Review: Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

USA/C-96m./Dir: Hal Needham/Wr: James Lee Barrett, Charles Shyer, and Alan Mandel/Cast: Burt Reynolds (Bo “Bandit” Darville), Sally Field (Carrie a.k.a. “Frog”), Jerry Reed (Cledus “Snowman” Snow), Jackie Gleason (Sheriff Buford T. Justice), Mike Henry (Junior Justice), Pat McCormick (Big Enos Burdette), Paul Williams (Little Enos Burdette)

Stuntman Hal Needham began his directorial career by concocting a story that mixed elements of the drive-in moonshine movie craze (begun with 1958’s Thunder Road) and the CB radio fad (popularized by the C.W. McCall’s novelty song "Convoy"). The resulting film, Smokey and the Bandit, ended up making a whopping $126,737,428 (in 1977 dollars) at the box office and spawned a couple of lesser sequels and a number of awful imitators. It also signaled the beginning of Burt Reynolds’ period of greatest audience popularity and lowest critical approval.

For the twelve people who have never seen this film, Reynolds stars as a legendary trucker known as “the Bandit” who accepts a bet at a Georgia truck rodeo to pick up 400 cases of Coors beer in Texarkana, Texas and return within 28 hours. If he succeeds, he will receive $80,000 from millionaire Big Enos Burdette (Pat McCormick) and his son, Little Enos (Paul Williams). However, if he fails it could mean jail time. In addition to speeding and reckless driving, the Bandit would technically be bootlegging, because transporting Coors beer east of Texas was illegal at the time.

The Bandit’s plan is to distract any troupers along the way in a black Pontiac Trans-Am, while his partner Cledus “Snowman” Snow (Jerry Reed) drives the beer in the 18-wheeler. However, the task becomes more difficult when the Bandit picks up a hitchhiker (Sally Field) that is on the run after skipping out on her wedding to the son of Texas lawman Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason). Of course, car chases, crack-ups, and mild hilarity ensue.

Smokey and the Bandit is a dumb movie. Still, it is slick, amiable, and more or less harmless. Technically, it is above-average for a film of its type. The camerawork and compositions are quite good; and as one would expect from a film directed by a former stuntman, the stunt work is top-notch. Unfortunately, Needham was not as good a director of actors as he was of automobiles. Consequently, many of the secondary performances by the less-experienced members of the cast are embarrassingly bad. Luckily for Needham, he had pros in all of the primary speaking parts who could get by with or without his direction.

While Reynolds, Field, and Reed squeeze the most out of a generally weak script, it is Jackie Gleason’s performance as Sheriff Buford T. Justice that really makes the film worth watching. For this late career role, Gleason combined aspects of his most famous television characters--a bit of the swagger of Reginald Van Gleason III, a lot of the bluster of Ralph Kramden, and a touch of the obsequiousness of Fenwick Babbitt (“Thank you, nice lady”). To that cocktail, he added a lot of Southern stereotypes and improvised dialogue, spiced with colorful profanity and vitriol. In other hands, Buford T. Justice would be an ugly, unlikable character, but Gleason’s characterization is so funny that you can’t help but root for the racist, self-centered, blowhard. It is a 4-star performance in an otherwise 2-star film.

While beer is an important plot element, there is very little imbibing in Smokey and the Bandit. Like the moonshine movies that it imitated, this popular popcorn pic is more about transporting alcohol than it is about actually drinking it. However, it is a movie that plays much better when the audience is fully loaded.

Drinks Consumed--Beer

Intoxicating Effects--Brawling, public disturbance, and physical violence

Potent Quotables--BANDIT: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Why d’ya want that beer so bad?
LITTLE ENOS: Because he’s thirsty, dummy.
BIG ENOS: You see, I got a boy runnin’ tomorrow in the Southern Classic, and uh, when he wins, I want to celebrate in style.
BANDIT: How much style?
BIG ENOS: Well, I got a few friends and me, uh, 400 cases.

Video Availability--Smokey and the Bandit is available as a standalone DVD or boxed with its sequels as the Smokey and the Bandit: Pursuit Pack (Universal).

Similarly Sauced Cinema--All of the film’s principal actors returned for the so-so Smokey and the Bandit II (1980). Reynolds, Field, and director Needham wisely sat out the second sequel, imaginatively titled Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983). Gleason and Reed weren’t as lucky.

