THE INCIDENT (US - 1967) Directed by Larry Peerce. Written by Nicholas E. Baehr. Cast: Tony Musante, Martin Sheen, Beau Bridges, Brock Peters, Ruby Dee, Jack Gilford, Thelma Ritter, Ed McMahon, Diana Van der Vlis, Mike Kellin, Jan Sterling, Gary Merrill, Robert Fields, Robert Bannard, Victor Arnold, Donna Mills, Kathleen Smith, Henry Proach, Marty Meyers. (Unrated, 100 mins) Though it has a devoted cult following, THE INCIDENT is a film that's flown under the radar for a half-century, vividly remembered by the few who saw it during its 1967-68 theatrical run and those who caught it on late-night TV well into the 1980s. After a 1989 VHS release, it's been unrepresented on home video until Twilight Time's new "Limited Edition Series" Blu-ray release (in her essay in the package's accompanying booklet, Julie Kirgo writes "Where has this extraordinary movie been all our lives?"). Shot in black & white at a time when it was used very sparingly aside from the occasional IN COLD BLOOD, THE INCIDENT has been restored to all of its edgy, gritty glory and is long overdue for discovery. Even now, over 50 years after its release, THE INCIDENT is an artifact from a bygone era that remains a visceral, shocking gut-punch today. Though it came just before the introduction of the MPAA rating system and is devoid of F-bombs, the language used and situations depicted in the film (including one pretty clearly alluding to a sexual assault taking place just below the frame) induce such a level of tension and unease that it's still worthy of an R rating even now. THE INCIDENT is a film that leaves you exhausted, shattered, and physically drained when the closing credits roll. It's arguably the best American film of the 1960s that nobody knows about, and it's possibly more potent today that it was then. There's certainly elements here that couldn't fly in the present without being labeled "problematic" or "triggering" and leading to numerous outraged thinkpieces, including the use of homophobic and racist slurs. This is a troubling, uncomfortable, claustrophobic, and profoundly unsettling film that stays with you long after it's over. Even revisiting it after 20+ years, scenes and dialogue remained etched in my memory and even though I knew what was coming, I could still feel my heart racing, my stomach in knots with tension, and a palpable anger brewing as a bad situation gets uglier by the minute.
A feature-length expansion of the more luridly-titled "Ride With Terror," a 1963 episode of NBC's THE DUPONT SHOW OF THE WEEK, THE INCIDENT was written by Nicholas E. Baehr, who went on to a workmanlike career writing for TV shows like MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, DAN AUGUST, and MCCLOUD. It was directed by Larry Peerce, who won significant acclaim for his 1964 debut ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO, but would gradually shift to mainstream assignments in the mid '70s like the Jill Kinmont biopic THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN (1975) and the sniper-in-a-football-stadium disaster movie TWO-MINUTE WARNING (1976). Peerce would drift into TV work later in his career after box-office duds like the 1984 Rick Springfield drama HARD TO HOLD and 1989's universally-maligned John Belushi chronicle WIRED, ultimately finishing his career (for now) with paycheck gigs directing episodes of TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL and a couple of Lifetime movies with Roma Downey. Now 87 and still very sharp on the Blu-ray commentary track with film historian Nick Redman, Peerce has been inactive since 2003 and THE INCIDENT remains his masterpiece that's also indicative of a time when he was still carving a niche for himself. On the commentary track, he mentions "rageful films intrigue me," and THE INCIDENT certainly qualifies as such. After a big hit with 1969's Philip Roth adaptation GOODBYE, COLUMBUS, Peerce turned down an offer to direct LOVE STORY and instead opted to make the theater-clearing, audience-alienating 1971 bomb THE SPORTING CLUB, which rendered him virtually unemployable. That, coupled with a divorce and needing the money, Peerce effectively abandoned his auteur aspirations and went the genre-hopping mercenary route with mixed results. He made a few decent theatrical and TV movies, but never again did Peerce direct anything like THE INCIDENT.
