Sunset Gun

Warren Beatty Singin' and Rappin'--The Frequent Genius of Ishtar and Bulworth

Don't hate him because he's beautiful.

According to Robin Morgan's The Book of Film Biographies, actor Warren Beatty is "more famous for his espousal of liberal causes and his affairs with actresses from Joan Collins to Madonna--despite his achievements." How unfortunate. This Hollywood legend has gone from pretty-boy method actor in Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass to producer and star of the seminal anti-establishment picture (far superior to Easy Rider) Bonnie and Clyde. He created and starred in films like the The Parallax View, a superb paranoid political thriller; Shampoo, a dark satire in which he plays the only straight hairdresser in California; and Heaven Can Wait, a sweet romantic comedy that, consistent with '70s cinema, manged to feel depressing. He also directed and starred in Reds, the critically acclaimed saga of John Reed and played a knockout Bugsy Siegel in Bugsy.

For anyone who either knows a few things about film history or read Peter Biskind's gossipy Easy Riders Raging Bulls, you should understand Beatty's contribution to cinema is significant. But how about his contribution to comedy?

Just as I revere Beatty for his work with Kazan, Arthur Penn and Hal Ashby, I believe the actor to be one of the most underrated comic actors in the business. In his knack for it, the man is near brilliant. Where did he prove this best? In two films where he gets musical--Elaine May's Ishtar, one of the most misunderstood and under-watched comedies of all time and Bulworth, a film that's almost a masterpiece. I've witnessed countless people make the sour face when I bring up both films only to learn they have usually never even seen Ishtar or simply discount Bulworth as a silly mistake. How wrong they are. Some don't even know the oftentimes genius Elaine May (who directed and co-starred in the masterful A New Leaf with Walter Matthau) directed Ishtar. But due to the press attacking the over-budget supposed turkey; it's maligned beyond the level of Gigli.

So if you haven't, just watch the first half hour of Ishtar. Beatty's handsome, shrewd dark side, seen in films such as Lilith, is obscured by a perfectly timed, soft-spoken dumbbell act. Playing the supposedly less attractive friend to "The Hawk" Dustin Hoffman (also hilarious in Ishtar) his half of a struggling songwriting act is so funny and oddly poignant that the moment he opens his mouth to talk, or simply, breath through it, he's comical. Driving an ice cream truck while proudly coming up with the jingle: "Hot fudge love cherry ripple kisses. Lip smacking, back slapping perfectly delicious," we see a guy who's obsessed with his "skill" no matter how much he stinks (and honestly, he's not so bad at times). He strains to think, he stumbles over words (his attempt to pronounce the slang "shmuck" is timed with perfection) and he tries so hard--especially when he belts out: "Telling the truth can be dangerous business, honest and popular don't go hand in hand. If you admit you can play the accordion, they'll never hire you in a rock and roll band!"

Beatty must have given more credence to this lyric than originally imagined. Telling the truth is dangerous business, and Beatty proves it in Bulworth, a political satire that offers an intriguing look at Beatty's sharp cynicism. Written, directed and produced by Beatty, Bulworth tells the story of a U.S. senator from California who becomes insanely depressed during his bid for re-election. Sick to death of his political rhetoric ("we stand at the doorstep of a new millennium"), Bulworth (Beatty) has a nervous breakdown and plots self-assassination. Then he meets Nina (Halle Berry), sheds his old, crooked ways and starts anew by, shockingly, telling the truth. But he's still got a problem: a man is trying to kill him.

Once we see where Bulworth is going, the picture branches into two stories, not always compatible. One is a biting comedy that lampoons white liberal dishonesty. In this story we have a man who, during a speech in a church packed with black supporters, says it is obvious the Democratic Party doesn't care about African Americans. He asserts that they will never amount to anything if they don't put down their "chicken wings and malt liquor" and if they continue to support a "former running back who stabbed his wife." In defense of his candor he shrugs, "Hey, I'm just calling a spade a spade." But there is also a screwball love story that puts whitey in the hood. Here, he hangs with a group of under-age drug dealers, smokes weed, does coke and gets drunk at a black nightclub where he dances crazy style with Nina. Wearing baggy shorts, basketball shoes, a gold chain and a ski cap, Bulworth continues his campaign by rapping on national television--and gains popularity. It is inevitable that Bulworth's rushed, insane honesty (accompanied by Cypress Hill's "Insane in the Membrane") will lead to his downfall. And Bulworth falls hard. Beatty is hilarious showing his new black consciousness, and though his comedic talent could have been bolstered even more by a sharper political wit, the film moved into brave territory that unlike other un-PC lampoons, rarely plays simplistic or merely for shock value.

Faults aside, Bulworth is fascinating. Beatty is presenting blacks in a disadvantaged, urban milieu, but he isn't pandering to them as victims. He finds humor and relevance in the complex tension between the races. Beatty also perfects his "why are you looking at me?" stare. His comedic talent lies in his Dorian Gray ability to reflect through deflecting: We won't see how horrible the world is when we look into Beatty's childish eyes, and even if we do, we won't care, because they are such nice eyes. The ugliness of his actions in Bonnie and Clyde, the selfishness of his hairdresser in Shampoo, the violence of his psychologist in Lilith and his horrible singing voice in Ishtar are all effectively made pretty, and Beatty is smart enough to know this. As Hoffman says in all seriousness to Beatty in Ishtar: "Shit man, when you're on you're on."

