Where’s Poppa? (1970)

          With its barrage of surrealistic plot developments and tasteless jokes, Where’s Poppa? would be a weird movie under any circumstances—yet it’s doubly strange when viewed as part of its director’s overall career. Carl Reiner, one of the most likable comedians America has ever produced, is best known for gentle humor of the family-friendly variety, since his professional highlights include creating the beloved ’60s sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show and helming such inoffensive comedy features as Oh, God! (1977) and All of Me (1984). Excepting this bizarre movie, the most offensive thing Reiner ever made was probably the Steve Martin vehicle The Jerk (1979), which is incredibly tame by comparison with Where’s Poppa?

          Adapted by Robert Klane from his own novel, Where’s Poppa? depicts the travails of New York attorney Gordon Hocheiser (George Segal), who lives with his senile mother, Mrs. Hocheiser (Ruth Gordon), in a cramped apartment. Momma’s a dottering nut who keeps asking “Where’s Poppa?” because she can’t grasp the fact that her husband is dead, and she smothers Gordon with constant nagging and with inappropriately physical affection. Over the course of the movie, Gordon faces three predicaments: 1) He wants to dump Momma in a nursing home but can’t break a deathbed promise to his father that obligates him to care for his insufferable mother; 2) He wants to marry Louise (Trish Van Devere), the pretty nurse he just hired to care for Momma, but there’s no way the three of them can live together; and 3) Gordon’s high-strung brother, Sidney (Ron Leibman) keeps getting into trouble.

          The tone of Where’s Poppa? is all over the place, so it’s hard to know when the movie is going for absurdist humor, black comedy, nasty satire, or surrealistic farce. One scene might involve a gentle joke like Momma using cola in her cereal instead of milk, and the next scene might involve Sidney committing rape in Central Park while wearing a gorilla suit. Yes, you read that right—the “comedy” centerpiece of the movie is a rape scene, which is as gruesomely unfunny as it sounds. So, too, is the icky sequence in which Momma yanks down Gordon’s pants and chews on his ass while a shocked Louise watches. Underlying all of this is the distasteful central premise: The “hero” of the story wants to break a blood oath and dump his mentally ill mother so he can get laid.

          Segal does what he can, providing a few almost-amusing moments of exasperation, but his character is so ugly it’s hard to find anything Segal does funny. Similarly, Gordon drops the crazy-like-a-fox bit that distinguished most of her late-career roles and hits the same note of annoying senility again and again; her characterization is alternately boring and pathetic, neither of which is much fun to watch. Leibman’s performance is grotesque, and Van Devere seems lost amid the repulsive situations. Where’s Poppa? has a minor cult following, so clearly some people find the picture amusing, and it’s worth noting that a handful of familiar actors—Vincent Gardenia, Barnard Hughes, Garrett Morris, Rob Reiner, Paul Sorvino—make appearances. Yet it’s telling that after making this picture, Carl Reiner mostly left the realm of bad-taste humor behind, gravitating toward stories that reflect the sweetness one associates with his persona.

Where’s Poppa?: FREAKY

Drive-In (1976)

          Given the mixture of silly and sublime pleasures one could enjoy at the neighborhood drive-in theater in the heyday of that particular exhibition format, there was probably a great—or at least highly entertaining—movie to be made about the misadventures of teenagers during one eventful night at a Texas drive-in. Sadly, Drive-In is not that movie, although the picture’s quite harmless as a nostalgia piece. The reason the flick disappoints is that it tries to be a sex comedy but lacks any scandalous content, and that it tries to present an interwoven ensemble story but fails to present sufficiently dynamic characters to sustain interest. As portrayed by a group of no-name actors whose skill levels range from competent to nonexistent, the characters in Drive-In are mostly just clichéd rednecks, with such familiar types as the virginal good guy, the town slut (with a heart of gold), the smartass fat kid, and the mouth-breathing troublemaker on display. Nearly every beat of the movie is predictable, and the comic highlights—the waterbed in a swinger’s van gets knifed by an angry woman, would-be robbers get recognized by a neighbor while committing a crime—are tepid at best.