Set roughly between 2:00 and 3:30 am on a Sunday night/Monday morning in the Bronx, THE INCIDENT opens with rowdy troublemakers Joe Ferrone (Tony Musante, the only cast member to reprise his role from "Ride With Terror") and Artie Connors (a debuting Martin Sheen) hassling a pool hall manager and a couple on the street before rolling a guy and beating him to a pulp (possibly to death) for $8. Deciding the night is young, they mention going to Times Square as the film cuts to various groups of people headed for the subway from different locations. There's Bill (Ed McMahon, of all people) and Helen Wilks (Diana Van der Vlis), finally extricating themselves from a family gathering and arguing about money problems and her wanting a second child while their four-year-old daughter sleeps; smooth-talking Tony Goya (Victor Arnold) trying to seduce his latest conquest, 18-year-old virgin Alice Keenan (Donna Mills in her debut); elderly, bickering Jewish couple Sam (Jack Gilford) and Bertha Beckerman (Thelma Ritter), with Sam unable to shut up about how "these kids today are a disgrace" and bent out of shape that their son won't loan him "a lousy $500 so I can get my teeth fixed"; Oklahoma native and Army private Felix Teflinger (Beau Bridges who would go on to be a frequent Peerce collaborator), on leave with a broken arm and visiting his NYC-born Army buddy Philip Carmatti (Robert Bannard); nebbishy history teacher Harry Purvis (Mike Kellin) and his shrewish wife Muriel (Jan Sterling), who never misses a chance to remind Harry that his friends are richer and more successful than he is; Kenneth Otis (Robert Fields), an awkward homosexual trying to make small talk and connect with anyone; recovering alcoholic Douglas McCann (Gary Merrill; a young, pre-fame Gene Hackman played the role in "Ride With Terror"), eight months on the wagon and desperately waiting for news about a job offer; and Arnold (Brock Peters) and Joan Robinson (Ruby Dee), a black couple on their way home from a civil rights group meeting deemed too peaceful by militant anger management case Arnold, who has a huge chip on his shoulder about "Whitey" and starts an argument with the ticket booth operator.
All of these characters--plus a sleeping homeless man (Henry Proach)--end up in the same subway car, eventually joined by Joe and Artie, who enter making a huge racket and a drunken spectacle of themselves. After Artie attempts to give the vagrant a hot foot, McCann is the first to speak up, unleashing a barrage of torment and terror from Joe and Artie. Artie jams the door with the vagrant's shoe, preventing anyone from getting on or off, and Joe, who's smarter than he appears, is quickly able to deduce the Achilles' heel of everyone aboard. He accosts them one by one, instantly figuring out their weaknesses and exploiting them for maximum humiliation as Artie cheers him on. Artie primarily functions as the Chester to Joe's Spike, but even he gets into the act, immediately figuring out that Kenneth is gay and slyly seducing him into earning his trust. "You gotta help me...this guy I'm with is real buggy," Artie deceptively confides before beating him, calling him a "rotten fag," forcing him to dance with him and Joe, and spending the rest of the film referring to him as "The Princess" and making him sit in the corner. Joe exposes tough-talking Tony as a coward by sidling up to Alice and, judging from her body language and the pained faces she's making, doing things out of frame that couldn't be explicitly shown in 1967 as Tony freezes and does nothing. And starting with a loaded "Sho 'nuff!," he then demolishes Arnold, who's only too happy to watch a train car full of "crackers" being verbally and physically assaulted ("I'm with you, Jack," he smiles at Joe), but has it thrown right back at him when Joe repeatedly calls him the N-word and insinuates that his "smell" is all over the train. Throughout all of this, no one speaks up or makes any serious attempt to deter them other than Teflinger, but even he backs off after suggesting they "settle down" and Joe grabs him by the neck.
The infamous Kitty Genovese case--where a woman was killed while neighbors heard it all and did nothing--comes to mind while watching THE INCIDENT, and likewise, Peerce doesn't make things as simple as black or white. Yes, Joe and Artie are two of the most loathsome, psychotic creeps you'll ever see--the tragically underrated Musante, who died in 2013, is unforgettable here, and absolutely, terrifyingly repulsive in a way that prefigures the kinds of roles David Hess would make a career of after THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, and THE INCIDENT stands all the evidence anyone needs to conclude that he should've had a much bigger career than he did--but Peerce doesn't let the passengers off the hook, never hesitating to spotlight their cowardice and hypocrisy. As "The Princess" is agonizingly humiliated, dweeby Harry chuckles, Joan buries her face in a book, and tough guy Tony dismisses it as "Eh, they got a hold of some queer, so what?" No one stands up when Joe verbally assaults Arnold and Artie grabs Joan and threatens to break her arm. Everyone looks the other way while Joe's doing whatever he's doing to Alice while Tony sits there frozen (this is a really difficult scene to watch). No one intervenes when Muriel confronts Joe and he grabs the fascinator off of her head and uses it to caress her chest, asking "What do you want, lady? Maybe you want both of us," while Artie starts kissing her neck as hapless, helpless Harry stands there, utterly emasculated.
