LOLLY-MADONNA XXX aka THE LOLLY-MADONNA WAR (US - 1973) Directed by Richard C. Sarafian. Written by Rodney Carr-Smith and Sue Grafton. Cast: Rod Steiger, Robert Ryan, Jeff Bridges, Scott Wilson, Season Hubley, Gary Busey, Joan Goodfellow, Tresa Hughes, Paul Koslo, Ed Lauter, Kiel Martin, Randy Quaid, Timothy Scott, Katherine Squire. (PG, 106 mins) In the years before her career took off in 1982 with A is for Alibi, the first of her ongoing "alphabet mysteries" (the 24th, titled simply X, was released last year), novelist Sue Grafton worked primarily in television, writing numerous made-for-TV movies in addition to being a creative force behind Michael Learned's post-WALTONS CBS series NURSE. She made the move to TV in an effort to polish her plotting and character-building skills after her first two books tanked. Her second novel, The Lolly-Madonna War, was published overseas in 1969 with little fanfare, not even attracting interest from a US publisher. British writer/producer Rodney Carr-Smith (BARTLEBY) bought the movie rights and brought it to MGM in an attempt to establish himself in America (still unpublished in the US, The Lolly-Madonna War remains Grafton's most obscure novel, and used mass market paperback import copies currently range from $423 to $880 on Amazon). Carr-Smith collaborated with Grafton on the screenplay adaptation and the film version was rechristened as the ill-advised LOLLY-MADONNA XXX, which didn't do it any favors as many confused moviegoers and theater owners may have understandably mistaken it for a porno. The title refers to a signature on a postcard, with the "xxx" being "kisses," but it proved problematic enough that MGM pulled the film and relaunched it under its original book title as the more straightforward THE LOLLY-MADONNA WAR (and judging from the trailer, it was also titled FIRE IN THE MEADOW at some point prior to its release), though the LOLLY-MADONNA XXX title is what it's most commonly known as today. Under either title, the movie bombed and Carr-Smith's adventures in Hollywood, as well as his career in cinema, came to an abrupt end.
A then-contemporary take on the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys, updated to rural backwoods Tennessee, LOLLY-MADONNA XXX opens with young Roonie Gill (Season Hubley) switching buses in a podunk town on her way to Nashville and being mistaken for Lolly-Madonna, the supposed fiancee of Ludie Gutshall (Kiel Martin). Roonie is abducted from the bus stop by Thrush (Scott Wilson) and Hawk Feather (a never-better Ed Lauter), two sons of Laban Feather (Rod Steiger), who's in a property dispute with former best friend and rival moonshiner Pap Gutshall (Robert Ryan, in one of his last films; he died less than five months after it was released). Correctly assuming Feather's dumb sons would take the bait and head to the bus stop, Ludie put a forged postcard from a non-existent "Lolly-Madonna" in the Feather mailbox (right next to the Gutshalls on the roadside), asking to be picked up, giving Ludie and two other Gutshall sons, Zeb (Gary Busey) and Villum (Paul Koslo), time to run up to the Feather still and vandalize it. This is just one in a series of escalating back-and-forth pranks that the Feather and Gutshall sons have been playing for the last couple of years, as the bond between the families has deteriorated to the point where star-crossed lovers Skyler Feather (Timothy Scott) and Sister E. Gutshall (Joan Goodfellow) are forced to carry on their relationship in secret. Things headed south after Gutshall's other daughter married Zack Feather (Jeff Bridges) and was killed in a horse-riding accident that Laban blamed on black sheep Thrush. Following Gutshall's purchase of a disputed piece of land that went up for auction when Feather owed back taxes on it, tensions have done nothing but flare and it's only made worse by the presence of Roonie, who is held captive by the Feathers and can't convince Laban or any of his sons--even Zack, with whom she falls in love in what may be a case of Stockholm Syndrome--that she's not Lolly-Madonna and has no idea who the Gutshalls are.
LOLLY-MADONNA XXX is a strange and often twisted film that somehow got a PG rating in 1973 despite some grim and disturbing developments as things take a decidedly dark turn. Ludie confronts Thrush and cracks his skull open with a rock, requiring stitches. Heading to the hills for a clandestine dalliance with Skyler, Sister E. is spotted by Thrush and Hawk (the latter with his face smeared in Roonie's makeup and wearing her bra and granny panties), who attack her and take turns raping her. Pap demands justice for his daughter's rape and wants Thrush and Hawk whipped, which only enrages Laban as the violence and lunacy intensifies and the Feather patriarch sets the disputed piece of land ablaze while leading his clan in a sing-along of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." Eventually, Pap and his sons--with the exception of pacifist Zeb, who goes behind his father's back and attempts to broker a truce with an unconvinced Zack, pack an arsenal of weapons to launch an assault on the Feather homestead.