          The principal storyline involves gangly high-school redhead Orville (Glenn Morshower, who later became a fine character actor) inadvertently wooing raven-haired sexpot Glowie (Lisa Lemole) away from her violent boyfriend, Enoch (Billy Miliken). This romantic triangle culminates in a fistfight at the drive-in. Meanwhile, two local yokels attempt to rob the theater’s box office, but their would-be crime is married by bad lack and incompetence. Sprinkled between these storylines are goofy subplots such as the running gag of a drunken cowboy suffering through a night on the town with his overbearing mother. The only clever element of Drive-In is the movie within the movie, which is displayed onscreen at the main location. Disaster ’76 is an amusing spoof of the disaster genre, so every time a new scene is shown, Disaster ’76 incorporates another epic hardship—plane malfunctions, shark-infested waters, towering infernos, etc. Getting back to the overall movie, Drive-Infeatures such fondly remembered tropes as people sneaking into the theater by hiding in car trunks, and the temporary suspension of the feature attraction during a brief rainstorm. As such, Drive-Indoes an okay job of capturing a social ritual that’s largely disappeared from the American experience.

Drive-In: FUNKY

The Van (1977)

It’s no mystery why most teen sex comedies are awful, since the producers of such films prioritize raunchy humor and sleazy scenarios over more high-minded storytelling considerations. Nonetheless, generating a few cheap laughs (and a few cheap thrills) from a simple premise shouldn’t be the most difficult task in the world. Therefore, upon encountering a dud like The Van, one can only marvel at how completely the filmmakers in question failed to vault such a low hurdle. Built around the most rudimentary of ideas—a high school graduate buys a tricked-out van to use as a bachelor pad on wheels—the movie churns through one unfunny scene after another, the inherent nothingness of each sequence exacerbated by choppy editing. Naturally, the acting is terrible, with the lone exception of future star Danny DeVito, who appears in a smallish supporting role. The picture begins when Bobby (forgettable redhead Stuart Goetz) graduates from high school and cashes in the money he’s made working at a car wash to buy a rig that he christens “Straight Arrow.” (Those words, accompanied by a phallic graphic, appear on the side of Bobby’s van.) Although Bobby is in love with classmate Tina (Deborah White), he spends the summer wooing various women into his van for sex. The comedic “highlight” of his carnal campaign involves sleeping with a heavyset girl whose weight breaks the waterbed Bobby installed in the back of the vehicle. The narrative is disjointed, with subplots introduced and discarded arbitrarily, and whenever the filmmakers run out of ideas (which is often), they cut to a montage and play the tacky soft-rock song “Chevy Van”—notwithstanding the fact that the Straight Arrow is a Dodge. The Van is so enervated that at one point, Bobby and Tina spend an entire lengthy montage attending a beachside van show, looking at other people’s tricked-out rigs with admiration. And as if failing to deliver in every other way wasn’t bad enough, The Vanstrikes out in the smut department, since there’s virtually no nudity in the film. So, unless ogling vehicles that are adorned with airbrushed murals raises your temperature, leave this wreck on the side of the highway where it belongs.

The Van: LAME

California Dreaming (1979)

          Made in the early days of the raunchy teen-sex-comedy genre, California Dreaming is a strange picture. It’s primarily the story of a nerd who travels from Chicago to L.A., gets caught up in surfer culture, and learns, among other things, how to score with chicks. Yet the narrative also has a number of downbeat elements, such as the lead character’s quest to honor the legacy of his dead brother, and a likeable supporting character’s struggles with mortality. Plus, the top-billed actor in the cast isn’t Dennis Christopher, who plays the nerd, but Glynis O’Connor, who plays the pretty surfer girl living in the house where the nerd crashes during an eventful summer. So, in some awkward way, California Dreaming is also the story of how O’Connor’s character matures beyond beach-girl superficiality in order to recognize the nerd’s appealing qualities. California Dreaming seems like a real movie during long sequences of sensitive-ish character dramedy, and yet it seems like a sleazy exploitation flick whenever it devolves into ogling shots of undulating female body parts. The sum effect is middling.