Photographed by the great Gerald Hirschfeld (YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN), THE INCIDENT is a film that could only work in black & white. Peerce indicates they did some color tests in pre-production and it was "a disaster," though he still had to fight to shoot it the way he wanted. It began as an independent production but ran out of money halfway through, salvaged by some major studio cash when two young junior execs at 20th Century Fox--Richard Zanuck (studio head Darryl F.'s son) and David Brown, both of whom went on to meet Steven Spielberg and produce JAWS at Universal--liked what they saw and agreed to back the film to completion, largely leaving Peerce alone to make the film he wanted to make. The only change they suggested, which Peerce said was a good idea, was to move the intro to Joe and Artie at the beginning instead of in the middle of the film, as their mugging of the guy for $8 takes place in the context of the story right before they get on the subway, even though they disappear for 40 minutes of screen time while the other characters are introduced. This also establishes an early prototype of an overlapping narrative time element that filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino would make commonplace in the 1990s. Every performance in THE INCIDENT is pitch-perfect, even McMahon, who's terrific as a blowhard, working class martyr in what Peerce describes as stunt casting that worked. The film brilliantly captures the scuzzy seediness of the big city after dark, fulfilling every warning you've ever heard about nothing good happening after 2:00 am. This was years before the blight and crime that became synonymous with Times Square and the Bronx of the '70s and '80s, but that aura is in its infancy here (I'm betting Martin Scorsese saw this, because much of MEAN STREETS has that same vibe in its locations), and even though the interiors were all constructed sets (Peerce and Hirschfeld caught some guerrilla-style exterior shots on the fly at real subway platforms, but the Transit Authority wouldn't authorize the use of a real subway car, insisting that crime on the subways wasn't an issue), THE INCIDENT looks like an image frozen in time. A master class in suspense, tension, and blistering social commentary (note the still-relevant bit at the end where the cops get on the train and, without a single word said and taking all of one second to assess the situation, immediately handcuff the black guy) that never feels "stagy" despite its close confines. THE INCIDENT isn't the only film of this type (the similar and equally obscure 1979 squirm-fest WHEN YOU COMIN' BACK, RED RYDER? is also worthy of unearthing), but it's a film not easily shaken, and an American classic that's patiently waited 50 years for some recognition. There's never been another movie quite like it.
Martin Sheen, Larry Peerce, and Beau Bridges
at a 2017 TCM Festival screening of THE INCIDENT
THE INCIDENT opening in Toledo, OH on 3/29/1968, paired with
the Bette Davis "thrill hit" THE ANNIVERSARY, also a time
when someone thought a drive-in double bill of THE GOOD,
THE BAD AND THE UGLY and FITZWILLY was a good idea.
RULES DON'T APPLY (US - 2016) Written and directed by Warren Beatty. Cast: Warren Beatty, Lily Collins, Alden Ehrenreich, Annette Bening, Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, Haley Bennett, Candice Bergen, Dabney Coleman, Steve Coogan, Ed Harris, Megan Hilty, Oliver Platt, Martin Sheen, Paul Sorvino, Taissa Farmiga, Amy Madigan, Paul Schneider, Hart Bochner, Louise Linton, Graham Beckel, Chace Crawford, Ashley Hamilton, Marshall Bell, Patrick Fischler, Michael Badalucco, Joe Cortese. (PG-13, 126 mins) As an actor, writer, director, and producer, Warren Beatty has been nominated for 14 Oscars in total, winning one for Best Director with 1981's REDS. He's a living legend, and as a producer and star, one who was instrumental in ushering in the "New Hollywood" era with 1967's landmark BONNIE AND CLYDE. Beatty was never prolific even in his heyday: starting with his big-screen debut in 1961's SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, he's acted in just 22 films in 55 years, the bulk of those being in the 1960s and 1970s. Offscreen since the expensive 2001 bomb TOWN & COUNTRY, Beatty returns with RULES DON'T APPLY, a pet project about Howard Hughes that he's had in various stages of development since 1973. Beatty also wrote and directed, and the whole thing was kept under wraps as shooting began in early 2014. Granted a Kubrickian level of freedom and secrecy that very few are afforded these days, Beatty made exactly the film he wanted to make, and if the end result is what he's had playing in his head for over 40 years, then you have to wonder what he was thinking and why he even bothered.
