BODY AND SOUL (US - 1981) Directed by George Bowers. Written by Leon Isaac Kennedy. Cast: Leon Isaac Kennedy, Jayne Kennedy, Muhammad Ali, Peter Lawford, Michael V. Gazzo, Perry Lang, Kim Hamilton, Gilbert Lewis, Nikki Swasey, Danny Wells, Johnny Brown, Azizi Johari, Rosanne Katon, Chris Wallace, Al Denavo, Robbie Epps, J. B. Williamson, Mel Welles, DeForrest Covan, Eddie Mustafos, Ola Ray. (R, 105 mins) "I just wish you were double-jointed so you could turn around and kiss your own ass!" A minor hit for Cannon in the fall of 1981 before being generally forgotten in the ensuing decades, BODY AND SOUL was a remake of the 1947 John Garfield boxing classic retooled for Leon Isaac Kennedy and Jayne Kennedy during the brief moment in time when they were a celebrity power couple. Leon was a DJ in Cleveland and Detroit who broke into movies in the early '70s with small roles in HAMMER and MEAN JOHNNY BARROWS before scoring a huge sleeper hit with Jamaa Fanaka's 1979 prison boxing saga PENITENTIARY. Jayne was a model, actress, and sportscaster who became the first African-American woman to co-host a Sunday NFL show when she replaced Phyllis George and joined Brent Musberger on CBS' NFL TODAY in 1978. Leon and Jayne were married in 1971 and appeared together in Cirio H. Santiago's 1978 Filipino actioner DEATH FORCE (aka FIGHTING MAD), but by 1981, between Leon's success with PENITENTIARY and Jayne's high-profile presence in sports broadcasting and on magazine covers, they had enough clout to get the green light on a dream project like BODY AND SOUL--written by Leon himself--even if it was with Cannon, still finding its niche in the early days of the Golan-Globus era.
Leon stars as Leon Johnson, a gifted boxer who doesn't really take the sport very seriously until his wheelchair-bound kid sister Kelly (Nikki Swasey, who had a recurring role on DIFF'RENT STROKES as Arnold's snobby nemesis, Lisa Hayes) needs expensive treatments to battle sickle cell disease. He drops out of med school to reinvent himself as Leon "The Lover" Johnson, a flashy showoff who even seeks out Muhammad Ali--as himself--as a trainer. Ali turns him down ("Look at you, you look like a mosquito!" the Champ quips), and instead gives him one of his own entourage, grizzled old Frankie (GODFATHER PART II Oscar-nominee Michael V. Gazzo, credited as "Mike Gazzo" in one of those short-lived, mid-career name changes that never stick unless you're Laurence Fishburne--just ask Charles Sheen, Chris Walken, Don Pleasence, Brad Dillman, or Jim Brolin), to function as the Mickey to his Rocky, along with Leon's usual trainer, his goofball buddy Charles (a really terrible performance by Perry Lang). All the while, Leon falls hard for sports reporter Julie Winters (Jayne), who's assigned to cover his quick ascent in the ring and ends up engaged to him over the course of a single montage set to "With You I'm Born Again" by Billy Preston and Syreeta.
Leon and director George Bowers (THE HEARSE, MY TUTOR) lean in on the montage as a way to cut through huge chunks of story, which soon relies on an extensive checklist of every rise-fall-redemption cliche in the playbook: Leon gets seduced by the glitz and glamour, starts sleeping around, Julie catches him in a foursome (!), he's offered a too-good-to-be-true-deal by sleazy, corrupt, mob-connected promoter "Big Man" (Peter Lawford, in one of his last films), and Charles falls under the spell of drugs after one of Big Man's flunkies (Gilbert Lewis) gives him some coke and immediately gets him hooked ("Hey, man...you ever heard of freebasing?" he asks Charles in the most Afterschool Special tone imaginable). Big Man then offers Leon $200,000 to bet against himself and throw a fight, forcing him to get his priorities together, win back Julie, get Charles off drugs after they have a huge falling-out ("Give your money to your dope man for your freebase and your angel dust!"), and finally get some workout time in with Ali, who takes part in a sparring sequence with the writer/star but you can tell The Champ--who would lose his final fight and retire from the ring a month after BODY AND SOUL hit theaters--is going a little easy on him.