          One big problem is the way Christopher is presented. Although the actor later demonstrated great oddball charm in Breaking Away (which was released a few months after California Dreaming), his characterization in California Dreamingis excessively awkward. With a faraway look in his eyes, a gangly build, and a weird habit of giggling at inappropriate moments, Christopher’s character comes across less like a geek who needs to get out of his shell and more like a budding serial killer. For instance, the scene during which a topless O’Connor enters a bathroom only to encounter an idiotically grinning Christopher seated on the toilet and staring at her while he’s in the middle of a bowel movement is particularly unpleasant to watch. As for O’Connor, the ’70s teen star who gave delicate performances in the TV movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble and the theatrical feature Ode to Billy Joe (both 1976), it’s depressing to see her transformed into yet another bleach-blonde starlet whose bikini body is given more prominence than her dramatic skills.

          Still another peculiar aspect of California Dreaming is the pathos found in subplots. For instance, Seymour Cassel easily steals the movie playing Duke Slusarksi, an aging beach bum with a mysterious past; the interest of his performance stems from wondering how many of the character’s tall tales are actually true, and the surprise of his performance comes from a startling scene in which he pays an awful price for prolonged adolescence. Far less compelling is a silly running joke about a local dude who takes a bet that he can live in his car for a month. California Dreaming provides ample footage of cool surfing and hot babes, but it’s hard to figure out the intended audience—the story’s too grim for the picture to qualify as escapist fare, and the abundance of tacky elements makes it impossible to take California Dreaming seriously.

California Dreaming: FUNKY

The Heartbreak Kid (1972)

          Crafted by two of New York’s most celebrated wits—and based on an idea by a lesser light from the same stratosphere—The Heartbreak Kid represents satire so cutting the movie borders on outright tragedy. The film tells the story of a young Jewish guy who marries a simple girl, experiences buyer’s remorse, meets a beautiful shiksa while on his honeymoon, and gets a quickie divorce so he can pursue his Gentile dream girl. To describe the lead character as unsympathetic would be a gross understatement—Lenny Cantrow’s sole redeeming quality is a deranged sort of relentless positivity.

          Based on a story by humorist Bruce Jay Friedman and written for the screen by Neil Simon—who mostly avoids his signature one-liners, opting instead for closely observed character-driven comedy—The Heartbreak Kid was directed by Elaine May. After achieving fame as part of a comedy duo with Mike Nichols in the ’60s, May embarked on an eclectic film career. She wrote, directed, and co-starred in the dark comedy A New Leaf (1971), which was the subject of battles between May and the studio during postproduction, then took on this project as director only. While May’s world-class comic instincts are evident in the timing of jokes and the generally understated tone of the acting, it’s easy to envision another director taking the same material to greater heights of hilarity.

          Or not.

          You see, the problem is that The Heartbreak Kid tells such a fundamentally cruel story that it’s hard to really “enjoy” the movie, even when the comedy gets into a groove. Much of the film comprises Lenny (Charles Grodin) abandoning or lying to his wife, Lila (Jeannie Berlin), so he can make time with Kelly (Cybill Shepherd), a bored rich girl who uses her sexual power for amusement. In other words, it’s the tale of a rotten guy dumping a nice girl for a bitch. The piece is redeemed, to some degree, by the skill of the performers, each of whom is perfectly cast. Grodin, a master at deadpan line deliveries, is all too believable as a middle-class schmuck with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. Berlin (incidentally, May’s daughter) bravely humiliates herself to make sight gags work, amply earning the Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress that she received for this movie. Shepherd, at the time a former model appearing in only her second movie, does most of her work just by showing up and looking unattainably beautiful, but one can see glimmers of the skilled comedienne she eventually became.

          The film’s other recipient of Oscar love, Best Supporting Actor nominee Eddie Albert, excels in his role as Kelly’s father, because his showdown scenes with Lenny are among the picture’s best—watching Albert slowly rise from simmering anger to boiling rage is pure pleasure. In fact, there’s so much good stuff in The Heartbreak Kid that it becomes a laudable movie by default, even though the central character is a putz of the first order. Inexplicably, the Farrelly Brothers remade The Heartbreak Kid in 2007 with Ben Stiller in the Grodin role, only to discover the story hadn’t lost its ability to infuriate. The remake flopped.

