Race With the Devil (1975)

With its enjoyably ludicrous premise and its tasty combination of leading players, Race With the Devil should be a winner—I mean, come on, it’s a drive-in thriller starring Peter Fonda and Warren Oates as a couple of everydudes who witness a murder committed by Satanists, escape in their Winnebago, and suffer through a frightening chase across the Lone Star state. What’s not to like? Well, there’s a whole lot of dead space between the kicky opening act and the wild finale, and the middle of the movie is surprisingly turgid. Director Jack Starrett, whose career started with a couple of lively biker movies, had a bad habit of landing on projects with wobbly scripts—just like Race With the Devil, his movies Cleopatra Jones (1973), The Gravy Train (1974), and A Small Town in Texas (1976) sound great in concept, but end up being tough sits in reality. Part of the problem, obviously, is that Starrett concentrates on generating pulpy sensations instead of building credible characters. Individual scenes in his ’70s movies are exciting, but there’s very little emotional momentum to keep people watching during quiet sequences. Which brings up a major issue with this particular picture—just how many quiet sequences does a movie called Race With the Devil actually need? During the picture’s spongy middle stretch, Fonda and Oates sit around and chat a whole lot. They also fall into the classic Satanist-movie trap—relying on third parties who turn out to be in cahoots with the devil worshippers. Still, Fonda and Oates share an easy chemistry, so some scenes are mildly pleasurable just for the fun of watching two interesting personalities share the same space. The supporting cast isn’t of much note, with Loretta Swit of M*A*S*Hfame and the lovely Lara Parker playing the heroes’ wives—both actresses do a lot of screaming—and reliable screen heavy R.G. Armstrong snarling his way through a trite role as a redneck sheriff. Considering how sluggish this movie gets, there’s some irony to the tagline in the flick’s whiz-bang trailer: “When you race with the devil, you’d better be faster than hell!” Had the filmmakers heeded that advice, Race With the Devilcould have realized its considerable potential.

Race With the Devil: FUNKY

The White Dawn (1974)

          With its colorful cast and impressive location photography—to say nothing of the admirable use of indigenous actors and language—The White Dawn should be engrossing. Set in the late 19th century, the story depicts what happens when three American whalers become stranded in Eskimo country, first assimilating into the local culture and then clashing with their Native hosts. The whalers are played by Timothy Bottoms, Louis Gossett Jr., and Warren Oates, all of whom are interesting actors, and director Philip Kaufman—helming only his second big-budget feature—displays his signature interest in sociopolitical subtleties. Yet not even Kaufman’s ethnographic approach can enliven the dull and unmemorable storyline, which unfolds in a predictable way and suffers from a paucity of significant events. Very little about The White Dawn lingers in the memory except for a general wintry vibe, because while the cinematography is tough and vivid—director of photography Michael Chapman operates way outside his usual New York milieu, to impressive effect—the narrative lacks surprises.

          Producer Martin Ransohoff, who also wrote the underlying adaptation of the James Houston novel upon which the film is based, took a bold route by featuring extensive scenes of Inuit dialogue, and the fact that most of the cast comprises Eskimo performers gives The White Dawn authenticity other adventure pictures set in the Great White North lack. Yet one longs for a storyline as virile as those found in, say, the tales of Jack London. That said, it’s moderately diverting to watch vignettes of the white characters reacting to the strangeness of life in the Arctic Circle—as when they’re awoken by water from the melting ceiling of their igloo—and the picture features a few informative scenes showing Eskimo rituals. The White Dawn isn’t a bad film, of course, because it’s using the white characters as a means of exposing viewers to a rarely seen world, but the tone runs so close to that of a drably educational documentary that Ransohoff might have been better off just ditching the fictional contrivance altogether.

The White Dawn: FUNKY

Cockfighter (1974)

          The strangest thing about Cockfighter is simply that it exists. A meditative character piece about a Southern drifter who makes his life training chickens for death matches with other chickens—and who, for most of the movie, refuses to speak—Cockfighter is daring even by the standards of offbeat ’70s American cinema, if only by dint of the storyline’s inherent ugliness. Did anyone involved in the picture believe that broad audiences would be able to sympathize with a protagonist who leads animals to slaughter for sport and profit? But that’s the ’70s for you, a wild time when brash young filmmakers somehow got funding to put the inner lives of society’s freaks onto the screen. And, indeed, the inner life of Frank Mansfield (Warren Oates) is very much the subject of Cockfighter, which was adapted by Charles Willeford from his novel of the same name. Frank is a self-destructive iconoclast who takes such crazy pride in his skills that he bets all his assets on his feathered killers, then suffers in silence when things don’t go his way.