Just out on Blu-ray from Scorpion (because physical media is dead), BODY AND SOUL has enough overwrought elements that you almost wish it would go all-in on its heavy-handed histrionics, whether it's Charles' drug addiction ("We created monsters, Leon!") or the soap opera melodrama of Leon and Julie's up-and-down relationship. She has to put up with his ego, his female fan base who call themselves "Leon's Lovelies" and throw their panties in the ring during his fights, and then she bets it all when she mortgages her house and puts it all on him to win, forcing him to put integrity first ("I don't play with hearts the way you do!" she yells, reminding him "I bet every cent I have on my man to win!"), even though he's ostensibly only in it for his sister ("You bought into it! You became your biggest fan!"). The climactic bout, pitting Leon against Big Man's next big thing--raging psycho Ricardo "Madman" Santiago (Al Denavo), who's introduced violently hurling a baby to the ground when its diaper leaks on his lap--is one of the most ludicrously absurd boxing matches ever depicted onscreen. Santiago does about 25 things worthy of disqualification--including below-the-belt hits, a very late blow to the head after the bell, and an early version of Mike Tyson's infamous Evander Holyfield ear chomp--and yet the ref never stops the fight.
Sure, BODY AND SOUL is dumb, predictable, and formulaic as hell, but there's a scrappy energy to it amidst all the stupidity. It never goes all the way into full-on bad movie territory but takes itself just seriously enough to be sufficiently amusing in an unintentional way. Leon Isaac Kennedy--who, despite his striking resemblance to Sugar Ray Leonard and starring in several boxing movies, was not an actual boxer--would reteam with Jamaa Fanaka for 1982's PENITENTIARY II and 1987's insane PENITENTIARY III (the latter tragically MIA on DVD and Blu-ray), and would write and star in 1986's KNIGHTS OF THE CITY (featuring Smokey Robinson, an old friend from his Motown radio days and best man at his and Jayne's wedding), while staying busy in B movies like 1983's LONE WOLF MCQUADE, 1985's TOO SCARED TO SCREAM, and 1986's HOLLYWOOD VICE SQUAD. Both Leon and Jayne would retire from acting by the early '90s, with Leon becoming a minister and Jayne devoting much of her time to the charity organization Children's Miracle Network and raising awareness for endometriosis after being diagnosed with the condition in the late '80s. BODY AND SOUL didn't lead to further pairings for the celebrity couple, however: they divorced in 1982, not long after the film's release.
CLAY PIGEON (US - 1971) Directed by Tom Stern and Lane Slate. Written by Ronald Buck, Buddy Ruskin and Jack Gross Jr. Cast: Telly Savalas, Robert Vaughn, John Marley, Burgess Meredith, Ivan Dixon, Tom Stern, Jeff Corey, Peter Lawford, Marilyn Akin, Marlene Clark, Belinda Palmer, Mario Alcalde. (R, 92 mins)
A laughable hippie revenge saga that had to look like a dated relic the day it was released, 1971's CLAY PIGEON was co-written by MOD SQUAD creator Buddy Ruskin but is otherwise an amateurish, heavy-handed vanity project for producer/co-director/star Tom Stern. Born in 1940, Stern was an up-and-coming young actor who had small roles in major films like THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1965), THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL (1965), and THE DEVIL'S BRIGADE (1968) before briefly finding a niche in biker movies. ANGELS FROM HELL (1968) and HELL'S ANGELS '69 (1969) did good business on the drive-in circuit, but CLAY PIGEON was a DOA flop that would pretty much kill any momentum the actor and budding auteur had going. Financed independently but distributed by MGM, who no doubt regretted the acquisition and relegated the film to the bottom half of drive-in double bills well into 1972, CLAY PIGEON's only accomplishment was convincing the rest of Hollywood that there was nothing to gain by getting into the Tom Stern game, which had to be a hard lesson learned by the lineup of big-name actors Stern somehow cajoled into appearing in it.