The Heartbreak Kid: GROOVY

Flesh Gordon (1974)

          Although it’s not the out-and-out porn film its reputation might suggest, Flesh Gordon is a cheerfully filthy spoof of the old Flash Gordon movie serials—the picture tries to blend satire with titillation by bombarding viewers with crude jokes, nudity, and sex scenes. The movie is quite awful, of course, but it moves along at a breakneck speed and, in its best moments, approaches an anything-goes party vibe that suggests a low-rent version of the comedy style perfected a few years later by the makers of Airplane!(1980). Obviously, the big difference is that the makers of Airplane! had real actors and a real budget, to say nothing of the fact that the Airplane!team didn’t have to interrupt their movie periodically for lingering close-ups of genitalia.

          The plot of Flesh Gordonis adapted from the first Flash Gordonserial, released in 1938 and starring Buster Crabbe. (Another version of the very same plot was employed for the big-budget Flash Gordon movie released in 1980.) When Earth is bombarded by a sex ray from outer space, which drives victims to uncontrolled lust, dashing adventurer Flesh Gordon (Jason Williams), his new girlfriend Dale Ardor (Suzanne Fields), and kooky scientist Dr. Flexi Jerkoff (Joseph Hudgins) fly into space to find the source of the sex ray and save the Earth. Arriving on the planet Porno, the heroes battle minions of evil Emperor Wang the Perverted (William Dennis Hunt), along the way encountering monsters and other fantastic creatures. This being a sex comedy, those fantastic creatures include the flamboyantly gay prince (Lance Larsen) of a men-in-tights troupe and the Amazonian leader (Candy Samples) of a lesbian cult.

          Ninety-nine percent of the jokes in Flesh Gordon are painfully stupid, the performances are terrible, and the editing is so choppy that some scenes appear as if from nowhere. However, writer/co-director Michael Benveniste and his collaborators cleverly shield themselves from legitimate criticism by framing the movie as a campy goof—the worse the acting gets, the better. Yet some aspects of the picture run perilously close to real filmmaking. For instance, the flick includes several elaborate scenes of stop-motion animation fused with live-action, leading to Harryhausen-style scenes of real actors fighting stop-motion monsters. This stuff is executed fairly well, given the budget constraints.

          That said, the way Flesh Gordon devotes long stretches of screen time to pure adventure would seem sure to infuriate the heavy-breathing crowd more interested in Flesh than Gordon. But then again, that’s why Flesh Gordon is so peculiar—it’s a kiddie movie for pervs. Consider this amusingly infantile chant, delivered by bottomless cheerleaders (!) in Wang’s palace: “Emperor Wang is the one for me—without him, the planet Porno would be ever so forlorn-o.” Or consider the very strange finale, which involves a giant, cloven-hooved monster who chases after the heroes while speaking in smooth, lounge-lizard patter. (Craig T. Nelson, the only familiar actor involved with the project, voices the monster in one of his earliest film performances, though he’s not credited.)

          FYI, there are two versions of Flesh Gordon in circulation. The original 78-minute version carried an X-rating, even though it’s not hardcore, and the 90-minute version available on home video is unrated. In the 90-minute version, the only full-on porn action involves a few extras making out on the periphery of crowd shots. Oh, and one more thing: Howard Ziehm, who co-directed and co-produced Flesh Gordon, resuscitated the character by directing a 1989 sequel, Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders, with an almost entirely new cast. Suffice to say the picture was not well received.