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Booze News: HARVEY Remake Stalled

Fans of the soused cinema classic Harvey (1950) can breathe a sigh of relief. Variety is reporting that Steven Spielberg's plans to direct a remake of the pooka pic, mentioned here in August, have gone up in smoke.

Apparently, the director had wanted Tom Hanks to play the part of Ellwood P. Dowd, but Hanks didn't want to touch Jimmy Stewart's iconic part. Spielberg then approached Robert Downey, Jr., but they had creative differences over the script. Finally, Spielberg decided to drop the project altogether.

The project isn't officially dead, but it will be less likely for the studio to get the movie off the ground without Spielberg attached. You can read the full details in Variety at the link below:

Spielberg abandons Harvey

Cheers,
garv

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Review: Mabel’s Married Life (1914)

USA/Silent/B&W-13m./Dir: Charles Chaplin/Wr: Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand/Cast: Mabel Normand (Mabel), Charles Chaplin (Mabel’s husband), Mack Swain (Ladykiller), Alice Howell (The ladykiller’s wife)

Although Mabel Normand’s forename appears as part of the title of the silent comedy short Mabel’s Married Life, her co-star, Charlie Chaplin, was quickly eclipsing the comedienne as the studio’s biggest box office draw. Within five months in the motion picture business, Chaplin had graduated from a featured player at Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios to the writer and director of his own films, bolstered by the audience popularity of his tramp character and the drunken slapstick that the comic had first honed on the stage.

In Mabel’s Married Life, Chaplin is drunk once again. After a minor argument with his spouse (Mabel Normand) over the shabbiness of his shoes, Charlie makes a beeline for the nearest bar and downs a few shots of whiskey. When he returns to the little woman, Mabel is being hit on by a bulky masher in tennis togs (Mack Swain). Chaplin tries to defend his wife, but his punches and kicks barely get the big boy’s attention. Eventually, the masher’s wife breaks up the fracas, and Charlie returns to the bar. Meanwhile, Mabel buys a boxing dummy to try to encourage her husband to become a manly man who can protect her from unwanted advances. Rather coincidentally, the boxing dummy is dressed very much like Mabel’s masher, so when the bleary-eyed Chaplin returns home, he mistakes the dummy for the weighty womanizer. The jealous husband attacks the dummy, which bounces back on its rocking base to knock down the inebriate again and again. Even Mabel gets tangled in the tussle until she manages to convince her soused spouse that he’s fighting with an inanimate object.

Like most of Chaplin’s early Keystone comedies, there is very little plot to Mabel’s Married Life beyond a combination of drunkenness and pratfalls. Still, while Charlie Chaplin would do much better work in the future, the short is worth watching just to enjoy Chaplin and Mabel Normand’s athletic improvisations with the rocking dummy in the latter half of the film. Chaplin fans will be reminded of the comic’s epic mêlées with inanimate objects in his greatest boozy short subject, One A.M. (1916), and Mabel Normand also acquits herself well in the slapstick struggle.

A Note--Mabel Normand played an important part in Chaplin’s development as a comedian. She starred in the first short in which Chaplin donned his famous tramp costume, Mabel’s Strange Predicament. A few months later, Chaplin was first allowed to direct himself after an argument with Normand over how she stifled his creativity when she directed him on Mabel at the Wheel. The two quickly patched up their differences, and they were often paired during the remainder of Chaplin’s year at Keystone, including being cast as swindling sweethearts in the first full-length feature comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance.

Drinks Consumed--Whiskey

Intoxicating Effects--Staggering, stumbling, brawling, physical violence, and public disturbance

Potent Quotables--None to speak of

Video Availability--Mabel’s Married Life is included as an extra on Image Entertainment's DVD release of Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914). The film as it currently survives can also be viewed in the embedded video above.

Similarly Sauced Cinema--Chaplin next got plowed in The Face on the Barroom Floor (1914).

Charlie Chaplin at Keystone and Essanay: Dawn of the Tramp
The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin: Artistry in Motion
Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema

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Booze News: 2010 Silent Movies Calendar

It's that time of year again--holidays, decorations, novelty songs (bah, humbug)--and before you know it another year will be behind us. You know what that means, don't you? You're going to have to replace that 2009 calendar you have hanging on the wall.