Fab Flaxens--Alexander and More

As I’m still absorbing the maniacal dramatics of Oliver Stone’s Alexander, a picture I just saw today, my mind keeps returning not to Stone’s particular vision but rather to…Colin Farrel’s hair. Though many women loooovve the black Irish Tomcat (and I think he is an impressive actor), I agree with Oliver Stone’s assessment that Farrel makes a better blonde. And I typically prefer brunettes. So in honor of just how much hair can change a performance, I’m re-running my Top Ten Blonde Movie Moments. More on Alexander later...

10. Born Yesterday (1950) -- The Not-So-Dumb-Blonde
Now would this title make any sense if our leading lady were a brunette? Judy Holliday practically created the funny, bottle-blonde, good-time moll whose fractured vocabulary can be more creative than the poetry of e.e. cummings. Her high-pitched, birdbrain voice even embarrasses her bullying gangster boyfriend as he attempts to socialize with the classy people in Washington, D.C. Enter William Holden, who's paid to smarten her up. But in the age-old dilemma of men not really wanting their women that smart (too smart to figure out he's a jerk), her boyfriend tires of all her newfound knowledge. For example, while attempting to degrade her, he yells, "You think you're so smart, huh? What's a peninsula?" "It's that new medicine!" she shrieks back. But after his violent threat of, "Shut up! You ain't gonna be tellin' nobody nothin' pretty soon!" she barks back: "Double negative!!" Holliday's physical and vocal incarnations would later surface as Jean Hagen's Lina Lamont in Singin’ in the Rain ("An' I can' stan' em!") and Mia Farrow’s chorus chorine in Woody Allen’s Radio Days ("Hawk! I hear the canon's woar!") and, of course Reese Witherspoon's Legally Blonde protagonist Elle Woods, who may not even know just how indebted she is to this movie. Well, Reese is blonde ...

9. Blade Runner (1982) -- Cyber Blonde
A little bit Marlene Dietrich, a little bit David Bowie and all man, Rutger Hauer’s Lucifer-like replicant in Blade Runner is one of the most sublime blonds ever to hang from a rain-soaked rooftop. Against the hard-boiled Harrison Ford, the perfectly made Hauer steals the show as a broken hearted baddie who finalizes the picture with one good deed. Making many a guy weep for that extraordinarily good-looking Aryan (Hauer's Dutch but ... same thing), he no doubt, made legions of guys sneak into their girlfriend's supply of Clairol. Or come out of the closet.

8. Double Indemnity (1944) -- The Femme Fatale
Film noir had an overflow of dangerous blonde dames. For example, Lana Turner's blonde-in-white in The Postman Always Rings Twice, Veronica Lake's peek-a-boo in The Blue Dahlia and Peggy Cummins’ pistol-packing mama in Gun Crazy. But it is Barbara Stanwyck in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity that still reigns as noir's meanest ice queen and perhaps cinema's smartest blonde. As Phyllis Dietrichson, the double crosser to Fred MacMurray’s Walter Neff, Babs wore one of cinema's greatest wigs: a shoulder-length, golden-blonde number with thick under-curled bangs. With those dark glasses, she's the eternal symbol of the femme fatale. It's no mistake that Brian De Palma opens his Femme Fatale with her steely image. Don't ever think blonde means soft.

7.  The Bad Seed (1956) -- The Terrible Towhead
Though Marlene Dietrich sang, "You'll try in vain, you can't explain, the charming, alarming blonde women," she could have just as easily been singing of blonde children. Being an evil blonde child is the ultimate perversion: Blonde kiddies are supposed to represent purity. But The Bad Seed tapped into what some of us secretly think about those do-gooder Goldilocks with their cutesy smiles, pigtails and pinafore dresses -- evil! Not only does little 8-year-old badass Patty McCormack clobber a kid to death with her shoes (the ones with the taps on them), she then torches the maintenance man who is on to her. Never trust anyone over 30? Try under 13 ... and blonde.

6. White Oleander (2002)-- The Blonde-semble piece
"We're not like that. We're the Vikings," says sociopathic blonde mother Michelle Pfeiffer to her crying teenage daughter Alison Lohman in White Oleander. One of cinema's great blonde-semble pieces, this melodrama is supposed to be, in part, about the foster-care system, but Oleander really shows the varied, sometimes insane incarnations of blonde womanhood. Pfeiffer -- a gorgeous mix of Ted Bundy and Grace Kelly -- gets thrown in the slammer for killing her lover, leaving Lohman to endure a series of traumatic foster moms. One is a trashy blonde ex-stripper (Robin Wright Penn) who ends up pulling a gun on the teenager. The other is a loving but needy blonde actress (Renee Zellweger) who's so insecure she overdoses on sleeping pills. Somehow these women's tragedies are made all the worse because they're blonde, giving the picture a subversive, underlying theme of blonde oppression.  A stretch? Hardly. Check out the two massively dramatic scenes involving hair. One has a hardened Lohman attacked by a (ahem) brunette in a juvy facility. Sick of being pretty, Lohman cuts her long blonde hair with a knife! You can practically hear the ringlets screaming. She then lumbers over to the offending brunette and threatens to cut her throat. And when Lohman makes the decision to avoid the painful foster moms she's drawn to (you know, blondes), she chooses the no-nonsense, saucy foster mother with the dark hair. Then she does something that makes her gorgeous prison mama almost faint in the visiting yard: She dies her hair black! What is the world doing to her?