Flesh Gordon: FREAKY

Gas Pump Girls (1979)

There’s not much to say about something like Gas Pump Girls, the title of which tells you everything—this is a dim-witted sex comedy about pretty teenaged women working at a filling station. Sure, there’s a story of sorts, in which spunky June (Kirsten Baker) recruits her friends to help run her ailing uncle’s station while he’s recuperating from a heart attack. And, sure, there’s a villain of sorts, since the odious manager of the station across the street will do anything to deny June success. But nobody watches something called Gas Pump Girls for the plot—it’s all about dirty jokes and ogling. The jokes, generally speaking, are not funny, though they are indeed dirty. Several scenes feature dialogue crudely equating the insertion of a gas nozzle into a car’s tank with—well, you can figure it out. As for ogling opportunities, they are plentiful, though whether the skin on display is satisfying for any particular viewer is a matter of taste. Several attractive women appear topless, though the cast’s most glamorous starlet, alluring brunette Linda Lawrence, never disrobes further than bikinis and other peekaboo outfits. The acting is uniformly awful, but leading lady Baker does okay in the film’s strangest scene—for no particular reason, about 15 minutes into the movie, Baker breaks into song, briefly transforming Gas Pump Girls into a sweet, G-rated musical. Similarly, at one point later in the movie, Baker turns to the camera and addresses the audience for only one line. Gas Pump Girls can’t be described as a complete waste of film, simply because horny 14-year-old boys (and/or adults who think like them) can probably get what they want out of the movie. Beyond them, however, few will be able to tolerate Gas Pump Girls, much less actually enjoy the flick. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Gas Pump Girls: LAME

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)

          An oddity among Woody Allen’s early films, this picture comprises a series of comic sketches rather than a feature-length narrative—and though Allen’s career is filled with genius quickies, from one-liners to short stories to his hilarious contribution to the 1989 anthology film New York Stories, this movie doesn’t consistently represent his best work. The picture has wonderful moments, of course, and it’s mildly amusing from start to finish, but it ebbs considerably at times, and the lack of a narrative through-line makes the whole thing feel a bit disposable. The movie is based on Dr. David Reuben’s nonfiction bestseller Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), which was credited with broadening the number of sex-related subjects everyday Americans discussed without embarrassment.
          Prior to each of the movie’s seven sections, Allen presents a sex-related question via onscreen text, and then follows the question with a silly comic episode offering a possible answer to the question. Sometimes, Allen scores simply by being outrageous, like the “What is Sodomy?” section featuring a doctor (Gene Wilder) romancing a sheep—the combination of Allen’s sly dialogue and Wilder’s deadpan delivery produces goofy fun. Elsewhere, Allen gets carried away with discursive flourishes such as parodies of well-known film styles; the fact that he slows down the movie to spoof Italian neorealist drama, low-budget science fiction, and even Shakespearean adaptations indicates how far Allen was stretching for material. Another distracting element is Allen’s sporadic onscreen presence. He stars in the first and last segments, as well as two others, so the implied joke of dweeby Allen dominating a movie about sex is diluted. Plus, as was Allen’s cinematic wont at the time, he falls back on childish slapstick when he can’t muster verbal gags, so the tone of the movie fluctuates between cartoonish and sophisticated.

          Having said all that, the picture is worth watching if only for the final sequence, “What Happens During Ejaculation?” Representing Allen’s wit at its most mischievous, the sequence imagines the interior of a human brain as a military-style command center, with an uptight Operator (Tony Randall) calling the shots while body parts perform necessary functions. As the scene progresses, the Operator and his sidekick (Burt Reynolds) organize an army of sperm for deployment into a sex partner’s vagina—and one of the sperm “soldiers” is a nervous dork (Allen) who wonders if he’ll succeed in fertilizing an egg or simply die during the “invasion.” The sight of Allen in a ridiculous costume—white jumpsuit with a comically round abdomen and a tail—is funny before Allen even speaks his first line, so listening to him fret about his impending suicide mission kicks the sequence into comic overdrive.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask): GROOVY

There’s a Girl in My Soup (1970)