Filmed and edited with all the competence and precision of a classic Al Adamson joint, CLAY PIGEON is embarrassingly bad, and not even in a "so bad, it's entertaining" way. The demand for hippie/biker movies was so heavy at the time that MGM probably didn't care that the film was largely unwatchable. Looking like a cross between painter Bob Ross and MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE's Torgo, Stern is Joe Ryan, an ex-cop and Vietnam vet who's now a homeless, cart-pushing hippie living on the streets of Hollywood. In one of his many random acts of sticking it to The Man, Joe steals a cop's motorcycle and takes it on a joyride before getting tossed in jail, where he's made an offer by rogue FBI agent Redford (Telly Savalas): go undercover and infiltrate the heroin smuggling operation of L.A. drug lord Neilson (Robert Vaughn). When Joe refuses, Redford sets him up to be mistaken for Neilson in some nonsensical attempt to draw Neilson out of hiding. All parties converge for an impressively bloody shootout at the Hollywood Bowl, filled with all that great '70s blood that looks like bright red paint. Stern (who has never directed another movie) and co-director Lane Slate (who would go on to write numerous TV movies, but also a few theatrical releases like 1972's THEY ONLY KILL THEIR MASTERS and 1977's THE CAR) even throw in an over-the-top, gory axe murder in the wild climax, but it's too little, way too late, especially with a hackneyed groaner of a surprise ending.
Other than the splattery finale, nothing works in CLAY PIGEON. If Uwe Boll time traveled back to 1971 to make a counterculture revenge thriller, it would turn out a lot like CLAY PIGEON. Redford's plan makes no sense (and why is Savalas, for no reason, shown in one scene shirtless and staggering around a fleabag hotel room with his hands in restraints? In the next scene, he's wearing a suit and whatever was going on in the hotel room is never referenced again). There's entirely too many meandering asides that provide some nice time-capsule location shooting around the skeezier parts of Hollywood, but it's mainly just Stern walking around or going to strip joints, or hanging out with some free-lovin' lady friends who can't help but throw themselves at a smelly homeless guy. Stern gives himself a couple of nude scenes, including one where he and two full-frontal hotties in all their '70s bush glory are frolicking in a swimming pool threesome, a scene that producer Tom Stern, in conjunction with co-director Tom Stern, no doubt felt was a necessary component to the development of the character played by star Tom Stern. Action scenes (including a slow motion shot of a highway patrol truck repeatedly flipping over that takes up two minutes of screen time) are jarringly accompanied by mellow and laid-back country, folk, and/or protest tunes by the likes of Kris Kristofferson and Arlo Guthrie. John Marley has a few scenes as a grumbly police captain constantly arguing with Redford, while Peter Lawford appears briefly as Redford's boss. But where else will you see Burgess Meredith as a geriatric hippie scrap metal junkyard owner named Freedom Lovelace?
Looking hippie but often sounding like a square, Stern tries to make some big social statements throughout, usually in the most ham-fisted, AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL way imaginable. He stops to give a finger-pointing lecture to Redford--calling him "Supercop"-- about hard drugs, complaining that the dealers get off because they can afford to bribe judges, but kids "get five-to-ten years for possession of a roach, which in case you don't know it, is a marijuana cannabis joint!" Even Savalas is weighed down by attempts to make his character sound hip to the lingo ("I wanna arise the conscience of this freakout," Redford says of Joe), though there is one good exchange where he tells Joe "Your slang is a little dated," to which Joe replies "Is 'fuck off' dated?" Vaughn's bizarre performance is the only reason to watch CLAY PIGEON. Apparently given carte blanche to improvise and do whatever was necessary to keep himself amused, Vaughn is obviously making it up as he goes along, appearing in a series of increasingly ridiculous hats that Judge Smails wouldn't even try on. In one scene, he gives a rambling, spiritual monologue while wearing a Gilligan hat and a gold chain with a Volkswagen hood ornament attached to it, along with a scene-stealing parrot resting on his shoulder. No matter how insane Vaughn's scenes become or how silly of a hat he's wearing (it's surprising he isn't wearing a propeller beanie for the big shootout), he somehow manages to keep a straight face. The same can't be said for Ivan Dixon, who plays Neilson's chief enforcer, and in several scenes with Vaughn (the bumper pool scene, in particular), Dixon is visibly breaking like they're in an off-the-rails SNL skit. Of course, the home-movie-quality CLAY PIGEON is so badly-made that Stern just left the mistakes as they were. There's a reason this obscurity was never released on VHS or DVD and didn't even get much play on late-night TV back in the day. It's been hard to see for several decades, though Turner Classic Movies recently aired a 1.33 print on their "TCM Underground" series. After this film's failure, Stern sporadically appeared in TV guest spots and occasional B-movies, his last credit being Zalman King's 1998 drama IN GOD'S HANDS. A film more suited to the likes of Independent-International than MGM, CLAY PIGEON, despite how crazy it sounds, has little entertainment value for anyone other than Robert Vaughn completists. If someone put all of his scenes in a YouTube video, you'd have all you need to see of it.
