Retro Review: BEYOND REASON (1985)

BEYOND REASON
(US - 1985)

Written and directed by Telly Savalas. Cast: Telly Savalas, Diana Muldaur, Laura Johnson, Marvin Laird, Bob Basso, Walter Brooke, Barney Phillips, Douglas Dirkson, Tony Burton, Biff Elliot, Rita Marie Carr, Jason Ronard, Lilyan Chauvin, Toni Lawrence, Susan Myers, Kathy Bendett, Paul Gale, Lee Terri, Debra Feuer, Melissa Prophet, Denise DuBarry, Priscilla Barnes. (PG, 88 mins)

After over a decade of being a jobbing character actor in the US and in Europe (and getting a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for 1962's BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ), Telly Savalas became a pop culture phenemenon with the success of the CBS cop series KOJAK in 1973. KOJAK ran for five seasons, during which time Savalas was everywhere, appearing on talk shows, awards shows, variety shows, CIRCUS OF THE STARS, Dean Martin's celebrity roasts, you name it. Kojak's lollipops became synonymous with Savalas, and the detective's "Who loves ya, baby?" was one of the most iconic catchphrases of its day. Savalas had the clout to do whatever he wanted and nobody stopped him. He released two albums, 1974's Telly and 1976's Who Loves Ya, Baby? and had a minor hit single with a novelty spoken word cover of  Bread's "If," and, a few years later, a cover of Don Williams' "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend" topped the charts in Switzerland. He wanted to direct a few episodes of KOJAK, so CBS let him direct a few episodes of KOJAK. He had a lavish lifestyle, gambled all over the world, traveled with an entourage, and with his shaved head and macho demeanor, he became an unlikely sex symbol and one of the most instantly recognizable celebrities on the planet. That image made him the perfect pitchman for Player's Club in the '80s and '90s. It wasn't just a role: for a brief window in time, Telly Savalas was the ultimate player.

As can be the case when someone becomes a phenomenal success, no one in that person's inner circle is willing to step forward and tell them no. By all accounts, Savalas knew he was the fucking man and always enjoyed it, but he was loyal to his friends and didn't let his newfound stratospheric fame turn him into an asshole. During his downtime between the fourth and fifth--and ultimately final--season of KOJAK, Savalas decided he wanted to become an auteur. With the backing of his longtime friend, producer Howard Koch, Savalas wrote, directed, and starred in BEYOND REASON. Filmed in 1977 under the title MATI ("Mati" is the Greek term for "evil eye"---symbolism!), BEYOND REASON was Savalas' shot at becoming a serious, respected filmmaker. He stars as Dr. Nicholas Mati, an unconventional psychiatrist who gambles with his patients, believes "love" is the cure for all, and allows a certain degree of freedom in both the ward of patients he's treating and in the class he teaches. He's happily married to Elaine (Diana Muldaur, saddled with a thankless role), and they have a teenage daughter named Penelope (Susan Myers, best known for the 1977 made-for-TV CARRIE ripoff THE SPELL). But Mati's life soon begins to unravel after a heated conversation over treatment philosophies with med student Leslie Valentine (future DALLAS and FALCON CREST co-star Laura Johnson). He's called up to the roof of the hospital where a stranger (Paul Gale) takes a dive off the building right in front of him, and shortly after, he starts seeing things that aren't there, and his disorientation escalates to the point where he breaks into Leslie's apartment and is almost shot by her roommate Ann (Rita Marie Carr). He begins to think Leslie is trying to drive him insane, especially when he sees a framed photo on her wall showing her with the roof jumper. He keeps telling the police that Leslie witnessed the suicide but no one can recall seeing her. Bizarre hallucinations and cryptic clues ("You're the courier of love...but it's not that simple!") haunt him, until nothing makes sense anymore. That goes for Dr. Mati as well as the viewer.