Set from 1959 to 1964, RULES DON'T APPLY takes its time getting to Beatty's Howard Hughes (79-year-old Beatty is about 25 years too old to play Hughes in this time period), instead focusing on Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins, daughter of Phil), a virginal, small-town beauty queen and bright-eyed songwriter from Virginia, who's been given a studio contract by Hughes and is flown out to Hollywood with her overprotective, devout Baptist mother Lucy (Annette Bening). They're picked up at the airport by Hughes employee Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), a Methodist engaged to 7th grade sweetheart Sarah (Taissa Farmiga) back in Fresno and with big dreams about getting Hughes to back his real estate ventures. Hughes has over 25 starlets under contract, and despite stipulations that the drivers aren't to get involved with them, Lucy and Frank can't deny their attraction to one another, even though she feels he's essentially married since he's already had sex with Sarah.
So far, so good. The opening half hour of RULES DON'T APPLY isn't great, but it has a sort-of "second-tier Woody Allen" thing going on and plays a lot like Allen's similar CAFE SOCIETY from earlier this year. But once Hughes enters the picture, the focus shifts to Beatty going through the litany of every Hughes tic, compulsion, oddity, and stereotype in existence. Sometimes it's played for laughs, other times it turns strangely dark, such as an uncomfortable and frankly creepy scene where a drunk Marla gives her virginity to a befuddled, babbling Hughes. Very little in this story is based on fact, other than there was a Howard Hughes and he was a total weirdo billionaire, so it's a jarring tonal shift to have what was essentially a light, romantic comedy suddenly turn bleak, with Marla feeling used and ending up pregnant and considering an abortion. Frank can't decide if he wants to be with Sarah or Marla, and for the sake of the script, instead gets a quick promotion from anonymous driver to Hughes' right-hand man almost overnight. Beatty then spends an inordinate amount of time on Hughes' dealings with his TWA airline, various defense contracts with the US government, and trying to convince the government that his plane can fly, with his behavior growing increasingly erratic with each passing scene. Many big names joined the project, obviously for the chance to work with Beatty, but with the exception of Matthew Broderick as another top Hughes flunky, none of them are put to good use: Candice Bergen has a thankless role as Hughes' secretary; Martin Sheen has three or four brief appearances before we even get a hint of who he's supposed to be (he's either Hughes' lawyer or he runs the day-to-day operations of the Hughes empire), then his character is fired and replaced by another character played by Alec Baldwin, doing a quick "Hey, I'm here to hang with Warren" drop-by; Ed Harris and Amy Madigan have one scene as Sarah's parents; Steve Coogan plays a scared pilot riding shotgun after Hughes drops what he's doing and goes to London to fly a plane; Dabney Coleman shows up briefly as Hughes' doctor; and in a barely-there bit part, Paul Sorvino is seen chatting in the background of a couple shots, eventually getting one line of dialogue when his character is seen on a TV screen. Who is he? Why is he here? Who knows?
It's never a good sign when four editors share credit, and RULES DON'T APPLY looks like a hastily-assembled mess that wasn't so much finished as it was given up on. Characters appear and disappear with no explanation, and early scenes are presented in such a brisk and choppy fashion that you never ascertain who certain people are and what purpose they serve to the story. Beatty bum-rushes through the exposition to get to the parts he cares most about--hamming it up as Howard Hughes--and leaves a large cast mostly stranded. It just gets worse as it goes on, Hughes impulsively heading to London, Managua, and Acapulco, with Frank in tow, for reasons never really explained. Beatty assembled some cast and crew for some reshoots in early 2015 and then spent well over a year putting the movie together. He had nearly five decades to figure out what he wanted with this thing and the end result is a leaden, lifeless, self-indulgent fiasco. Collins and Ehrenreich do what they can with the material (and you have to respect future Han Solo Ehrenreich, who arrived a few years ago as an obvious Leonardo DiCaprio clone who's now getting the roles Leo has aged out of, but he's a young actor who knows his history and has jumped at the chance to work with movie legends like Beatty, Francis Ford Coppola, and Woody Allen), but they're completely defeated by the whims and indecisiveness of a director who's just maybe been away from the game for too long. Beatty hasn't directed a film since 1998's still-scathing BULWORTH (though he reportedly pulled rank on Peter Chelsom and backseat-directed most of TOWN & COUNTRY himself), and that was a movie that had things to say that remain relevant today. Whether as a director, producer, writer, or star, Beatty has historically had his finger on the pulse of current events and deftly capturing the zeitgeist, whether it's the political commentary and the hip-hop awakening of BULWORTH, the changing cinema trends exemplified by BONNIE AND CLYDE, the post-Nixon/Watergate paranoia of THE PARALLAX VIEW, or the sexually liberated '70s in SHAMPOO. RULES DON'T APPLY (you could make a drinking game out of how many times that phrase is shoehorned in via dialogue or song) is a tone-deaf vanity project that puts Beatty in with other influential auteurs--Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick, George Romero, Dario Argento, to name a few--whose final or most recent works are indicative of aging legends who just don't get out much anymore. How else do you explain an extended gag about a cum stain on Frank's pants? Did Beatty just now get around to seeing a Farrelly Brothers comedy? And why is that joke in this movie? Given his sporadic work habits and his age, this is likely the last thing we're going to see from Warren Beatty. And that's a damn shame.