5. Blonde Venus (1932) -- Uber Blonde
At the same time of Jean Harlow’s popularity, Josef von Sternberg was crafting his own goddess in the very German form of leggy, sunken-cheek-boned and languid Marlene Dietrich. Sternberg made many iconic blonde movies for Marlene (The Blue Angel and The Scarlet Empress just to name a few) but Blonde Venus stands out as the ultimate in blonde ambition. Dietrich plays the full spectrum of the blonde. She's an ex-German café singer who marries a good-hearted Englishman. She's a happy hausfrau and adoring mother. Then, she's a cabaret star and harlot who dances in a gorilla suit and becomes really, really famous. You know, the whole blonde journey. The film features two iconic blonde numbers: There's Marlene in her famed white tux, tails and top hat and (you heard us right) Marlene in a gorilla suit. In one of film's most surreal moments, Marlene removes a gorilla head revealing her blonde-haloed face. To make herself even more eye-popping, she grabs a blonde Afro wig, places it on her head and sings "Hot Voodoo." Describing this moment requires two words you don't often see together: blonde genius.

4. …And God Created Woman (1956) -- Initials BB
What a difference a movie makes ... Though Marilyn was a sensation, it's French sex kitten Brigitte Bardot who created a sexual revolution. Directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, ... And God Created Woman essentially invented the sexuality, style and liberation of the next decade. Gyrating to bongo drums, frolicking naked on the beach, engaging in illicit sex and driving men crazy with a desire they never knew existed, BB threw the late '50s finely coifed blonde world on its soft derriere. Simone de Beauvoir wrote an ode to her; the Catholic Church condemned her; and paparazzi hurled themselves over cliffs for her. Not to mention Serge Gainsbourg wrote songs for and about her -- "Je t'aime" was written especially for Bardot. BB was so ahead of her time here, with her exotic, lioness blondeness of long unkempt hair, full lips and sun-kissed skin, it took the '90s to catch up to her.  There would be no Claudia Schiffer and no Pamela Anderson without BB.

3. Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953) -- The Bombshell
There are those men who swear this title isn't true, and in many cases they're right, but if you had a choice between Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in Howard Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, come on, who would you choose? Not that Jane isn't hot; her distinct dark-brown beauty and decency is important to Gentlemen, serving as the temper to Marilyn's gold-digging pluck. You see, the brunette gal understands MM (who, incidentally, had the same colorist as Harlow over two decades later): She's got a heart of gold, it's just heaving for diamonds. This, of course, leads to one of the greatest blonde musical numbers in cinema history: "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," extolling the virtue of having your assets and eating them too. The number is one of the greatest blonde contributions to world history, not to mention the inspiration for another famous blonde -- Madonna.

2. Vertigo (1958) -- The Hitchcock Blonde
"Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints." So said Alfred Hitchcock, whose fave blonde, Grace Kelly, you would expect to grace this list (not to mention fellow fair-heads Tippi Hedren in The Birds and Marnie, Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest and Janet Leigh in Pyscho). Sorry. Kim Novak in Vertigo makes this thriller the ultimate Hitchcock blonde movie. Revealing the fetishistic obsession the auteur had with the fairer haired, Hitch made the aw-shucks Jimmy Stewart into a raving pervert thanks to Kim and that hair! Falling for the suicide blonde with the upswept 'do, Stewart goes to pieces when he sees her apparently dive from a church tower. But when he finds her look-a-like in a decidedly floozy brunette (Hitchcock really found a difference between the classy blondes and the feral brunette), he simply can't love her unless she's the cool blonde in the gray suit. When Novak finally walks towards him with her hair EXACTLY the way he likes it, you'd think she'd just parted the Red Sea. Leave it to Hitchcock to film the most magically perverse and sickly romantic blonde moment ever.

1. Bombshell (1933) -- The Prototype
With the help of eccentric aviator Howard Hughes, who labored over the starlet's moniker ("Blonde Landslide"? "Blonde Fury"? "Blonde Sunshine"?), cinema's first and greatest blonde, the swaggering, tough-talking but endearing Jean Harlow, was labeled the "Platinum Blonde." Director Frank Capra dutifully changed the title of his Harlow screwball from the decidedly un-sexy Gallagher to, well, Platinum Blonde. Harlow, the first fake blonde (her natural color was ash blonde), had already changed follicle history forever by making blonde the "it" color. Brave women went peroxide crazy attempting to emulate the newest screen sensation, defying those who deemed them floozies. In Victor Fleming's 1933's Bombshell, Harlow was game to make clever fun of her persona, on screen and in real life (though the film was also based on the first "it" girl Clara Bow). A hilarious look at the goofy shenanigans of a movie star, her "people," the industry, and the man who falls in love with her, Bombshell contains this famous line, hysterically uttered by a blonde-smitten Franchot Tone: "Your hair is like a field of silver daisies. I'd like to run barefoot through your hair!"

TOP TEN BLONDE MOVIE MOMENTS:

The Other Bridget--Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason

Is Bridget Jones mentally retarded?

That’s the question that swirled through my head as I watched this atrocious sequel to the supposedly you-go-girl first installment of that movie where we gasped at Renée Zellweger’s cellulite.

Bridget Jones's Diary, a film that purported the idea that us gals need this Bridget Jones bird to, you know, relate to, follows up with a sequel that drains any existing charm from the first picture (and there wasn’t much) by offering us a fatter, dumber Bridget. Gee thanks. We just can’t get enough of chunky, dumb chicks in our everyday life—we now need to watch one, and an Academy-Award-winning-one no less, make a complete ass of herself on the largeness of a movie screen. What’s next? Bridget Jones: Girls Gone Wild? Actually, it wouldn’t be any kind of stretch for old Bridget as she’s put through situations equally humiliating as those brain-i-acs who pull their tops up like Pavlovian Dogs in search of beer.