          At the beginning of the picture, Frank is partway through a long, grueling odyssey to regain his pride. We learn, via flashbacks and narration, that after Frank lost a crucial match some time ago, he swore himself to silence unless he won the Cockfighter of the Year medal. In the grungy universe of this movie, Frank and his colleagues work an underground circuit of formal and informal matches, all of which are governed by an unyielding code of honor. So, just as we see Frank earn the respect of his peers by taking losses gracefully, we see minor characters excoriated for defying accepted methods. In one gruesome scene, for instance, a redneck trainer named Junior (Steve Railsback) gets disqualified for agitating a bird by inserting his (Junior’s) fingers into the bird’s anus. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie—sort of.

          While the content of Cockfighteris frequently repulsive, the actual images are artful, except, of course, during the actual fighting scenes (many of which are filmed in horrific slow-motion). As directed by Monte Hellman, who earned a cult following in the ’70s for his heavily metaphorical character studies, Cockfighteris memorable but undisciplined. Some episodes in the story feel germane while others feel superfluous. Additionally, the portrayal of women in Frank’s life is confounding, since it’s hard to tell whether Frank’s a romantic or a son of a bitch. Further, the movie’s occasional leaps into redneck humor feel out of step with the overall lyrical vibe. Yet Oates is a fascinating presence, as always, his hangdog features perfectly suited for an outsider character with a savage streak, and the invaluable Harry Dean Stanton enlivens several scenes as Frank’s preening, scheming pal. Cockfighter is an odd beast for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that the movie is both simplistic and complex—on one level, it’s a superficial exploitation flick, and on another, it’s a ballad of loneliness. With a lot of foul-tempered fowl.

Cockfighter: FREAKY

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

          Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia represents director Sam Peckinpah’s worldview at its most unforgiving—instead of presenting violence alongside his usual themes of honor and masculine identity, Peckinpah uses this movie to present violence as its own unique force of nature, an insidious virus that destroys everyone it touches. Even the very texture of the film seethes with hatred and malice, because Peckinpah eschews the macho lyricism of his other work for a style as down-and-dirty as that of any low-budget exploitation film. Watching the picture, viewers can smell the sweat on every character’s skin, just like the rank odor of death permeates the grisly storyline.

          Set in Mexico, the movie begins with a crime lord (Emilio Fernandez) torturing his own daughter to find out who impregnated hear. Learning that the culprit is the crime lord’s protégé, Alfredo Garcia, the villain issues the horrific command featured in the movie’s title. Eager for the reward the crime lord is offering, two white mercenaries (played by Robert Webber and Gig Young) begin searching for Garcia, eventually landing in a seedy bar where retired U.S. Army vet Bennie (Warren Oates) works as a manager and piano player. Bennie learns about the bounty on Garcia and confronts his lady, Elita (Isela Vega), a prostitute who’s been two-timing Bennie by sleeping with the elusive Garcia. Elita says Garcia recently died in a car wreck. His craven lust for money and revenge surging, Bennie invites Elita for a road trip without explaining that he plans to exhume Garcia’s body, remove the head, and collect the crime lord’s bounty.

          This being a Peckinpah film, things get complicated and ugly once Bennie embarks on his mission—a miserable cycle of betrayal, murder, rape, and theft leads Bennie inexorably toward a bloody standoff with the crime lord, whom the twisted Bennie identifies as the source of his misery.

          Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is Peckipah unleashed, a vicious story without heroes or victims, just schemers who pay horrible costs for crossing other schemers. Since Peckinpah was a self-destructive man who battled with nearly everyone in his life, from close friends to the many enemies he made, it’s impossible not to see the parallels between the subject matter of this relentless movie and Peckinpah’s bleak outlook on his own doomed life. And just as the filmmaker made a mess of his offscreen existence, he keeps Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcialoose, constructing a storyline with co-writer Gordon Dawson that meanders from one low-down vignette to the next; the implied message is that no matter how bad life gets, it can always get worse.

          Delivering this message with perfect clarity is Peckinpah favorite Oates, giving the best performance of his singular career. Dishonest, fidgety, volatile and yet somehow weirdly human, Oates’ Bennie is an unforgettable figure—his slovenly pursuit of crazed “justice” dramatizes what happens when a man’s better angels get strangled by greed, jealously, and other petty impulses. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a chaotic movie marred by rampant misogyny, script irregularities, and technical imperfections—but in a strange way, these flaws amplify the movie’s vision of a world without moral order.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia: RIGHT ON

The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973)

          Like its amiable leading character, The Thief Who Came to Dinnerneither contributes much of anything to society nor aspires to do so—this is simply a lightweight caper flick with attractive leading players, an eclectic supporting cast, and a winning sense of humor. Ryan O’Neal stars as Webster McGee, a bored computer programmer who quits his job when he realizes that in a consumerist society, everyone’s stealing from everyone else—so why not just become an actual criminal? Targeting the jet set, people whom he figures can afford to lose some of their extravagant wealth, McGee starts breaking into homes, and the movie has fun demonstrating his not-always-successful methods—for instance, he carefully cuts a perfect hole in a second-story window, only to have the entire window shatter when he extracts the portion he’s cut.