Directed by George Pan Cosmatos. Written by Tom Mankiewicz, Robert Katz and George Pan Cosmatos. Cast: Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Martin Sheen, O.J. Simpson, Ingrid Thulin, Lee Strasberg, Lionel Stander, Ann Turkel, Lou Castel, John Phillip Law, Ray Lovelock, Alida Valli, Tom Hunter, Stefano Patrizi, Carlo De Mejo, Fausta Avelli, Angela Goodwin, Renzo Palmer, John P. Dulaney. (R, 129 mins)
SPOILERS DISCUSSED THROUGHOUT
Disaster movies were one of the signature genres of 1970s cinema. Though the concept wasn't new and dated back to the early days of the movies to SAN FRANCISCO (1936) and 1950s hits like THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (1954) and ZERO HOUR! (1957), and would continue later with the likes of ARMAGEDDON (1998), THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004) and 2012 (2008), the subgenre really exploded in the 1970s. Starting with box-office blockbusters like AIRPORT (1970), THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) and THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) to less-popular but still entertaining later offerings like the sniper-in-a-football-stadium TWO-MINUTE WARNING (1976), the Goodyear Blimp-blowing-up-the-Super Bowl BLACK SUNDAY (1977), and the mad-bomber-terrorizing-amusement-parks ROLLERCOASTER (1977), disaster films showcased then-state-of-the-art special effects depicting catastrophes both natural and man-made, and a large cast of stars both current and from Hollywood's golden age. The incredible success of these films spawned countless imitations, from exclamatory made-for-TV disaster movies like HEAT WAVE! (1974), FLOOD! (1976), and FIRE! (1977) to drive-in exploitation like THE BEES (1978) and AVALANCHE (1978) to the inevitable foreign-made ripoffs with films like TIDAL WAVE (1975), which inserted new footage of Lorne Greene into a Japanese disaster movie; the Italian oil fire thriller OIL (1977); the Canadian city-on-fire thriller CITY ON FIRE (1979); and the Italian/Brazilian co-production KILLER FISH (1979), which involved an emerald heist, a laughable tornado, and a river filled with hungry piranha. It's unfortunate that most of these films lacked the hyperbolic punctuation that the TV movies used--think how much better KILLER FISH would be if it was called KILLER FISH!
In addition to the mandatory "faces in boxes" poster design, disaster movies frequently featured supporting roles for an off-season or retired sports star, usually from the NFL, such as Rosey Grier in SKYJACKED (1972), O.J. Simpson in THE TOWERING INFERNO, Alex Karras in WHEN TIME RAN OUT (1980), and then-Houston Oilers quarterback Dan Pastorini in the aforementioned KILLER FISH, as well as college football star Mark Harmon in BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1979). Other such stunt casting included the likes of fake evangelist-turned-actor Marjoe Gortner in EARTHQUAKE (1974), singer Helen Reddy in AIRPORT 1975 (1974), and game-show host and frequent TONIGHT SHOW guest host John Davidson--the Ryan Seacrest of the 1970s--in THE CONCORDE: AIRPORT '79 (1979). Audiences grew tired of the increasingly silly and often shoddy spectacles (how can we forget 1978's THE SWARM or 1979's METEOR?) and the demand for these things vanished. Kinji Fukasaku's mega-budget Japanese epic VIRUS (1980), featuring such stars as Glenn Ford, George Kennedy, Henry Silva, Sonny Chiba, and Robert Vaughn, was perhaps the most ambitious disaster film of them all, but couldn't find a US distributor even with a sappy Janis Ian theme song, and was cut by nearly an hour and drastically re-edited before going straight-to-video in 1984 (Fukasaku's complete 155-minute version is a masterpiece). By the time so-called "Master of Disaster" Irwin Allen, the man behind THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, THE TOWERING INFERNO, and THE SWARM, unveiled the volcano epic WHEN TIME RAN OUT, the title could've applied to the genre itself, especially when it was expertly parodied that same year by AIRPLANE!, from the gathering of stoical, serious actors known for their stern gravitas (Peter Graves, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack), right down to the casting of NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as himself, moonlighting as a pilot named "Roger Murdock." Disaster movies, at least in their 1970s incarnation, were done.