But why? Why do this to a character we’re required, practically, demanded to adore? Either the director, Beeban Kidron, thought it absolutely hee-larious watching Bridget roll in pig shit (literally)…or (and this is my suspicion because girls can be such catty BITCHES sometimes), Kidron had it in for Renée. The film is so cruel to her cute, crinkly-faced visage that you can almost hear the director whisper to the DP: “That skinny little thing is gonna learn what it means to be dumpy! No cute Playboy Bunny outfits this time round!”

But again, I ask why? For reality sake? OK…let’s just study the realism angle of Bridget Jones. She obsesses over her weight. Check. She’s having difficulty finding someone to marry. Check. She wants to quit smoking and drinking. Check. She doesn’t know where Germany is. Check. Allright…and that’s interesting because? Well, sorry, can’t answer that.

So let’s move on to the (quote unquote) and frankly stupid “impossible Hollywood standards for regular women” angle. She dates the lady killer Hugh Grant (Daniel) even though she’s a chunk. She dates Colin Firth, (Darcy), a human rights attorney even though she continually embarrasses him at dinner parties and has nothing intelligent to talk about. She has a TV job that allows her to drop out of airplanes and venture to Thailand where in between reporting, she can trip out on 'shrooms and party with her best friend. Where is any of this making sense? Its not that she’s chubby—we would understand the usually harsh dictates of TV if and only if Bridget were just so witty and funny that they’d allow a few pounds pass. If Bridget were say, Tina Fey (who’s not fat) or Lucille Ball (who’s also, uh…not fat) or God…Joy Behar even (who went on a diet), then we’d get it. But Bridget frequently acts like a feeble minded child, even a lunatic at times and as we all know in real life, the only way a woman can get away with being stupid is by being hot. Which is why Anna Nicole Smith has her own show, even when fat--she's just too gorgeous AND she's nuts making her, oddly,  more an inspiration to women than Bridget Jones.

Now I sound incredibly HARSH here and I’m beginning to feel badly because I like Renée Zellweger. And Renée in other films is the perfect, lovable underdog Bridget. In Nurse Betty I understood why Morgan Freeman became obsessed with her particular brand of sweet lunacy. In White Oleander, I could physically feel how vulnerable she was—my body would flinch whenever she neared, lamb to slaughter, the ice princess/murderess character of gorgeous Michelle Pfeiffer. I love her for taking on roles where her interesting, pretty face is even mocked, as in Me, Myself and Irene where Jim Carrey all but says she looks like a shar-pei or in Cold Mountain where she (albeit over the top) mis-played a role that might normally go to someone like Kathy Bates. Though she nabbed the golden boy for Mountain (I think the Academy felt guilty about Chicago), her role stood out because it was for the wrong movie— Renée would have killed had she moved that character to an Annie Get Your Gun soundstage.

So I see why Renée was tailor made for Bridget in her simultaneous everywoman yet wholly unique persona. But why must Edge of Reason fuck up their most valuable asset— Renée? They couldn’t make her a tad smarter, indeed, less retarded? Again… Why? Because women are fed up watching pretty, thin women go through problems of Ashley Judd Double Jeapordy proportions? Because the massively talented Nicole Kidman is just too slinky to relate to—even though Dogville remains one of the greatest women’s pictures EVER? Because women wanted a chubbier version of Sandra Bullock from While You Were Sleeping? I sure hope not.

Well now I’m all a fluster because, honestly, I can’t speak for women so I have no fucking idea. I don’t relate to most of them and I certainly don't want to watch films where I’m supposed to. Maybe Mildred Pierce, Bringing Up Baby, Ball of Fire, The Mad Miss Manton or anything Fassbinder, Cukor, Sirk, Hitchcock or Polanski (a great women’s director) created or, the name of my column, Anthony Mann’s Strange Impersonation. Give me Grey Gardens over Sleepless In Seattle any day of the week. And if I want to watch a picture about problematic relations with men, I’ll watch Marnie, which I think I’ve seen about 40 times.

However, I do know that a lot of women love fashion magazines, love to be as underweight as possible (don’t ever tell a chick she looks healthy—the question: “Have you been smoking crack?” is a higher compliment) and love to see the mighty fall—which is such a crappy trait. One second they HATE Britney Spears for being sexy jail bait, and the next they delight in discussing how FAT she’s become. If you want to get a glimpse into the celebrity dishing of regular women, check out awfulplasticsurgery.com and you’ll get a good idea of what I’m talking about.

But…back to Bridget. I think the females chortling in the theater has less to do with sisterhood and more to do with cruelly relishing Renée’s fatness. It’s like a horror movie those chins! That is, unless you’re as, Ted Levine says in Silence of the Lambs “a great big fat person” in which case, you’ll feel even worse (oh…darn, I thought Bridget would be morbidly obese).

Thankfully, Renée, in real life, is back to her featherweight frame and now sports fetching dark hair. She’s already gracing magazine covers and modeling clothes in layouts that scream “No, I am not fat person. I only played one in a movie!” We shall see what role she dives into next and we, or rather, I, wish her the best. I certainly hope she stays away from this Bridget Jones dim-wit forever. Unless of course, the franchise turns Bridget into a bonafide Special Olympics contender or, better yet, goes the way of Christian Bale in The Machinist: Dear Diary, Weight: 90; Calories: 50; Cigarettes: 15; Movies Watched Today: THE BEST LITTLE GIRL IN THE WORLD and NEW YORK MINUTE; Pro’s or Con’s? Pro-Ana. Now there’s a movie women would flock to…and get tips.