Directed by journeyman Richard C. Sarafian (VANISHING POINT), LOLLY-MADONNA XXX is surprisingly strong stuff that would probably get an R rating even today with the mostly-implied but still unsettling rape scene (it's actually more effective that Sarafian cuts away just as it's about to get really unpleasant), the bloody violence, and fleeting nudity by both Hubley and Goodfellow. Though it prefigured oncoming hillbilly-centered films like GATOR BAIT by a couple of years and the great SOUTHERN COMFORT by eight, it feels a lot like a big-studio version of a really grimy drive-in hicksploitation flick, almost like THE WALTONS-meets-DELIVERANCE, definitely revealing an unexpected side to Sue Grafton's writing if you're only familiar with her very mainstream mystery novels. The climax--a long, protracted, Sam Peckinpah-meets-Walter Hill-style shootout where all hell breaks loose while a catatonic and insane Laban can do nothing other than silently stew at the kitchen table and angrily make himself a mayonnaise-and-ketchup sandwich--is the kind of batshit craziness that did little to win LOLLY-MADONNA XXX any fans then but makes it a terrific and bizarre curio item today (one of Hollywood's great overactors, Steiger is one of the very few people who can overdo the act of pouring ketchup). It's hard to believe there was once a time when a character played by a young and still-serious Gary Busey (in just his fourth film) would function as the most stable and level-headed voice of reason in a movie (speaking of crazy, a young Randy Quaid is also on hand as a mentally-challenged Feather son). Despite its more exploitative elements, there's certainly an anti-war Vietnam era metaphor to LOLLY-MADONNA XXX in the way Laban and Pap express concern over what's going on but do absolutely nothing to stop it, instead being complicit in its escalation and content to let their sons do the fighting and the dying. Vietnam is also directly invoked by Pap Gutshall having lost a son in combat and Zack Feather being established as a draft dodger. Even by the standards of the more adventurous, chance-taking cinema of the post-EASY RIDER, pre-summer blockbuster 1970s, LOLLY-MADONNA XXX is one of the weirder movies to come from a major studio in that era and is worth seeing on that basis alone, and even more so when you look at that fascinating mix of old-school Hollywood and up-and-coming youngsters. Shortly after completing this film, Ryan and Bridges would work together again on John Frankenheimer's THE ICEMAN COMETH, released several months after Ryan's death from lung cancer.
THE MISSOURI BREAKS (US - 1976) Directed by Arthur Penn. Written by Thomas McGuane. Cast: Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, Kathleen Lloyd, Frederic Forrest, Harry Dean Stanton, John McLiam, John P. Ryan, Sam Gilman, Steve Franken, Richard Bradford, Luana Anders, Hunter von Leer, Virgil Frye, Dan Ades. (PG, 126 mins)
When it was released in theaters in the summer of 1976, the western THE MISSOURI BREAKS was arguably the anticipated event film of the season. It was the first and ultimately only pairing of Marlon Brando, offscreen since his GODFATHER/LAST TANGO IN PARIS triumphs of 1972 and 1973, and Jack Nicholson, who had just won the Best Actor Oscar for the previous year's ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. The script was written by acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Thomas McGuane (92 IN THE SHADE, RANCHO DELUXE) right in the midst of a particularly chaotic, excess-fueled phase of his life where those close to him were dubbing him "Captain Berserko." Like seemingly every major 1970s studio film, it also featured additional script contributions by an uncredited Robert Towne (THE LAST DETAIL, CHINATOWN). The director was Arthur Penn, no stranger to westerns (1958's THE LEFT HANDED GUN, 1970's LITTLE BIG MAN), but best known for his iconic BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967). In short, THE MISSOURI BREAKS' pedigree was without doubt. This was the very definition of a sure thing.
Then, much to the detriment of everyone involved, it was released. Critics hated it. Audiences hated it. The word-of-mouth was toxic. The movie bombed.
There's no shortage of notable, worthwhile, and even classic films that tanked on their initial release only to find appreciation some time--weeks, months, years, decades--later. THE MISSOURI BREAKS existed in that odd time between the auteurist, maverick mindset that became the Hollywood norm post-EASY RIDER, and the new summer blockbuster ethos ushered in the previous year by JAWS and made industry standard the next summer with STAR WARS. While most of 1976's biggest moneymakers (ROCKY, A STAR IS BORN, KING KONG, SILVER STREAK) were released in the fall, the two most successful films of the summer represented both ends of the spectrum: the topical ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN was released in April and continued to be a huge hit throughout the summer, and THE OMEN was released in June. THE MISSOURI BREAKS was flat-out rejected by everyone. There's a good chance that if it came out a few years earlier, it might've gotten a more hospitable reception. If it came out a few years later, it would've been focus-grouped into losing its personality and engineered into a commercial crowd-pleaser. On one hand, it's a film that refuses to stick to convention, but on the other, a western that promised a face-off between what many considered film's greatest living actor and his heir apparent and instead turned their confrontation into an anticlimactic afterthought that practically takes place offscreen does feel like a bit of a dick move.