These films always had eclectic casts populated by actors you'd never expect to find working together (THE CONCORDE: AIRPORT '79 managed to get Alain Delon, Charo, Jimmie Walker, and Sylvia Kristel in the same movie), but the British/Italian/West German co-production THE CASSANDRA CROSSING provides a bizarre mix of international A-list, Hollywood old guard, Eurocult regulars, and one vacationing football star nearing the end of his playing days. It's not often you see people like O.J. Simpson and Martin Sheen mixing it up with the likes of THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE's Ray Lovelock and FISTS IN THE POCKET's Lou Castel. Like many of its genre brethren, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING offers multiple problems for its heroes to conquer and is actually two disaster movies in one: first a terrorist exposed to a deadly plague stows away on a Geneva-to-Stockholm train, then the US military tries to contain the disease by intentionally diverting the train to an unsafe bridge in the hopes that it will collapse, killing all the passengers and making for a nice, convenient cover-up. There's a level of cynicism in THE CASSANDRA CROSSING that doesn't exist in other disaster movies. The US government is the villain here, and it's interesting that it's represented by Burt Lancaster, who starred in the same year's TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING, a bile-soaked screed of a conspiracy thriller that depicted the US President's own cabinet members sending the newly-elected and earnestly naïve Commander-in-Chief (Charles Durning) to his own execution when he decides to go public with his predecessors' classified memos that will expose the truth about America's Vietnam policies. He's advised against it by those in his inner circle, old men who tell him "This is just how it's always been," and he pays the price for breaking tradition.
In CASSANDRA, Lancaster's Col. Mackenzie is dispatched to the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva after three Swedish terrorists (Castel, Stefano Patrizi, and Carlo De Mejo) infiltrate the building and the resulting shootout ends up exposing them to a strain of pneumonic plague that's been developed--illegally and in secret--by the US government and stored in a lab on the premises. De Mejo is killed by a guard, Patrizi is wounded and captured, and Castel escapes. Mackenzie, his aid Major Stack (John Phillip Law), and WHO-based Dr. Stradner (Ingrid Thulin) get no information out of Patrizi before he dies, and Mackenzie orders the body burned. Castel, the lead terrorist, makes his way to a nearby train station and sneaks aboard the express going to Stockholm. It's here where CASSANDRA, for a while at least plays out as your standard issue '70s disaster epic. The major players onboard are renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Jonathan Chamberlain (Richard Harris); his romance novelist ex-wife Jennifer (Sophia Loren); requisite elderly con man Herman Kaplan (Lee Strasberg); hippie lovebirds Tom (Lovelock) and Susan (Ann Turkel); a grandmother (Alida Valli) and her granddaughter Katerina (Fausta Avelli); wealthy Nicole Dressler (Ava Gardner, also in EARTHQUAKE and CITY ON FIRE), wife of a German arms magnate, along with her heroin-addicted, drug-dealing boy-toy Robby Navarro (Sheen); and Haley (Simpson), an incognito-as-a-priest Interpol agent tailing Navarro. The script by Tom Mankiewicz, Robert Katz, and director George P. Cosmatos (who would go on to Hollywood blockbusters like 1985's RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II and 1993's TOMBSTONE) spends a little too much time on the soapier elements of Jonathan and Jennifer's inevitable rekindling of their romance (they've already been divorced twice), but once the terrorist makes his way through the train, quickly infecting many of the passengers, things pick up considerably.