Sexy Sleaze with Cheese--'70s Cop Shows on DVD

Before reviewing this DVD compilation of the supposed Greatest '70's Cop Shows a brief list is in order.

1. Producer Aaron Spelling, for the most part sucks. Sometimes gloriously so, but still, he sucks.

2. Charlie's Angels is not as fun as you'd imagine. And the only hot one is Jaclyn Smith. OK, I take that back, Farrah is hot, but in that your dad's-new-girlfriend-for-about-one-week-until-she-dumps-him way.

3. S.W.A.T. has to be the single most boring '70s Cop show that ever aired. But it has a magnificent theme tune. And Robert Urich is hot.

4. The Rookie's is patently bizarre. It's like The Warrior's meets Andy Hardy.

5. Starsky and Hutch IS funny. And David Soul is hot.

6. And, deep breath, Police Woman is brilliant. Truly. Why this show is rarely discussed boggles my mind. Angie Dickinson is all woman. Understandably, Aaron Spelling had nothing to do with this show.

So yes, this is a simple and probably unfair list. I'm basing my opinion on only the first episodes provided in this compilation and, as we know in long-running series, they can improve through the time it takes to work out the kinks. Seinfeld is the best example. S.W.A.T. would later produce a few minor moments of interest and, it was apparently popular. A major motion picture starring Sam Jackson and Colin Farrell was created so, someone up there likes the thing. And of course we all know about the throttle of Charlie's Angels and Starsky and Hutch--I'm just waiting for Police Woman: The Movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer (really, not a bad idea).

But back to the DVD. This is a 5 series compilation of the first episodes of The Greatest '70s Cop Shows. After their pilots, these are the zingers that got so many of the macramé plant holder folk hooked (though, aside from Police Woman it's hard to think anyone over 25 watched these shows).

The show’s range in quality but they all reveal a mutual commonality--though a brilliant era for film and probably the last real sleazy FUN anyone had, the ‘70s were hard. Hard on people’s faces. I don’t know if it was the drugs, the clothes, the film stock, the lighting, the jaded post ‘60s malaise or the surge of swingin’ Auto-Focus-esque divorced men, but everyone looks tough and sun-damaged. If you assume someone is 30, they’re probably in real life, 20. And 40? Who the hell knows? In their polyester double knits, bad toupees, sweaty urine tinted undershirts, crinkled brows and hairy chests, everyone looks about 50. The ‘70s was a great time to be an unattractive character actor. You’re fat, old and like to wear tight red pants? You’ve got the part! A guy walking out of seedy porno bookstore could be crime boss number one on S.W.A.T.. No wonder Dennis Franz was in so many Brian De Palma pictures.

First in the collection is Charlie’s Angels (1976) which proves amusing off the bat simply for the girl’s introductions. Beginning with the mysterious speaker voice Charlie (John Forsythe) dulcet tones “This is the story about three little girls…” and the preceding images of the babes doing their thang, I was excited--partly because I had recently re-watched Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and also for the girls. What will they wear? How much sex will we see? Will Bosley seem as much the closeted homosexual as suspected (he does--and odder, he looks a lot like Tom Arnold). The story (entitled “Hellride”) is ludicrous and surprisingly, over-involved. It's not the kind of thing you can just walk into ten minutes later and understand (a mark of all the shows presented which says something good about the general public’s attention span in the ‘70s). Here, a female racecar driver is murdered and Sabrina (Kate Jackson, who’s not so plain looking after all) goes undercover to investigate. She assumes the role as a honeyed speedster (in fab white jump suit) facing off with an especially dyke-y and mean gal named Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary is part of a sleazy ring of thieves who are planning a diamond heist. Meanwhile Bosley (David Doyle) and Jill (Farrah Fawcett-Majors who’s so of her time you have to love her) go undercover as preacher and preacher’s daughter to spread the gospel at the racetrack. As you can imagine, a Christian blonde in extra short Daisy Duke’s (uh...like, before Daisy Duke) and a big faggy minister proves something of a distraction. Then old school glamorous Kelly (Jaclyn Smith) diverts one of the robbers with drinks and generally looks classier than anyone else in the show. She causes him a DUI, which, is admittedly, an interesting way to screw with someone. So what happens? Some nice shots of racecar driving, oodles of scummy men in horrid suits, and a lot of tease. Where’s the jiggle we all remember? And where’s the cool ‘70s gear? Call me crazy, but I thought they’re be at least one show-stopping outfit. It’s a nice time capsule, with later, more jiggle (I know because I watched the TV movie about the series--I was sick...or something) and self-consciously goofy but not in the so-bad-it's-good category. Still, Charlie jabs with an amusingly adult double entendre. When Jill slyly asks him how he threw his back out, he promises he will be “standing erect” soon.

Next on board is S.W.A.T. (1975) a show that was supposed to be “important” but is so damn forced we’re bored to tears by the time the actual story rolls around. Its violent (which is fine) and maybe at the time all the guns, S.W.A.T. gear and serious shouts into walkie-talkies thrilled viewers as an exciting portrayal of Joe S.W.A.T. But now the show looks like a Max Fischer production only less thrilling—even the S.W.A.T. truck is lame. Racing off to dismantle some ultra dangerous situation, the boys look like they’re driving to a bakery with loaves of steaming bread to deliver: "Watch Out Hondo! It’s hot! Repeat! The bread is hot!" In this episode (“The Killing Ground”) Officer Jim Street’s (the always dependable Robert Urich) partner is killed by two avenging brothers, pissed over their father’s death. More police killings prompt Lieutenant Dan Hondo (Steve Forrest) to mantle his elite S.W.A.T. team (all ex-Vietnam War vets) and do some serious T.C.shit.B. Though the show doesn’t flinch at violence, is admirably straight-faced and for the most part, decently acted (with what they’re working with), it’s just not, well…sexy. Aside from Urich (who will prove in later episodes to add that extra dash of lust), it’s just so somber. And everyone gets along too well. Where’s the sweaty chief who’s too old for this shit?