I know, I know. You've looked through dozens of 2010 calendars in your local retail establishments, and you haven't been able to find a single one that you wouldn't be embarrassed to hang on your wall. Well, don't worry, old chum, Uncle Garv has the perfect solution... The 2010 Silent Movies Calendar.

Every year Rodney Sauer of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra produces a calendar featuring rare film stills and photographs of silent movie stars contributed by fans. In addition to a dozen beautiful photos in glorious black and white, the calendar also features birthdays of silent-era film stars and personalities, as well as notable marriages, deaths, film openings, and other significant dates. Best of all, the net proceeds made from the sale of the calendars (after printing expenses) are donated to support silent film restoration. Cool, huh?

Fifty percent of the films made before 1950 (including a number of alky-centric titles) are lost forever, and resources are limited to save those that remain. Here's a chance for you to do something to support efforts to preserve our precious film heritage, while simultaneously solving your calendar woes. The calendar plus postage is just $17.49, so follow the link below and get yours today!

Get it here-->2010 Silent Movies Calendar

Cheers,
garv

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Review: Eastern College (2008)

USA/C-105m./Dir: James Francis Flynn/Wr: James Francis Flynn/Cast: Jonathan Dicks (Nathan), Noah Applebaum (Justin), Christopher Clark Cowan (Dom), Brandon Lea (Bob), Laure-Lyne Zbinden (Scud), James Francis Flynn (Skydive), Darren Bailey (Professor Pete), Hannah Phelps (Natalie) and Elizabeth Laidlaw (President Garlin)

Sometimes a film grabs hold of you unexpectedly and you find yourself enjoying it a lot more than you had initially expected. Such is the case with Eastern College, a small, independently-produced first feature by James Francis Flynn about four friends spending their last summer together in a college town. It’s a low budget, coming-of-age comedy/drama, and it has the look and feel of a homemade project. The writing meanders at times, some of the editing is haphazard, and the inexperienced cast occasionally comes across as less-than-professional. Still, about a half hour into Eastern College, I fell under its spell, largely because it is one of the most realistic depictions of life in a college town ever committed to film.

Eastern College tells the story of four art school grads--Nathan (the sensitive one), Justin (the funny one), Dom (the Casanova), and Bob (the animal)--who move into the home of their recently deceased Dean during the summer after graduation. Their plans are to drink, chase girls, drink, party, and drink before their inevitable separation. However, plans change somewhat when Nathan (Jonthan Dicks) gets involved in a fight to prevent the new university president (Elizabeth Laidlaw) from closing their beloved art school. At the same time, other members of the group start to look more seriously at their female companions and their future career prospects. Of course, there’s still plenty of time for boozing.

James Francis Flynn based Eastern College on his own university experiences, and it is in the depiction of college town life that the film excels. So many details are dead on--red cup parties, friends crashing on the couch for weeks at a time, garbage-strewn vehicles, unexpected bed companions, and lots and lots of binge drinking. Best of all is the depiction of the friend’s final party, in which the group ends up in the basement, swapping stories of their favorite moments from their college days. The scene is bound to bring back pleasant memories for anyone who ever spent time living on or around a college campus.

However, not all of the writing rings as true and some of it just comes across as lazy. Setting the movie during the summer and about graduates seems a bit of a cheat to avoid having to depict the classroom aspects of college; and unless the characters are independently wealthy, someone should have been depicted holding a part-time job. Worst of all is the way the university president is written. She comes across as a barely one-dimensional stock villain, and she is given no motivations for her behavior. It also must be said that the movie often seems to think it is funnier than it actually is. Still despite these reservations and some directorial clumsiness common to debut films, Eastern College is worth checking out, especially for those who have fond, booze-soaked memories of their college days.

Drinks Consumed--Vodka, beer, bourbon, gin, absinthe, and unnamed cocktails

Intoxicating Effects--Vomiting, stumbling, the giggles, soused sex, slurred speech, passing out, drunk driving, public urination, and unintentional defecation

Potent Quotables--SCUD: Hey, let’s do it.
DOM: I’m sorry?
SCUD: You know, “it.”
DOM: Outside?
SCUD: Yes.
DOM: How? There’s people…
SCUD: Gawd, forget about it. (She takes a drink.)
DOM: Yeah, see, drunk is what’s goin’ on.
SCUD: No, no. I am not drunk. I am just trying to keep my liver limber.