          Adapted from a hit play about a middle-aged lothario in swinging London who exploits the Sexual Revolution by sleeping with every young woman who falls for his pickup lines, There’s a Girl in My Soup is a mildly entertaining and mildly insightful sex farce that benefits from exceedingly nimble leading actors. In fact, the movie’s appeal stems almost entirely from the presence of British comedy icon Peter Sellers, who plays the lothario, and American funny girl Goldie Hawn, who plays, well, the girl in his soup—because the underlying material isn’t funny or purposeful enough to impress on its own merits. When the story begins, TV personality Robert Danvers (Sellers) is enjoying his fame immensely, seducing nearly every attractive woman he encounters. One evening, however, he meets an ebullient American named Marion (Hawn), who agrees to go home with Robert because she’s trying to get away from her two-timing musician boyfriend, Jimmy (Nicky Henson). Robert thinks he’s got it made, since Marion is a sexy little blonde, but it turns out she’s got attitude to burn. She derisively laughs at his pickup lines, mocks his age, and shames him into feeling guilty about wanting to use her.

          Relenting from his seduction, Robert is forced to engage with Marion as a person, and he soon falls under her offbeat spell. Meantime, she sees glimmers of decency behind his sex-crazed façade. Yet just when it seems like the story is about to head down the interesting path of a soul mate shaking Robert free of his pretensions, the characters become lovers and Robert begins entertaining notions of marriage. Compounded by the presence of a disappointingly flat ending, this left turn into domestic melodrama makes There’s a Girl in My Soup feel quite ordinary. Worse, the jokes aren’t particularly memorable. Sellers’ send-up of smoothies is amusing—his catchphrase, “My God, but you’re lovely,” is cringe-worthy—and Hawn’s eroticized dizziness has its charms. Somehow, though, their scenes never catch fire. There’s a Girl in My Soup gets points for presenting Marion as a fully formed person instead of a brainless sex object, but beyond that, the film’s virtues are few and modest.

There’s a Girl in My Soup: FUNKY

Sixpack Annie (1975)

American International Pictures might as well have titled this lowbrow comedy Boobs in the Boondocks, because it’s nothing more than a compendium of cleavage shots, demure nude scenes, and insulting redneck clichés. Some elements are executed with borderline competence, and the story basically makes sense from start to finish, but beyond that it’s hard to identify virtues except for the attractiveness of leading lady Lindsay Bloom. In other words, if you want a serving of Southern-fried stupidity with a side of smut, Sixpack Annie is the movie for you. The narrative concerns small-town waitress Annie Bodean (Bloom), who must raise money to save her family’s greasy-spoon diner from bankruptcy. Annie decides her best hope is sleeping with a rich man for cash, so she works her way through locals to no avail, then hooks up with her older sister, big-city hooker Flora (Louisa Moritz), for help identifying prospects in Miami. Accompanying all of this sleaze is inept slapstick—there’s literally a banana-peel gag—and horny dialogue so crude it barely deserves to be called innuendo. (Sample lyric from the movie’s execrable theme song: “Bang, bang, the whole dang town would love to bang Annie down.”) Director Graydon F. David, who wisely never made another movie, shoots the picture lifelessly, the script is idiotic, and the movie regularly stops dead for extended bits like comedian Stubby Kaye’s hackneyed traveling-salesman routine. Since none of this is actually funny, the main attraction is Bloom, who is pretty and shapely even though she sports a tacky blonde dye job throughout the picture; while she’s not especially skilled as an actress, Bloom exhibits believable sass and tries hard to make terrible jokes work. FYI, future TV star Bruce Boxleitner appears briefly as Annie’s boyfriend. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Sixpack Annie: LAME

The Owl and the Pussycat (1970)

          Overwritten and shrill, to say nothing of ferociously demeaning to women, The Owl and the Pussycat is a weird relic of the sexual revolution—the movie’s preoccupation with libidinous urges recalls a historical moment during which horniness was conflated in the public conversation with progressive thinking. To say this so-called comedy hasn’t aged well is an understatement, and in fact were it not for the presence of a certain superstar in the leading female role, chances are The Owl and the Pussycat would have long ago disappeared from mainstream exhibition. Yet there Barbra Streisand is, at the apex of her post-Funny Girl popularity, spewing one-liners and wearing sexy outfits while playing a prostitute who falls into an unlikely romance with a struggling author.