Oddly, the plague part of the film is resolved rather quickly. Chamberlain, in conference with Dr. Stradner, concludes that in a highly-oxygenated environment like a train, the disease will eventually run its course and people will recover unless, like the terrorist, it was directly absorbed into the bloodstream. The terrorist eventually dies, but those onboard who are afflicted soon find themselves on the mend. That's not good enough for Mackenzie, who orders the train to be diverted to a quarantined area--a former concentration camp--that will require it to cross a condemned bridge that hasn't been used since WWII. Of course, his intention--his orders--are to bury this incident by any means necessary, as the US was illegally developing deadly germ warfare in Geneva and keeping it secret. Mackenzie has the train met in Nuremberg by a team of 40 Army officers in HazMat suits led by Col. Scott (Tom Hunter). Scott's job is to keep everyone onboard and kill anyone who tries to get off the train. So, about midway through the film, with the plague story wrapped up, the action now centers on Chamberlain leading a passenger revolt against Scott and his goons and stop the train before it reaches the Cassandra Crossing.
Make no mistake, the bulk of THE CASSANDRA CROSSING is, like most of its disaster contemporaries, silly and illogical. Many of the actors on the train don't seem to be on the same page as far as what kind of movie they're in: Harris, Sheen, and Simpson play it straight and serious (as seriously as O.J. dressed as a priest can be taken), while Gardner, perhaps still amused by being cast as Lorne Greene's daughter in EARTHQUAKE, is glib and snarky at all the wrong times. Loren doesn't really have much to do other than look glamorous in soft focus, which Cosmatos ensures since her husband Carlo Ponti was the producer (Loren's introduction, where she's given numerous close-ups from various angles, is a bit excessive and obviously done to please Ponti). Strasberg's con man character keeps trying to sell phony watches, while you could make a drinking game out of how many times Valli helplessly says "Katerina!" to no one in particular after she gets separated from the little girl. And my God, I haven't even gotten to the song.
Any self-respecting '70s disaster movie had the mandatory maudlin theme song, like "The Morning After" from THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and "We May Never Love Like This Again" from THE TOWERING INFERNO. Both of those songs were sung by Maureen McGovern and both won Oscars for Best Original Song. THE CASSANDRA CROSSING gives us a fine Ennio Morricone-esque score by Jerry Goldsmith, but also offered co-star Turkel--who was married to Harris at the time--singing something called "I'm Still on My Way," and she sings it early in the film, as she and Lovelock and some other hippie pals are jamming in one of the train cars. And just when you think it can't get any sillier, train conductor Max (Lionel Stander) takes a break from his duties to just hang out with them. It seems unnecessary to mention that their efforts were not rewarded with a Best Original Song Oscar. It's easily the worst scene in the film, and one that completely stops it cold and one that I never knew existed until I saw it on Turner Classic Movies some years back. For decades, I only knew the version that aired on NBC and in syndication, which mercifully cut that scene out entirely. Also absent from the television version are some gory bits from the finale, as the train indeed crashes and a good chunk of the passengers die horribly violent deaths: watch for the train rail cutting through a car and impaling a passenger right through his gut, yet another example of this film's unrepentant mean streak.
THE CASSANDRA CROSSING isn't the best of its type, but it's maintained a well-deserved cult-following over the decades, primarily for its unusual international cast and because it works very well as an entertaining thriller. But if you approach it from the angle of Lancaster's Mackenzie, there's some unexpected depth to the film. Of course, an old pro like Lancaster knows just how to play the various subtleties and nuances, and perhaps there wasn't anything in the script and he simply took it upon himself as an experienced actor to make something out of nothing. At the conclusion of the film, after telling Dr. Stradner "I know you see me as some kind of monster," and essentially saying he did what he had to do, you can see the sadness in Lancaster's eyes and it's the first moment in the film that Mackenzie seems remotely human. And in that moment, Lancaster makes us see that, like Stack and Scott and those under him, he's just a part of the machine. Lancaster nails it when he's about to leave the building. Stack offers to take him to a nearby bar and buy him a drink. Mackenzie says nothing, putting on his coat and unconsciously reaching for his uniform service cap, stopping himself, and going for his fedora instead. It's not that he isn't worthy of wearing it. No, he was a good soldier who followed orders. He's just too sickened by those orders to wear it, and by rejecting it, he retains some semblance of humanity. And as Mackenzie leaves the room without saying a word and heads down a long hallway to the exit, Stack can be heard on the phone with an unknown superior: "He's leaving right now. Yes, he and the doctor are both under surveillance." Mackenzie is as expendable as the people killed in the bridge collapse and he likely isn't making it to his next destination. In that closing scene, using no dialogue, Lancaster's aging face perfectly illustrates a career military man who served his country only to be made a fall guy who knows shit rolls downhill and it's coming straight for him. In that respect, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING--or, more accurately, Lancaster's sequences in it--makes for a fascinating companion piece to TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING, where he played another soldier who just followed orders issued down a corrupt chain of command until his conscience could no longer allow it.