THE MISSOURI BREAKS opens with wealthy northern Montana ranch owner Braxton (John McLiam) and his strongarm Pete (Richard Bradford) overseeing the execution-by-hanging of Sandy (Hunter von Leer), who was caught trying to rustle horses off of Braxton's property. Sandy was part of a group of horse thieves led by Tom Logan (Nicholson). Logan and the rest of the gang--Calvin (Harry Dean Stanton), Little Tod (Randy Quaid), Cary (Frederic Forrest), and Si (John P. Ryan)--hatch a plan that involves using money from a nearly-botched train robbery to buy a ranch near Braxton's land. While the other four men are off on a separate horse-rustling job near the Canadian border, Logan is planting crops and creating the illusion of being an upstanding citizen while plotting his revenge on Braxton, even being cordial with Braxton and secretly courting his fiercely independent daughter Jane (Kathleen Lloyd). After Logan secretly kills Pete and leaves him hanging from the same tree where Sandy was executed, Braxton hires legendary "regulator" Robert E. Lee Clayton (Brando), an eccentric, lilac-perfurmed Irish bounty hunter, to track down and bring to justice (meaning, kill) the men responsible. Clayton sees right through Logan's "average farmer" act, which sets the stage for the regulator obsessively pursuing the other men and offing them one by one before coming back for Logan, who goes soft when he grows accustomed to working an honest living and finding true love with Jane. "You're pretty far gone, ain't ya?" Calvin asks in disgust as Logan beams with pride over the progress of his ranch work. "That's how it happens, isn't it?" Logan shrugs. The deranged Clayton manages to take over Braxton's ranch, usurping his power and instilling his own brand of HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER terror to the townsfolk, getting under Braxton's skin enough that the rancher can't call him off the job and Clayton, who's now just in it for the kill, doesn't even want to be paid. "It's about the job," he says with wild eyes. "I always finish the job."
The revisionist nature of THE MISSOURI BREAKS makes it easy to see what drew Penn to the project. With BONNIE AND CLYDE and LITTLE BIG MAN and even his 1975 box-office flop NIGHT MOVES, a film dismissed in its day and now regarded as one of the essential films of its decade, he was a filmmaker who thrived on the offbeat, the unexpected, and the groundbreaking. For a while in the early-going, THE MISSOURI BREAKS is very similar to the quieter moments in some of Sam Peckinpah's westerns--it's beautifully-photographed (by Michael Butler), with very deliberate pacing and a focus on character development, like Logan initially vowing revenge but finding he might just want to live a quiet farming life. Nicholson turns in a surprisingly restrained, understated performance, rarely raising his voice and only very sporadically resorting to some quintessential "Jack" late in the game when Clayton forces his hand by killing all of his friends. His performance is more in line with the work he had recently done for Michelangelo Antonioni in 1975's THE PASSENGER rather than the McMurphy schtick of CUCKOO'S NEST. He seems happy to be part of the ensemble of great character actors that make up his gang, and he's very charismatic in his scenes with Lloyd, a charming actress who should've been bigger and is largely forgotten today (she went on to co-star in THE CAR, reunite with Forrest and Ryan in Larry Cohen's IT LIVES AGAIN, and have a recurring role on MAGNUM, P.I. before spending the next three decades doing TV guest spots). Penn's handling of the Nicholson end of the plot is indicative of a filmmaker in control of his vision. Where THE MISSOURI BREAKS loses its balance--and not necessarily in a bad way--is with Brando.