          Based on a play by Bill Manhoff—and overhauled significantly by screenwriter Buck Henry—the story begins when uptight writer Felix (George Segal) notices an attractive young woman in the window of an apartment within his complex. When he realizes she’s turning tricks in her pad, Felix reports the woman to their mutual landlord. A short time later, the woman, whose name is Doris (Streisand), shows up at Felix’s doorstep demanding a place to crash since his tattling got her evicted. Most of the movie takes place during this duo’s first night together: Doris berates Felix for his stuffiness while Felix begs her to stop talking so he can sleep. Felix also tries to pretend he’s not aroused, even though Doris struts around in a peekaboo costume complete with embroidered hands decorating the cups of her brassiere.

          Some of the movie’s banter is clever, like a running gag of Felix baffling Doris with polysyllables, but Doris is so obnoxious it’s hard to see any attraction past the physical. Similarly, Felix is a judgmental prick who lies about his literary achievements and avoids mentioning his engagement to another woman. These are awful people, so only the charm of the performers makes them remotely palatable. Director Herbert Ross does a fine job of keeping things lively through movement and pacing, and he ensures that Streisand looks as alluring as possible. In fact, even though the movie supposedly presents Streisand as a strong-willed individual, Ross’ camera never misses an opportunity to ogle her curves. Furthermore, the picture’s ending finds Doris begging for a louse’s approval. There’s a smidgen of wit here and there, and both the acting and filmmaking are strong given the limitations of the material, but the misogyny on display throughout The Owl and the Pussycat is consistently unpleasant—so proceed with caution.

The Owl and the Pussycat: FUNKY

Carnal Knowledge (1971)

          A dark and strange exploration of male sexuality, Carnal Knowledge sprang from the bitter pen of playwright/satirist Jules Feiffer, with the sophisticated social observer Mike Nichols serving as director. The story begins in the ’50s, when college roommates Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel) fumble their way through early sexual encounters with coeds. Jonathan’s an unapologetic horndog who soothes his insecurities through physical conquest, and, at least in his early days, Sandy is a romantic trying to balance libidinous urges with respect for women. The boys form a triangle with worldly coed Susan (Candice Bergen), who is drawn to Sandy’s sweetness but can’t resist Jonathan’s confidence. After this triangle runs its painful course, the movie skips forward and eventually lands in late-’60s New York City.

          Jonathan, who has grown into a deeply angry adult, gets involved with Bobbie (Ann-Margret), an older woman whose va-va-voom figure drives him wild. Unfortunately for him, she comes complete with emotional needs that he’s incapable of meeting, so their romance devolves into a regular schedule of screeching arguments. Meanwhile, Sandy becomes a seeker of sorts, bouncing from one unsatisfactory relationship to the next, and Jonathan makes wildly inappropriate passes at Sandy’s girlfriends.

          Much of the picture’s nonstop dialogue is sharp, capturing the extremes of emotionally crippled individuals. In one harrowing moment, for instance, Jonathan screams to Bobbie, “For God’s sake, I’d almost marry you if you’d leave me!” Nonetheless, the wall-to-wall dysfunction is a bit much. Since Feiffer and Nichols populate the movie exclusively with characters who are horrible or weak, if not both, their implied statement about the inability of men and women to coexist seems arch, forced, and unpersuasive. It’s also unclear whether Carnal Knowledge is meant to be drama or satire—is watching these sad people destroy each other supposed to be funny?

          Nonetheless, the film garnered considerable praise during its initial release, with Ann-Margret winning a Golden Globe and Feiffer earning a Writers Guild Award nomination. Furthermore, the film’s craftsmanship is impeccable. Nichols employs a restrained visual style, putting the focus on potent acting. The four lead actors are quite good, with Ann-Margret surpassing the low expectations established by her long string of shallow sex-kitten roles prior to this movie. Bergen conveys an alluring brand of icy intelligence, while ’60s pop icon Garfunkel, giving his first major dramatic performance, presents a unique sort of natural twitchiness. As for Nicholson, he’s hamstrung by a severe characterization, since Jonathan is more a compendium of compulsions than a genuine individual. Nicholson’s performance is creepily intense, but not realistic.

Carnal Knowledge: FUNKY