          Eventually, Webster purloins incriminating documents from a corrupt executive (Charles Cioffi), and then blackmails the executive into introducing Webster to other wealthy people during a dinner party (hence the movie’s title). In addition to helping Webster target potential victims, this move connects Webster with Laura (Jacqueline Bisset), a gorgeous heiress. During one of the movie’s most enjoyable dialogue exchanges, Laura reveals that she’s just as impressed with Webster’s looks as she is with his. “You’re too beautiful to be any good,” she says. “Any good at what?” he replies. “What else is there?” she retorts. Zing!

          Based on a novel by Terrence Lore Smith, The Thief Who Came to Dinner was scripted by Walter Hill, generally known for his terse action stories, and this is by far the best-realized pure comedy in his filmography. Rather than trying for big laughs, he opts for gentle situational humor and soft-spoken running gags, although his gifts for manly-man storytelling serve him well in terms of driving the narrative forward with ticking-clock tension. And even if the cat-and-mouse game that arises between McGee and an insurance investigator is rather trite, the playfulness of the storytelling and the grumpy charm of Warren Oates’ performance as the investigator make the subplot highly rewarding. Pulling all of these disparate elements together into a seamless whole is producer-director Bud Yorkin, a TV-comedy veteran best known as Norman Lear’s longtime producing partner; Yorkin employs unhurried pacing to showcase the ample charms of the cast and the screenplay.

          It helps that composer Henry Mancini gives the movie a smooth lounge-music patina with a jaunty score of the type he regularly generated for Blake Edwards’ Pink Panther movies. It’s also noteworthy that O’Neal gives one of his best performances, slipping comfortably into the skin of a man who refuses to get stressed out by life, and that Bisset complements her remarkable beauty with a deft touch for banter. Plus, any movie with the good taste to feature Ned Beatty, Jill Clayburgh, John Hillerman, Michael Murphy, Austin Pendleton, and Gregory Sierra in supporting roles is obviously doing something right.

The Thief Who Came to Dinner: GROOVY

China 9, Liberty 37 (1978)

          Even though the movie as a whole is deeply problematic, there are things to like in China 9, Liberty 37, the last feature cult-fave director Monte Hellman made before entering the wilderness years of his peculiar career. A soft-spoken cowboy drama, the picture is nominally a spaghetti Western because it was shot in Europe, co-produced and co-written by Italians, and stars an Italian hunk whose dialogue is dubbed (badly) into English. Yet the film’s key supporting actors are native English speakers, and Hellman’s sensitivity to American idioms lends a degree of credibility. So, while China 9, Liberty 37 has many of the usual storytelling hiccups that bedevil spaghetti Westerns, it’s possible to see the framework of a better movie beneath the dodgy façade. The story begins when an outlaw named Clayton Drumm (Fabio Testi) is offered a choice: He can die by hanging or agree to kill a miner named Matthew Sebanek (Warren Oates), whose refusal to sell his land is causing headaches for a railroad company. Clayton consents to murder Matthew, but upon arriving at the miner’s homestead, Clayton finds Matthew to be so welcoming that pulling the trigger becomes difficult. Furthermore, Clayton falls for Matthew’s sexy young wife, Catherine (Jenny Agutter).
          There’s nothing particularly fresh in this plot, the characters aren’t especially well-developed, and the dialogue can tend toward triteness. Furthermore, Hellman’s images are rather drab, even though the great Italian cinematographer Giusseppe Rotunno brightens the director’s uninspired frames with warm lighting. Therefore, what makes the picture work, at least to the modest degree that it does, is the humanity of Hellman’s storytelling and the textured quality of Oates’ performance. While not completely eschewing his signature gruffness, Oates gets to paint with softer colors than usual, so it’s poignant to see his character realize he’s a target. As for his costars, Agutter is alluring and tough while Testi is an impressive physical specimen but nothing more. Yet even when hindered by choppy writing and iffy acting, Hellman keeps the focus on simple human dynamics. Thus, China 9, Liberty 37 ends up having several worthwhile elements, even if they’re probably outnumbered by the film’s myriad weaknesses.

China 9, Liberty 37: FUNKY