Police Woman (1974) follows and my GOD does this show put every cop show to shame. First off, the opening credits. I had goose bumps. We get a half second silence as the title card, “Police Woman” flashes on screen, then a whirring police siren and a spiral pattern that turns into a full frame of Angie Dickinson pointing a gun. Then the sexy, dramatic theme sweeps over the stylish credits where Angie’s in various states of womanhood enhanced with dramatic pause (otherwise known as freeze-frame). She’s smiling, she’s being attacked, she’s dressed as a whore…she’s everything. Then, magic happens! A slow-mo to freeze of a brass knuckle fist! Is it going to punch Angie's face? Or will she blow the fist to bits?  This is what a domestic abuse Public Service Announcement should be or, at the very least, that awful J.Lo movie Enough. The episode (entitled “The End Game”--these writers read Samuel Beckett) has Sgt. Suzanne “Pepper” Anderson (Dickinson) first undercover as a prostitute in a very ADULT situation with her partner (kids were most likely, forbidden to watch this show) not because anything is shown, just heavily suggested. These people understand life in all its ugly revelations. They’re called to a shooting where a cop’s down. When Pepper goes on the scene, the cop dies in her arms. She’s almost devastated and, in a terrific moment, morosely opens her filing cabinet, pulls out a crumpled paper cup and pours herself a shot. The other officers observe with that we’ve-been-there-sister gallows humor, allowing Pepper her time. She even gets a day off (this would stupidly be considered sexist today though Police Woman was a revolutionary show in its day--it still is). The episode gets more intense when four mean, really mean Manson/SLA-like crooks (two men and two women) rob a bank, shoot a teller and grab one as hostage. They rape her and throw her out of a moving car. Then they take a family hostage and rape the mother. Yeah, they rape mommy. One of the criminal women cynically tells raped mommy's little girl how HARD life is. But in a human moment, asserts how you can get through it. In other words, toughen up little 7-year old bitch. This show wasn’t fucking around. Pepper and crew, two funky detectives from the Frank Serpico school and the Rat-Pack-esque Lieutenant Bill Crowly (Earl Holliman) venture to Las Vegas to track down this gang of cold-blooded crims on their armed robbery sprees. Police Woman, the first episode anyway, is well directed, wonderfully acted and gritty. Violence is scary. And though Pepper’s tough, she’s also vulnerable--not above a good desperate cry once in a while. She’s a woman, and she’s not trying to be a man. And though she may not be able to strong arm every opponent, she’s clever, quick and sensitive enough to get info out of someone in a delicate situation. Who wouldn’t share their feelings with Angie Dickinson? Police Woman is of ‘70s big screen caliber and unlike the other show’s presented on this collection, realistically serious. And Dickinson is simply fantastic.

The Rookies (1972) is the least recognizable show but it ran four years. It’s also just strange. Part straight cop show, part street cool, its got a young viewpoint of police work that verges on a serious commentary but never quite gets there. The show’s premise was three young police rookies and a nurse (played by a pre Angels Kate Jackson) sharing a groovy pad and simultaneously being and not being “the man.” In this episode (The Velvet Underground sounding title: “Concrete Valley, Neon Sky”) we’ve got a street gang to deal with. The brass need a hot-shot to hang with the hoods to chill things out but Officer Terry Webster (a great Georg Stanford Brown), the hep cat on the force, isn’t interested. He’s tired of dealing with those punks. Eager Beaver Officer Willie Gillis (Michael Ontkea of Slap Shot and later, Twin Peaks) excitedly volunteers his help and gets the job. But he's "eaten alive." The very first day he tries to “rap” with the gang members they beat the crap out of him (which results in a huge gash on his neck that you’d think would either kill him or send him to his own organization--the police--but doesn’t). Webster and Gillis then team up, beat the guys at basketball (to the supposedly funny Harlem Globetrotters theme song “Sweet Georgia Brown”) and argue over effective ways to deal with the mounting gang warfare. It’s the square white guy and the funky black guy against creeps who end up double crossing each other. The Rookies fascinates partly because its such an early show and clearly, something new for the television audience. But it's pretty hokey, especially when the gang battle ensues like a half-baked scene from The Warriors or West Side Story. And the gang members look so damn old. Like, in their fucking 40’s old. 

