Cold Turkey (1971)

Cold Turkey (Norman Lear, 1971) One of the first movies I saw under my own power and financial resources* at the late, lamented John Danz Theatre (Rest in the "116church," for God's sake!—I wonder what they did with the dolphin sculpture in the lobby?). It's one of the clutch of semi-satirical social comedies that wasn't radical enough to offend the oldsters or attract the kids, and took on its subject in a style reminiscent of a soft-core It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.** It also gave TV-sit-com writers a chance to stretch their writing arms with less restrictive material and work during the summer hiatus.

 

In a PR move, an exec (Bob Newhart) at the Valiant Tobacco Company pushes through a 25 million (!!) dollar incentive to any American city that can quit smoking for a month, in a deal reminiscent of the Nobel Peace Prize. For the depressed community of Eagle Rock, Iowa, that's just lost a military base and is struggling through tough economic times, it's a chance to pull itself up by its filter-tips. And so with the activism of Reverend Clayton Brooks (Dick Van Dyke), the entire town pledges to give up smoking...or die trying.

Low-brow Hi-jinks ensue. The national press (all in the dry forms of Bob and Ray) begin focusing on Eagle Rock, as the nervous population goes through withdrawal and panic attacks and the Valiant executive, fearing that they actually may have to pay up, travels to Iowa to try to sabotage their efforts.

There's a lot of soft-ball satire going on from director Norman Lear (who'd go on to create "All in the Family" and a long string of shows that would require a large book-case to collect all the box-sets), and some low comedy as the Eagle Rockians begin to crack: the mayor's wife (Jean Stapleton) eats pickles (although she calls them "gherkins" ...because it's funnier) to fight the cravings, the town-surgeon (Barnard Hughes) who depended on a relaxing smoke to calm his nerves before surgery is losing his patients, the Reverend turns to the evils of intercourse, of course, (should we call that "taking communion?") and, in the most common sight-gag in the film, any stray animal is kicked and sent flying through the air. It's a sure laugh, but some of the kicks are just brutal. ***

It's a nail-biter for audiences and towns-people alike as the month-clock counts down, but rest assured it ends quite ironically, with some nice cutting jabs at then-President Richard Nixon.

 

It also boasted the first music score by Randy Newman (years and years before The Natural and Pixar) who wrote a pleasant soundtrack and a positively mordant theme song "He gives us all His love," that left audiences walking out of the theater, perplexed.

* Come to think of it, the first movie I saw without parent, guardian or hand-out was probably On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the not-so-lucky double-o-seventh in the "official" James Bond series and the first not to star Sean Connery. The vacancy was temporarily filled—like wood-glue—with the unfortunate George Lazenby. They say that the first "007" actor you see becomes your favorite. I was fortunate enough to start with Lazenby and remain objective!

 

** Cold Turkey was on a double bill with a 1969 comedy called Viva Max directed by Dick Van Dyke Show director Jerry Paris (he also played the Petries' next-door neighbor...Jerry). It starred Peter Ustinov as a Mexican General determined to re-take the Alamo, despite U.S. resistance. Hilarity ensues. It was based on a novel by Jim Lehrer—yes, the anchorman of PBS's "The NewsHour," and frequent presidential debate moderator.

 

***To this day, I find the fast yelp of a dog or a spitting squeal from a cat a sure laugh-getter whenever I do sound design work—PETA be damned. 

 

2023 Update: Yeah, I don't do that anymore. That was a past life. Things are a lot quieter now.

Rage (1972)

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day.

Rage (George C. Scott, 1972) Actor George C. Scott has only three directing credits for film: his TV-movie of "The Andersonville Trial" (a play in which he starred on Broadway), the controversial 1974 The Savage is Loose (which he ended up distributing himself), and this film—the only one he directed for a major distributor (in this case, Warner Brothers). All of his work behind the camera occurred in the period between 1970 and 1974, the time when he was most associated with the film Patton, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar (which he famously refused to accept).

 

Those who admired his Patton work with its strong military theme, must have subsequently been surprised when encountering this film, as it's decidedly anti-military and anti-medical establishment, and then ups the ante on its revenge scenario plot until its protagonist fits the definition of "terrorist." So, how does all this start?

Rancher Dan Logan (Scott) and his son (Nicolas Beauvy) are sleeping outside watching their sheep-herds when a helicopter passes over their location. There's a military base near-by and Logan doesn't think anything of it—as long as the craft isn't flying so low it doesn't scatter the flocks. That night, Logan sleeps in the tent, while his son sleeps outside to watch the stars. It is a calm night, but, with the dawn, comes the nightmare.

The sheep in the field are all dead and his son is unconscious and bleeding from the nose. Logan gathers up his son and makes a mad dash to the local hospital, where the two are separated and emergency techs start working on his son. Logan's doctor, Caldwell (Richard Basehart) is called, and finds that the hospital is buying time while they try to diagnose what's wrong with the Logan kid. Logan himself is confused, as he's being held at the hospital, won't be allowed to see his son or go home, and is getting no information other than a "be patient" dismissal. He tells Caldwell to find out what he can.

That's not going to happen. The truth is Logan's son is dead, killed by an accidental release of a nerve agent from one of those passing military helicopters. The military, for their part, regret it happened, but—making lemonade out of nerve gas—see it is as an opportunity to study its effects on humans, under the supervision of Drs. Spencer (Barnard Hughes) and Holliford (Martin Sheen). Logan is being watched and will never be released from the hospital. But, his frustration grows, and before long, he starts to take action on his own.

His first act is to find his son, but can't find him in any of the rooms, but ultimately ends his search where all searches end—in the morgue. Logan is devastated, and he escapes from the hospital, vowing revenge. First, he goes to a military hardware store to buy a gun.

For the most part, Scott's movie is competent, but problematic. The acting is all fine. Most of the actors have worked with Scott before, whether he was directing or co-acting with them—Basehart and Sheen from "Andersonville" and Paul Stevens and Stephen Young from Patton, and Hughes and Robert Walden from The Hospital. It does have some peculiarities to the early 70's that were "of the time" and are not so much in evidence today. The most prominent of which is the use of slow-motion. Sam Peckinpah rather artfully brought it to the fore with The Wild Bunch (and subsequent films), with which he would tweak action sequences by putting in frames to call attention to something that might be missed in frenetic multi-camera set-ups—sometimes, things just happen to fast in those action sequences, and Peckinpah knew when to just take a moment and focus on an aspect.

Scott is not so subtle a film-maker, and his choices to call attention to are off. An early shot of Logan spitting a loooong stream is a case in point. Sure, it's a fast action that a normal 24 frames per second shooting speed might not do "justice" to, but...an entire shot of it? He might be technically proud of either 1) the expectoration, or 2) the cinematographer (Fred J. Koenekamp—from Patton) being able to track it, but as far as importance to the story, it's just not important. Likewise, a shot of a soon-to-be-a-distraction cat jumping onto a sofa might be too quick to notice with slo-mo, but it takes away from the pace of a very tense scene. Peckinpah would have given it a few frames and dumped the rest. Scott gives us the whole thing.

 

It's always interesting to see what fine actors will do behind the camera for good (George Clooney, Kevin Costner, Robert Redford) or ill (Gene Wilder, Walter Matthau, Marlon Brando) whether they'll be genuine story communicators, or merely an extension of the "look-at-me" aspect of their careers. Scott was great with actors. His story-telling left something to be desired.