It's obvious Savalas was trying to fashion his own ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST with all the psych ward shenanigans and his attempt to be a "fun" version of Nurse Ratched, and work it into an ill-advised Hitchcockian setting, but adding to the confusion is an uncredited and then-unknown Priscilla Barnes replacing Johnson as Leslie for a few fleeting shots. Barnes was originally cast as Leslie before being replaced by Johnson at some point, but it's never quite clear why Barnes is still clearly visible in several shots, other than Savalas might've seen Luis Bunuel's THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE right before filming and thought the "two women alternating playing the same character" would be pretentious enough for him to be taken seriously, or (more likely) he just fucked up and left her in the movie. It's almost like a psychological thriller or maybe even a horror film is trying to break out with BEYOND REASON, but Savalas never pulls the film's seemingly random plot elements together. It's assembled in an almost stream-of-consciousness fashion, so much so that I'm not really sure if the twist ending really is a twist ending, with the end result possibly being a precursor to SHUTTER ISLAND but the climax is so confusingly presented that it's impossible to tell. To Savalas' credit, there's a few interesting shot compositions where it shows he might've been paying attention to directors like Mario Bava (LISA AND THE DEVIL) and Alberto De Martino (SCENES FROM A MURDER) during his early '70s Italian sojourn. There's also one very striking dissolve from the guy diving off the roof to an eerie, atmospheric shot of Mati's colleague Vincent (Marvin Laird) walking in silhouette down a dimly lit corridor toward the camera, but beyond those fleeting moments of inspiration and style, BEYOND REASON is an almost unwatchable train wreck for about 87 of its 88 interminable minutes.

Savalas' 1974 debut album Telly.

BEYOND REASON airing on CBS
late-night on June 24, 1986

It's the worst kind of vanity project, with no one on the set pulling Savalas aside and telling him what isn't working. Savalas the filmmaker is so concerned with directing Savalas the actor to an Oscar that he lets him just run wild. Savalas could ham it up like the best of them, especially in his European films, as anyone who' seen his third act hijacking of the Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing cult classic HORROR EXPRESS or his truly insane performance in the profoundly uncomfortable REDNECK can attest. But in BEYOND REASON, his mannered performance is just bizarre. He keeps grabbing people to talk and walk arm in arm, has his co-stars put his coat on him and button it for him, he wears a large-brimmed pimp hat in some scenes, is shown in one scene doing an early mannequin challenge while wearing a chef's hat, he pats nurses on the butt ("Oh, doctor!" they giggle), and he improvs nonsense, like meeting with a patient named Phyllis (Kathy Bendett) and bellowing "Phyllis! Philos! Philanthropy! Philosophy! Philadelphia! I'm going to talk to you and you are going to shut up and listen!" BEYOND REASON is a tedious exercise in waiting for a payoff that never comes. When he's having a breakdown late in the film, sporting a bowtie and looking around wondering what's happened to him, he resembles a befuddled Irving R. Levine and the film starts to look like a textbook case of a director who's bitten off more than he can chew. Despite Savalas' cultural omnipresence in 1977-78, MATI, as it was then called, found no interest from any studios or indie distributors (even with a ludicrously misleading two-page ad in Variety desperately trying to sell it as an EXORCIST/OMEN ripoff). It sat on the shelf for five years, and in 1982, Savalas retitled it BEYOND REASON and tried to shop it around again but found that nobody loved it, baby. Media Home Entertainment quietly released BEYOND REASON straight to video in 1985, and it aired on THE CBS LATE MOVIE on June 24, 1986, presumably allowing night-owl viewers at least a one-night respite from their chronic insomnia. KOJAK was cancelled in 1978 and Savalas remained busy in a few movies and in his Player's Club TV spots (he was also commissioned to kick off the 1982 rollout of Diet Coke in a commercial with Bob Hope and Linda Evans), but spent the bulk of his remaining years on TV--including several KOJAK TV-movies--before his death in 1994. He never directed another film.