Rounding out this compilation is the much loved Starsky and Hutch (1975) a show that’s still entertaining and a little softer and a little dumber than you probably remember. Hunky wise-guy brunette Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky) and dreamy stoic blonde David Soul (Hutch or, Hutchinson) do have a certain something that’s really never been duplicated on television. Still, in this episode (“Savage Sunday”) they appear to be working it through. The rather ridiculous story has two elders sticking a dynamite bomb in their car to blow up City Hall. They’re not bad people, they’re just sick of the crappy conditions at their...old folks home. Apparently the food sucks. OK… Two petty criminals (one, a balding sweaty mustachioed dude, the other a black guy with tight red pants and a tee shirt adorned with hot-air balloons) steal their car. The oldsters have admitted their crime after the car’s sniped and now it’s a security risk. Starsky and Hutch have to find that car, even if it means drilling a dippy stripper (Suzanne Somers guest-starring) for info. Where’s Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas) you ask? He’s around, giving his “word on the street” leading the pair to beat two low life’s at basketball (to the Harlem Globetrotter’s theme song “Sweet Georgia Brown”--wait, that happened on The Rookies too. When Aaron Spelling pictured black people, his head apparently whistled "Sweet Georgia Brown") and run around town in their bitchin’ red Torino (which, is one of the greatest cars ever produced and, my car, only, I have a '71...another essay, my car obsession). Anyway, the show has an easy-going feel to it, with the streetwise detectives bantering about things like hot dogs and generally, doing stuff their way (you know, like refusing someone Miranda rights). Damn the department. The unorthodox cool of these guys along with plenty of good car chase sequences that tower over anything you’d see on say, CHIP’S helped the show’s popularity. And both leads are fine actors, it’s a shame they didn’t go on to bigger and better things. A plus here is the show’s opening credit sequence which had to have inspired The Beastie Boy’s “Sabatoge” video.

Actually, its hard to not think about The Beastie Boy’s “Sabatoge” while watching this entire collection. Everything is so of its time. Dated would be the meaner way to put it. But there’s a lot of dirty charm here. Placing Police Woman aside as simply excellent, this disc is entertaining as a ‘70s curio, a sort of pop culture lesson into what made that era tick. Coming out of a time when movies like The French Connection won Best Picture Oscars, even the weakest shows have a grittiness to them that’s very up front, very real and heavily suggested. Though the shows (again, aside from Police Woman) are essentially square, you can just imagine what Hutch does in his off time (piles of cocaine). You know Pepper’s a nasty drunk with, most likely herpes (didn't you see Dressed to Kill?). Not that I would ever wish that on Angie. And the Angels? Well, its not hard picturing them smoking out with Jack Nicholson at some bacchanalian party thrown by Warren Beatty, returning home the next morning questioning their place in the universe--like the whole boat going round in circles at the end of Arthur Penn's Night Moves. So, I have to appreciate this stuff. I mean, I would would never, ever feel that way watching ER, even if it written into the show. Like, that Croation guy would never get gonorrhea, he'd get AIDS and it would be this huge deal. The '70s would never be that obvious--you just assume everyone had syphilis. Even Aaron Spelling. Why that is exceedingly cooler is what it is. It's the '70s.

What the fuck? Didn't Bush fucking win?

So--I don't usually use this blog to write about daily stuff but...the day the election is finalized, I get an email from this classy guy. The only reason I'm posting his lovely words is for the mere fact that, finally, for the FIRST time I've been called a Kerry supporter. Usually, my hate mail comes from knee-jerk liberals assuming I'm a big, ol' closet Republican, or a straight up Repub. Which I am not. After enduring so much CRAP from those who disliked my take on The Passion of the Christ AND Team America, this uh...elegant gentleman steps in to make my day! I smiled! Thank you sir! And I'll grow up right quick. Maybe as a start, I too will use the charming, old timey Wayne's World slang of "Not!"

I read your review of 'Team America: World Police' and...YOU BETTER
LEARN TO WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE YOU IMMATURE KERRY SUPPORTING B*TCH! YOU
DON'T START OF A MOVIE REVIEW ON A PUBLIC PAGE THAT KIDS COULD SEE USING
THE "F" WORD! CHANCES ARE YOUR UNDER 25, AM I RIGHT? WELL ANYWAY, GROW
UP! YOUR NEVER GONNA LAST IN THE PROFESSIONAL WORLD WITH THAT DEGREE OF
UNPROFESSIONALISM! -a friend, NOT!

The Bad Seed Live!

I had a horrible Halloween. After discussing what babies people were over there beloved flu shots...after I bragged about how I NEVER get sick, certainly NEVER the Flu, I woke up the next day, sick with what would appear to be a cold/flu. So as I write feeling as if a knife is scraping the inside of my throat, I can only say that, well, I don't feel like writing much. I'd rather take more Xanax (I know, I know. It does nothing for a cold. But at least I'm calm) and watch Sudden Fear with Joan Crawford and Jack Palance for the tenth time.

But...I must report that Halloween weekend was still perfect for the unexpected pleasure that occurred the day before. Never having seen one of my favorite blonde, psychopathic movies on the big screen, I journeyed over to Long Beach to witness The Bad Seed, writ large. But get this, not only was I allowed the pleasure of watching a larger than life Rhoda Penmark "tap, tap tapping on the walk" but I was granted the honor of seeing Ms. McCormack in the flesh! I've been to Q&A's, big deal, but this was like viewing Pretty Poison only to have Tuesday Weld saunter out. Or taking in Fox and His Friends with a risen-from-the-dead Rainer Werner Fassbinder show up for questions.

I rarely bound up to celebrities and can think of four others I HAD to meet: Jerry Lewis, Camille Paglia, Ike Turner and Eldridge Cleaver whom I spotted walking around Powell's bookstore. Like them, I HAD to at least shake Patty's hand. So not only did I get to meet my idol (who was charming, funny, warm and just dark enough to understand why she was such a genius at age ten) but talk to her about what that movie meant to some girls (like me). We, Bad Seed fans would all like (or secrectly have) a little Rhoda Penmark in us...and Patty, with clear relish, agreed. "It's scary for men," she said, "but girls get it! They want to do all these things, maybe not kill, but you know, work it..." Of course.