Directed by Marc Webb. Written by James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent, and Steve Kloves. Cast: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Irrfan Khan, C. Thomas Howell. (PG-13, 137 mins)
Rebooting the SPIDER-MAN franchise just ten years after it began and five years after the last installment, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN exists only so Sony could hold on to the rights and not lose them to Marvel's deal with Disney. To its credit, the film has some good elements and is not overtly cynical in its execution, but really, it only exists as a contractual clause obligation. Director Marc Webb (500 DAYS OF SUMMER, and music videos by No Doubt, Green Day, and 3 Doors Down) and screenwriters James Vanderbilt (ZODIAC), Alvin Sargent (SPIDER-MAN 2, SPIDER-MAN 3), and Steve Kloves (several HARRY POTTER screenplays) hit all the expected building blocks of Spidey's origins, often glossing over them in a way that suggests even they know how familiar we are with the whole thing, because really, we just saw it, and it's still on TV all the time. To put it another way, as I've gotten older, I've seen a number of films from my childhood remade, but a kid who saw Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN in theaters when he was five still isn't old enough to drive to the theater to see the reboot. And we also need to retire the term "reboot," since it's no longer relevant. BATMAN BEGINS was a reboot. CASINO ROYALE was a reboot. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is a $215 million legal document.
Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man
Having said that, it has a lot of positives. Fashioning a Spidey for Generation Skinny Jeans, Andrew Garfield (THE SOCIAL NETWORK) turns in a believable, natural performance as outcast Peter Parker. There's a bit more of a focus on the disappearance of Peter's parents (Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz) and his being raised by Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field), but after that, Webb and the screenwriters are just running down a checklist: Peter getting into Oscorp to meet his dad's old colleague, the one-armed Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans); being bitten by a radioactive spider; discovering and controlling his superhero powers; falling for classmate Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), who's an intern at Oscorp; Peter inadvertantly causing Uncle Ben to get killed in the wrong place at the wrong time, etc. Dr. Connors is experimenting with a reptilian regeneration hormone for those with missing limbs, and suffers tragic consequences when he tests the drug on himself, bringing out his dark side and transforming him into the rampaging Lizard.
Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy
Garfield, despite playing a high-school student at 28, is a good Peter/Spidey, but once the mayhem starts, it's all CGI and video-gamey set pieces. When Sheen's Uncle Ben exits the film, so does the warmth and humanity, especially since you don't see much of Field's Aunt May afterwards (Sheen and Field are both superb here). Through no fault of Ifans, Connors/The Lizard is a dull, one-dimensional villain that's just a retread of Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin from SPIDER-MAN and Alfred Molina's Doc Ock from SPIDER-MAN 2. Even the always-charming Stone is rendered somewhat inert here. She doesn't even seem shocked by Peter's revelation that he's Spider-Man. There's also supporting performances by Denis Leary as Gwen's police captain father, Irrfan Khan (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE), and even a rare big-screen C. Thomas Howell sighting (in addition to the usual Stan Lee cameo), but actors aren't really even important in films like this. There's a few impressively-done action sequences and some nice bits of humor, but some of it falls flat, especially Spidey's Ratso Rizzo-ish "I'm swingin' here!" and his taunting "Somebody's been a bad lizard!"
Rhys Ifans as Dr. Curt Connors, soon to become The Lizard
Martin Sheen and Sally Field as Uncle Ben and Aunt May
It basically boils down to there being no reason beyond rights necessities for THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN to exist. It's reasonably entertaining and nothing about it is bad, but nothing's particularly great, either. It's big, loud, colorful, and generally fast (even if it overstays its welcome a tad at a bloated 137 minutes), and hits as much as it misses. It'll make a ton of money and there'll be two sequels, and in 2022, another "reboot," if we're still using that term by then. It's OK, it's watchable, but you've seen it all before and there's just nothing here to really get excited about it. The biggest achievement of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is that it took me to previously unforeseen levels of complete and utter ambivalence. (2D version seen)