Incredibly misleading two-page ad in Variety desperately
trying to pass BEYOND REASON off as a supernatural horror film

Retro Review: PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW (1971)

PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW
(US - 1971)

Directed by Roger Vadim. Written by Gene Roddenberry. Cast: Rock Hudson, Angie Dickinson, Telly Savalas, John David Carson, Roddy McDowall, Keenan Wynn, James Doohan, William Campbell, Barbara Leigh, Susan Tolsky, Aimee Eccles, Margaret Markov, June Fairchild, Joy Bang. (R, 91 mins)

A textbook example of the kind of movie that could never be made today, PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW is a brazenly smutty, time-capsule-worthy T&A black comedy where laughs are mined from an awkward virgin being seduced by his sexy teacher and from underage, nympho high school girls hooking up with and being murdered by their charming, predatory guidance counselor and pillar-of-the-community football coach...with music by The Osmonds! It's a plot more suited for a New World Pictures drive-in comedy produced by Roger Corman, even featuring frequently nude Corman starlets like Barbara Leigh (THE STUDENT NURSES), Joy Bang (NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN), and Margaret Markov (THE ARENA, BLACK MAMA WHITE MAMA), but it came from MGM, directed by French auteur and enfant terrible Roger Vadim, making his American debut ("his tribute to the high school girls of America!" the trailer crows) following the international success of 1968's BARBARELLA, and scripted by none other than STAR TREK creator Gene Roddenberry. Based on a 1968 novel by Francis Pollini, the film began life as a project for one-time Stanley Kubrick producing partner James B. Harris, with the lead role of serial killing counselor, coach, and sex addict Tiger McDrew intended for New York Jets QB Joe Namath. Given his playboy reputation, Namath would've been perfect casting, but the film spent two more years in development before it ended up in the hands of Vadim, with the role of Tiger McDrew eventually going to Rock Hudson. It's against-type casting that works, considering Hudson's past in light romantic comedies with Doris Day and years later, his closeted homosexuality becoming common knowledge to the world beyond industry insiders. Despite an Oscar nomination for 1956's GIANT, Hudson was always labeled a lightweight actor. He was making efforts to tackle more complex and challenging roles, starting with John Frankenheimer's 1966 cult classic SECONDS (easily his best performance), but the public wasn't buying it. Hudson spent most of the rest of his career in TV after PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW, appearing in just five more big-screen features (and only three of those were leads) until his death in 1985. As McDrew, Hudson, sporting longer hair than usual as well as an impressive early '70s porn stache, has a few extra pounds on him than he did in his heyday but he's still got all of the charm that made him a star, even with a sinister gleam in his eye and an unsettling leer as a bevy of beauties disrobe and throw themselves at him with reckless abandon. It's an inspired decision that allows Hudson to slyly explore the dark and twisted flipside of his onscreen persona.

Hudson's McDrew is a married dad introduced having sex with a student in his office at the same time confused, sexually frustrated virgin Ponce de Leon Harper (John David Carson) is so taken with substitute English teacher Miss Smith (Angie Dickinson, introduced with a close-up of her ass jiggling in a miniskirt) that he goes to the lavatory to jerk off but instead discovers a girl's nude body in the next stall. While clueless principal Mr. Proffer (Roddy McDowall) can't get a grip on what's happened ("I don't understand this...we've always kept our academic averages so high!") and can only offer superficial memories of the victim ("She was a fine girl...and a terrific little cheerleader") and incompetent sheriff Poldaski (Keenan Wynn) lets a bunch of curious onlookers loiter about the crime scene, no-nonsense detective Surcher (Telly Savalas) and his partner Follo (James Doohan, the only STAR TREK cast member present) arrive to take charge of the investigation. All the while, Tiger continues to score with a succession of high school hotties as the body count rises, while simultaneously advising Ponce on understanding women and learning to control his awkward and badly-timed erections. Tiger even recognizes a kindred spirit in Miss Smith, who needs little prodding when Tiger suggests she seduce Ponce and make him a man.

PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW is inappropriate in all kinds of ways. Sure, the bulk of the film is a series of dirty jokes and naked women (the August 1971 issue of Playboy was devoted to the film, with pictorials for Dickinson as well as all of the actresses playing the Pretty Maids), but there's some brilliant bits of dark humor and social commentary, whether it's a student asking Ponce if they've got football practice and Ponce responding with a dead-serious "No, we never have practice the day of a murder," or idiotic and knee-jerk Poldaski arriving on the scene of the first murder and impulsively grabbing the first black student he sees for questioning with a threatening "Not so fast...where do ya think yer goin'?" There's a running gag with Surcher constantly busting Poldaski down to traffic duty, with a great sneering performance by Savalas in what plays like a sarcastic dry run for his years on KOJAK. PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW was a box office flop in 1971, though it found a second wind on late-night Showtime and HBO in the early '80s, when the relationship between Dickinson's Miss Jones and Carson's Ponce (Dickinson has never been sexier onscreen than she is here) made the film fit right in with the "Hot for Teacher" craze spawned by the likes of PRIVATE LESSONS (1981), HOMEWORK (1982), MY TUTOR (1983), and THEY'RE PLAYING WITH FIRE (1984). With the ubiquity of teacher-student sex scandals, it's hard to believe there was once a time when such things were played for good-natured laughs, and were so part of the pop culture norm that Van Halen even had a huge MTV hit inspired by the subject. In that respect, perhaps PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW was ahead of its time, but can you even imagine it or something like PRIVATE LESSONS--a smash sleeper hit in theaters in 1981--getting the green light today without a shitstorm of controversy and trigger warnings?

Retro Review: CLAY PIGEON (1971)

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.

Cult Classics Revisited: VIOLENT CITY (1970)

VIOLENT CITY
aka THE FAMILY
(Italy/France - 1970/1973 US release)

Directed by Sergio Sollima.  Written by Sauro Scavolini, Gianfranco Galligarich, Lina Wertmuller, Sergio Sollima.  Cast: Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas, Jill Ireland, Umberto Orsini, Michel Constantin, Ray Sanders, Benjamin Lev, Peter Dane, George Savalas, Goffredo Unger. (R, 109 mins)

Charles Bronson (1921-2003) was a late bloomer when it came to mega-stardom.  A working actor in movies since 1951, he became a reliable supporting actor throughout that decade, acting under his real name "Charles Buchinsky" until 1954.  With small roles in classics like HOUSE OF WAX (1953) and VERA CRUZ (1954), and countless TV gigs, he made his presence known and in 1958, got his first lead in Roger Corman's MACHINE GUN KELLY.  But it was still mainly supporting roles after that, though he found some degree of fame as part of ensembles in blockbusters like THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) and THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963).  Even as Bronson was co-starring in big-budget extravaganzas like BATTLE OF THE BULGE (1965) and THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967), he was still doing TV guest roles and felt like he was spinning his wheels.  After two more supporting roles in the 1968 westerns VILLA RIDES and the French/Italian/Mexican co-production GUNS FOR SAN SEBASTIAN, Bronson opted to test the waters of the European film industry and it proved to be the best move he could've made.  With his career stalled at home, European audiences embraced the veteran journeyman actor and turned him into a superstar.  1968's FAREWELL, FRIEND (better known these days as HONOR AMONG THIEVES) paired him with French icon Alain Delon, and he had one of his signature roles as Harmonica in Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969), a film that bombed in the US when released but is now considered one of cinema's essential westerns.  Over the next few years, Bronson occasionally dabbled in American films like YOU CAN'T WIN 'EM ALL (1970) or the British LOLA (1970), which gave the 49-year-old actor one of his strangest roles as a 38-year-old writer falling in love with a 16-year-old (Susan George), but his run of generally Italian and/or French films from 1969-73 made him the top box office draw in Europe.  Most of these films would open in the US--often belatedly--and some, like 1971's RED SUN and 1972's THE VALACHI PAPERS, would become hits, but never on the level that they did in Europe.  Bronson was the king of the European box office and by 1972, he gradually started to work his way back into American films with that year's THE MECHANIC and 1973's THE STONE KILLER.  1974 was the turning point of Bronson's career:  on July 17, MR. MAJESTYK opened, and a week later, the vigilante thriller DEATH WISH was released.  DEATH WISH provided a template for every vigilante film that followed it, and it became a blockbuster smash and a hot-button controversy that addressed very real concerns of crime in 1970s NYC.  Over two decades into his career and at 53 years of age, Bronson was finally a Hollywood A-lister, global megastar and, it's worth mentioning, aftershave pitchman for the Japanese market.