In honor--I'm running my Bad Seed piece again and then, going to bed, dreaming of the future of Monica Breedlove, who would have been iced had the movie not changed the ending to cute little Rhoda getting hit by that lightning bolt which always pisses me off. She could have grown up to become...Pretty Poison.

The Bad Seed

“Why should I feel sorry? It was Claude Daigle got drowned, not me.”

Ah…the baby blonde. That symbol of purity, beauty and goodness. In 1950’s America who wouldn’t want to have a lovely, flaxen haired child to adore and spoil? Of course, everyone, but by 1956, two important films emerged, showing the underbelly of these perfect specimens. The more esteemed, and notorious (it was banned by the Legion of Decency after all) was Elia Kazan’s Baby Doll, in which the gorgeous child bride Carroll Baker destroys Karl Malden’s masculinity whilst sleeping in a crib and sucking her thumb. Never mind she’s 19 going on 20. While other relevant issues pervade Kazan’s masterful take on Tennessee Williams, the lingering image is of Ms. Baker in that crib…an iconic vision of arrested sexuality.

But just as viewers took a gander at Baby Doll, they had another blonde to contend with—a much younger, smarter and deadlier one—The Bad Seed. Pretty 10 year-old Patty McCormack playing an 8 year-old in pig tails and pinafore skirts as Rhoda Penmark, a curtsying, cutie-pie brat who’ll manipulate, terrorize and KILL anyone who gets in her way. Both actresses’ were deservedly Oscar nominated for their performances but its Mervyn LeRoy’s picture, though much loved by cultists, which remains highly underrated.

Part of the problem may lie in the transfer of play to film. LeRoy rightfully transported nearly all of the actors from the successful stage play (most likely to the annoyance of Warner Brothers who probably desired a bigger star for Rhoda’s mother) but had to change the ending. In the play, Rhoda goes on playing her continual practice piece, "Claire de Lune" on the piano after her killings. Perfect. In the film, she is socked with a lightning bolt. Also perfect. But not to endorse the harm of children, even the most evil, Warner Brothers had LeRoy tack on actress Nancy Kelly spanking little McCormack— assuring the audience this was all a bunch of fun. You know, burning, drowning, murdering kids with tap shoes--fun!

But, in an early bit of camp—The Bad Seed is fun. Gleefully, unapologetically and relevantly fun. In its own way, the end changes just make the picture even more inadvertently subversive. How we love to hate little Rhoda. And for some of us (myself included), how we love to love her…she’s just too damn full of vicious personality. I even go so far as to champion her actions and wish she would invoke more harm before her inevitable demise.

But enough of my sick adoration and to the movie itself. Living with her mother Christine (an understandably neurotic Nancy Kelly) and mostly absent father (William Hopper--Hedda Hopper's son) her life is one of privilege and attention. When kissing her father goodbye he asks “What would you give me for a basket of kisses?” Rhoda coos back: “A basket of hugs!” Landlady and supposed expert in psychology, Monica Breedlove (Evelyn Varden) dotes on Rhoda, applauding her out-moded manners and showering her with presents—one being rhinestone movie star glasses Rhoda, of course, loves. As she prattles on about Freud and abnormal psychology, this rather ridiculous woman cannot see the freakish behavior in front of her.

But Leroy (a scene stealing Henry Jones), the disturbed, somewhat perverse handyman disrespected by the household can see right through Rhoda (you even get a sense he's got a thing for her), leading to some of the film’s greatest moments. Especially after the fateful class outing leaving one child dead; not coincidentally, the class-mate who won the penmanship medal over the all perfecting Rhoda (“Everyone knew I wrote the best hand!” she hollers in sour grapes dramatics). The little boy is drowned and Rhoda returns home as if nothing happened. She goes roller skating. Meanwhile, her mother becomes increasingly rattled.

Though some have a tough time with The Bad Seed’s talkier sequences (especially when Rhoda’s not around), they remain intriguing looks into ideas that would later be considered serious and or scientific. It also points out how psychology can’t explain everything (hence, a bad seed) as the one woman who brags of her knowledge, can’t sense anything wrong with a child who’s, at the very least, self obsessed to the point of vapid narcissism. Never mind she’s a murderer.

And, the golden moments come, again, between Leroy and Rhoda who argue like two prison inmates waiting for lockdown. Though Rhoda finds him revolting, he’s the only one who can scare her with his taunts of “stick blood hounds” or the idea that she can go to the electric chair for what he knows is a murder. “They don’t send little girls to the electric chair!” Rhoda protests. “Oh they don’t?” He answers. “The got a blue one for little boys and a pink one for little gals!”

Though films like The Omen or The Good Son have tried, nothing compares to The Bad Seed—and no child actor has out-seeded McCormack. Calm and cool, she can also rip into fits of rage that are both terrifying and hilarious. Perfectly balancing a disarmingly adult demeanor with the tantrums of a little girl, her performance is even more impressive in that it’s the blueprint. Where did McCormack learn this wonderful balance of over-theatrical camp with an icy, realistic serenity? And before John Waters became obsessed with her?

A classic and first of it’s kind, the then shocking Bad Seed holds up, albeit with a tad more camp, but with just as much psychotic gusto. Revel in McCormack’s Rhoda, a character even the obnoxiously talented Dakota Fanning couldn’t play (though the rumor is, Dakota will star in the re-make). As Leroy spits out: “I thought I saw some mean little gals in my time, but you're the meanest!” Yes indeed, and also the greatest. If the crown could exist, Rhoda is our Queen.