This was Brando's first film appearance in three years, and it's essentially the beginning of the final phase of his career: the "I'm just going to riff and do what I want because I'm Marlon Brando and I'm getting paid more than everybody else here" phase. This is the Brando who showed up on the APOCALYPSE NOW set without having read the script and opting to intentionally stall filming because his contract stipulated that he stood to make more money if he was still needed after a certain date. This is the Brando who wore an ice bucket on his head for no reason in THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. This is the Brando who was now almost openly contemptuous of his craft and the whole concept of Hollywood. Brando had a history of being difficult and, at least with 1969's THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY, purposefully attempting to sabotage a film with his antics, but while he may be undisciplined, unfocused, and impossibly hammy in THE MISSOURI BREAKS, he's doing what he needs to do keep things interesting, and from the looks of it, he's having a blast. Penn directed Brando in 1966's underrated THE CHASE, which contains one of the actor's best performances from his mid-to-late 1960s downward spiral. Only a decade had passed, but it wasn't the same controlled, serious Brando who showed up to work on THE MISSOURI BREAKS. Brando first appears around the 35-minute mark, hanging off a horse and sporting an over-the-top Irish brogue that sounds like a tribute to his MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY co-star Richard Harris. His performance is a parade of eccentricities that starts off quirky and rapidly escalates to gonzo. He walks into Pete's funeral, roughs up the body, lying in ice in a casket, and proceeds to grab some ice cubes and rub them all over his face. Elsewhere, Brando's Clayton dons a variety of costumes in his pursuit of Logan's gang, disguising himself as a mandolin-strumming preacher mumbling through mouthful of tobacco and later, maniacally cackling in drag in a frontier granny dress as he hurls a spike through someone's head. He sets another on fire while screaming "Smoked meat!" He plays with bubbles in the bathtub. He taunts Braxton while wearing a dorky derby and munching on a plate of raw carrots like a distinguished Bugs Bunny. When Braxton tells Clayton "You're out of control!" it's hard to tell if McLiam is in character or talking to Brando personally. Brando treats the entire project as a self-indulgent, absurdist playground, opting to goof off to his heart's content on United Artists' dime (interestingly, the studio would go bankrupt in four years with another revisionist western, Michael Cimino's much more costly and similarly-reviled-and-now-reconsidered HEAVEN'S GATE), but unlike some of his later films (CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: THE DISCOVERY, anyone?), no one can accuse him of phoning this one in. 1976 audiences might've been pissed off, but Brando was having the time of his life.
Brando grows more unhinged with each passing scene, and while his material is at odds with the relative seriousness of the rest of the film (there's bits of dark humor here and there, like a blubbering Ryan crying "It ain't even legal!" when some Canadian Mounties have the audacity to cross the border to take back their stolen horses), they give THE MISSOURI BREAKS much of its unique personality. Over the years, it's Brando's insane performance that's drawn people to the film, not the horse-rustling plot or the romance between Nicholson and Lloyd. THE MISSOURI BREAKS has a level of weirdness that's probably very off-putting for a first-time viewer or those 1976 audiences who expected a more traditional western. Audiences who loathed THE MISSOURI BREAKS responded much more positively to Clint Eastwood's THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, released a month later, but westerns were generally moving away from the John Wayne tradition (though the Duke went out strong in 1976 with THE SHOOTIST), with offbeat films like THE MISSOURI BREAKS, Robert Altman's BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS OR SITTING BULL'S HISTORY LESSON, and Andrew V. McLaglen's THE LAST HARD MEN. In THE MISSOURI BREAKS, Brando and Nicholson have a few scenes together, but they spend the bulk of the film apart, and the only really lunkheaded artistic decision Penn and McGuane make is in the final confrontation between Clayton and Logan, which is virtually over before it even begins. It's not quite the resolution that the teaming of titans like Brando and Nicholson would seemingly promise.
Though it has yet to enjoy a NIGHT MOVES-style renaissance, THE MISSOURI BREAKS' reputation has improved significantly over the years, at least as far as fans of bizarre cult movies are concerned. In addition to critics hating it, the film also got some bad press after it was condemned by the American Humane Association when one horse drowned and several others were injured at various points in the shoot. It was also revealed that the crew was using tripwires on the horses, a practice that the AHA and the major studios previously agreed to cease, and the responsibility for that rightfully fell on Penn and the producers. It's a slow, strange film, almost revisionist to the point of being an anti-western, and it's hard to argue with anyone who finds it a bit of a misfire (it still rates a "BOMB" in Leonard Maltin's movie guide, which calls it "a great director's worst film and one of the worst 'big' movies ever made"). It's a film frequently at odds with itself, almost like Penn realized that trying to corral Brando was a lost cause so he instead focused on what he could control. Perhaps Nicholson's restraint was a sympathetic concession to his director, like the actor realized the film (and Penn, for the matter) didn't need two outrageous, mischievous scamps trying to out-ham one another. After THE MISSOURI BREAKS, Penn never again tackled a huge, highly-publicized project of this sort. He laid low, spending five years licking his wounds and waiting for the smoke to clear before returning with 1981's character-driven drama FOUR FRIENDS, a film filled with a cast of relative newcomers like Craig Wasson, who wouldn't give him any headaches or force him to measure up to impossible expectations. He made a few more films, the most notable being 1987's underrated suspense thriller DEAD OF WINTER, before retiring after directing an episode of the Sidney Lumet-produced TV series 100 CENTRE STREET in 2001. Penn died in 2010 at the age of 88, hopefully aware that THE MISSOURI BREAKS, while a flawed mess, is a much more worthwhile, intriguing, and entertaining film than the moviegoers of 1976 realized.