Telly Savalas' career path was remarkably similar to Bronson's in many ways, even intersecting in BATTLE OF THE BULGE and THE DIRTY DOZEN.  Savalas (1922-1994) was another jobbing actor who spent a lot of time in supporting roles and on TV and didn't even make his big-screen debut until he was 39 years old.  He got a Best Supporting Actor nomination for 1962's BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ, his fifth film, and even played nefarious 007 villain Blofeld in 1969's ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE.  Savalas' Oscar nomination (he lost to Ed Begley in SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH) kept him busy but didn't really open any doors to stardom for him, and he was back on TV the next year (though one of those TV roles was in the legendary TWILIGHT ZONE episode "Living Doll," where he's a cruel disciplinarian stalked by his stepdaughter's angry doll Talky Tina).  Usually cast as villains and psychos, Savalas was in constant demand but, like Bronson, grew frustrated with the predictability of the work.  He spent most of the early 1970s in Europe, where he still played villains and psychos (his performance in 1972's REDNECK has to be seen to be believed), but was granted the VIP treatment that came with being a big-name American guest star in European genre fare, which explains why a lot of aging American actors of that era (Joseph Cotten, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Conte, Arthur Kennedy, Mel Ferrer, etc) logged a lot of time in Eurotrashy projects that were usually beneath them.  Savalas' career was all but dead in America until he took the lead in the CBS TV-movie THE MARCUS-NELSON MURDERS (1973), playing tough NYC cop Lt. Theo Kojak.  The movie was a ratings hit and it spun off into the hugely-popular TV series KOJAK, which ran from 1973 to 1978.  With his signature lollipop and his "Who loves ya, baby?" catchphrase, "Kojak" became virtually interchangeable with Savalas himself, and the actor comfortably coasted on that image for the rest of his career.

Bronson and Savalas becoming American pop culture icons at roughly the same time led to an extensive backlog of their European movies flooding US theaters and drive-ins as late as 1976.  That, coupled with the success of 1972's THE GODFATHER, led to the tardy US release of Sergio Sollima's VIOLENT CITY, a 1970 Italian/French gangster thriller that paired the two for the third time.  Retitled THE FAMILY, with one-sheet art blatantly copying the GODFATHER font, the film was given a small rollout in 1973, then expanded nationwide in 1974 to capitalize on DEATH WISH and KOJAK being all the rage.

Opening with a killer Ennio Morricone score and an impressive Virgin Islands car chase that's hampered somewhat by some rear-projection work from inside the car that pays close attention to continuity but still looks a bit shoddy, VIOLENT CITY has professional hit man Jeff (Bronson) and his girlfriend Vanessa (Bronson's wife and frequent co-star Jill Ireland) pursued by hit men, with Jeff shot and left for dead by his friend Coogan (an uncredited actor whose identity has never been verified), who runs off with Vanessa.  Hospitalized and sent to prison, Jeff is eventually paroled and obsessed with finding Vanessa and Coogan.  He does this against the advice of his lawyer Steve (Umberto Orsini) and with the help of his smack-addicted hitman buddy Killain (Michel Constantin, dubbed by the gravelly Robert Spafford).  Coogan, a champion stock-car racer, isn't too hard to find and Jeff shoots out his tire during a race at Michigan International Speedway, causing a fiery crash and explosion.  But someone took pictures of Jeff in the act.  He's being blackmailed by the minions of New Orleans crime boss Al Weber (Savalas), who's been trying to lure the fiercely independent Jeff into his organization.  Jeff has no interest, but placates Weber by hearing him out only to discover that Weber's hot young wife is Vanessa.  Steve, who essentially functions as Weber's consigliere, knew this all along, and was trying to keep Jeff from finding out.

