested by the premise. Fumble!

Two-Minute Warning: FUNKY

The Landlord (1970)

          Following his glorious run as an innovative film editor in the ’60s, hippie artiste Hal Ashby graduated to directing with The Landlord, an overly ambitious but thoroughly admirable comedy-drama about race relations. Beau Bridges, effectively blending innocence and impetuousness, plays Elgar Winthrop Julius Enders, a 29-year-old gentleman of leisure living on his wealthy family’s estate just outside New York City. Half-heartedly deciding to form an identity separate from his blueblood clan, Elgar buys an apartment building in a ghetto neighborhood on the verge of gentrification, imagining he’ll boot out the black tenants and create a groovy bachelor pad. Yet upon discovering the tenants’ vibrant community, Elgar becomes more interested in bonding with his new acquaintances than evicting them.

          So begins a sensitive exploration of a dilettante’s journey through white guilt—after recovering from the shock of seeing how poor African-Americans live, Elgar gets involved with two different black women. Elgar’s mystified by the life experiences of Lanie (Marki Bey), a light-skinned exotic dancer ostracized for not being “black enough,” and he’s bewitched by Franny (Diana Sands), a gorgeous hairdresser married to hot-tempered activist Copee (Louis Gossett Jr.). Even as Elgar juggles these romances, however, there’s underlying tension because everyone recognizes that Elgar can escape the troubles of the inner city any time he wants by returning to the comfort of his family’s estate.

          Written by Bill Gunn from a novel by Kristin Hunter, The Landlord is filled with knowing moments, although the story sprawls in such a way that the main themes become somewhat diffused. For instance, the movie spends a great deal of time developing the character of Elgar’s mother, Joyce (Lee Grant), and the most dynamic scene in the picture is Joyce’s drunken lunch with one of Elgar’s tenants, no-bullshit fortune teller Marge (Pearl Bailey). Clearly, Joyce is meant to represent the out-of-touch Establishment against which Elgar is rebelling, but Joyce’s scenes feel tangential.

          Compensating for The Landlord’s storytelling hiccups are terrific performances and a wonderful sense of atmosphere. Working with master cinematographer Gordon Willis, Ashby creates a loose, naturalistic quality in every scene; Willis ensures that the movie is both aesthetically beautiful and convincingly gritty. As for the actors, Bridges gets blown off the screen by costars at regular intervals, but in a way, that amplifies the movie’s message—the world beyond Elgar’s insular experience is so vibrant that he must grow as a person if he wishes to truly belong. The complex resolution of Elgar’s journey underlines that he still has a long way to go on the road to maturity even as the closing credits roll. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

The Landlord: GROOVY