VIOLENT CITY finds Bronson in what would become his typical "vengeance" mode, but rather than taking out some punks who harmed his family and friends, a motif that would come to define his screen persona post-DEATH WISH, his Jeff is more of an enraged, heartbroken sad sack.  His quest for revenge becomes more of a suicide mission as he plots to take out Weber's entire organization, all as a buildup to his revenge against Vanessa.  Spaghetti western vet Sollima (THE BIG GUNDOWN, RUN MAN RUN) and his co-writers (among them a just-starting-out Lina Wertmuller) pull a nifty bait-and-switch by making you think Savalas' Weber is the antagonist, but it's really Vanessa.  Weber is just another of her victims.  Never a particularly strong actress and largely dismissed by critics because she was Bronson's wife and acted almost exclusively in his movies after she left MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. co-star David McCallum for him, Ireland delivers what might be her best performance in VIOLENT CITY.  Vanessa is revealed to be a classic femme fatale who destroys every man with whom she comes into contact.  Witness the way she turns the strutting, larger-than-life Weber into a cuckold in dorky Coke-bottle glasses that constantly keep sliding down the bridge of his nose.  Savalas plays this subtle shift beautifully, introduced with a completely self-aggrandizing monologue to Jeff and all but begging for his life when he realizes that he never really was in charge once he married Vanessa.  But Sollima saves the best for the climax, a beautifully filmed, mostly silent set piece with Vanessa and the bottom-feeding Steve--who becomes her latest doomed paramour once Weber's out of the picture--in a glass elevator as Jeff, now the subject of a citywide manhunt after Weber's murder, takes them out from the top of a nearby building...and calmly waits for the inevitable.  You could argue that Bronson is miscast in the role--he seems too old at times, especially when Weber and Killain both make references to his youth and inexperience in mob life; Bronson was a year older than Savalas and three years older than French actor Constantin.  Sollima has said that the script was first offered to Jon Voight, then riding high on MIDNIGHT COWBOY, but when he declined, it made its way to Bronson, with whom Ireland came as a package deal.  Putting Voight in the role of Jeff, things probably make a lot more logical sense, but Bronson obviously works because he's Bronson.

With its fusion of the gangster and film noir genres, its scenic New Orleans location shooting, and Morricone's memorable score, VIOLENT CITY easily ranks alongside Rene Clement's RIDER ON THE RAIN (also 1970) as the best of Bronson's star vehicles during his European sojourn.  It became a modest hit throughout 1974 in the US after being retitled THE FAMILY, and aired in prime-time on CBS in 1975 before becoming a regular late-night TV offering in syndication in the '80s.  After DEATH WISH, Bronson had the clout to make the kinds of films he wanted to make, which resulted in oddities like the romantic western FROM NOON TILL THREE (1976), which of course co-starred Ireland, but fans wanted him in DEATH WISH mode.  After a string of box-office disappointments like LOVE AND BULLETS (1979), CABOBLANCO (1980), BORDERLINE (1980), and DEATH HUNT (1981), Bronson relented and gave the fans what they wanted with DEATH WISH II (1982), and while he continued to make entertaining actioners for B-movie icons Golan & Globus (most notably 1985's insane DEATH WISH 3), he rarely exerted himself after that and as his fans got older, the action heroes got younger, and the movies got bigger and louder, nobody was going to see the geriatric Bronson in things like MESSENGER OF DEATH (1988) or KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS (1989).  After the drug overdose death of his stepson Jason McCallum in 1989 and Ireland succumbing to a long battle with breast cancer in 1990 at just 54, Bronson's heart really wasn't in movies anymore.  He went to the vigilante well one more time with 1993's tired DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH, and took a stab at being a character actor with a small role in Sean Penn's 1991 directorial debut THE INDIAN RUNNER, playing the father of the two protagonists (David Morse and a young Viggo Mortensen). Bronson only has a couple of scenes early in the film, but he's quietly powerful and undoubtedly drawing on his own grief as his character commits suicide after the death of his beloved wife.  It was the first time in years that he was actually required to act, and though his screen time was brief, it was enough to show that he still had it.  After turning down the role of Curly, the intimidatingly leathery trail boss in CITY SLICKERS--quite angrily, according to Billy Crystal--only to see Jack Palance get an Oscar for it, Bronson then appeared in a handful of made-for-TV movies, eventually retiring from acting altogether by the late '90s.  Always private even at the height of his fame, Bronson's final years found him completely off the radar, and only near his 2003 death was it revealed that he was in the final stages of Alzheimer's.  Bronson remains a screen legend, and while most of the films from his European phase have fallen through the cracks over the years (you don't hear much about COLD SWEAT, CHINO, or the underrated psychological thriller SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR these days), they were vital in challenging him as an actor and for establishing the Bronson that we knew for the last 30 years of his career.