Video Availability--Eastern College DVD (R Squared Films) is now available. You can also get a taste HERE.

Similarly Sauced Cinema--While nowhere near as realistic as Eastern College, National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) is the king of alky college flicks.

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Review: The Man with a Cloak (1951)

USA/B&W-84m./Dir: Fletcher Markle/Wr: Frank Fenton/Cast: Joseph Cotten (Dupin), Barbara Stanwyck (Lorna Bounty), Louis Calhern (Charles Theverner), Leslie Caron (Madeline Minot), Joe De Santis (Martin, the butler), Jim Backus (Flaherty, the bartender)

I highly suggest that you buy a bottle of wine before watching The Man with a Cloak. You’ll want it before the film is over. I don’t mean to suggest that you’ll need a stiff drink to make it through the movie. In fact, while no classic, the picture is quite diverting and enjoyable. It’s just that the screenplay extols the virtues of the fermented fruit of the vine with such witty banter that you’ll long for a glass of vino long before the film concludes.

Based on a John Dickson Carr short story, “The Gentleman from Paris,” The Man with the Cloak is the type of story in which a famous author from literary history is placed inside a fictional story that shares some characteristics of the writer’s own work. Joseph Cotten plays the author--a destitute, wine-guzzling, poet living in New York in 1848. While trying to convince his favorite bartender (Jim Backus) to extend him more wine on credit, the writer encounters Madeline (Leslie Caron), a young woman from Paris who has come to America to carry a letter to the grandfather of the man she loves. The old man, Theverner (Louis Calhern), is ill-tempered and ailing, and Madeline quickly becomes convinced that his mistress/housekeeper (Barbara Stanwick) is plotting to kill him. As a favor to Madeline, the writer steps in to play amateur detective, sticking his nose in the family’s affairs and helping himself to a good many glasses of wine from the old man’s cellar.

In addition to the mystery at the center of the film, the filmmakers attempt to be twice as enigmatic by withholding the name of the author that Joseph Cotten is portraying until the picture’s end. However, there is little doubt from the movie's outset which famous author Joseph Cotten is meant to be. When asked who he is, Cotten’s character responds, “A man with an empty glass.” He also goes by the alias of “Dupin” which should be a dead giveaway to the author’s identity for anyone with more than a passing recollection of their high school English classes. If that isn’t enough of a hint, the poet’s proclivity for wine, the importance of a pet raven to the mystery, and the fact that the story takes place around Halloween should eliminate all uncertainty.

Still, the lack of real mystery as to the writer’s identity or within murder plot itself (the film is framed like a Columbo episode where the audience knows long before the detective what is really going on), doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of this forgotten gem. The writing is witty, the performances are lively (especially by Cotten and Calhern), and there are lots of wine-related gags for lovers of soused cinema. The Man with a Cloak is a small film with modest ambitions, but like a fine wine, it goes down smoothly.

A Note--Lovers of old time radio may find additional pleasures in The Man with a Cloak. Like some of the early films of Orson Welles, the film feels a bit like a radio play brought to life. This isn’t surprising because the director, Fletcher Markle, was the creator of the radio anthology series Studio One, as well as one of the writers on Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai (1947). Of course, Joseph Cotten also got his start in radio as one of Orson Welles’ stock company in The Mercury Theater on the Air.

Drinks Consumed--Wine, brandy, and beer

Intoxicating Effects--Public disturbance, destruction of property, and the giggles

Potent Quotables-- THEVERNER: I think we are both drunk enough to be honest with each other.
DUPIN: (He downs his drink and holds out his empty glass) Let’s be sure of it.

Video Availability--The Man with the Cloak has never been released on video. However, it does air from time to time on Turner Classic Movies.

Similarly Sauced Cinema--Pulp novelist Dashiell Hammett is placed inside a fictional mystery (based partially on Hammett’s early life as a Pinkerton detective) in Wim Wender’s 1982 film Hammett.

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Review: Road House (1948)

USA/B&W-95m./Dir: Jean Negulesco/Wr: Edward Chodorov/Cast: Ida Lupino (Lily Stevens), Cornel Wilde (Pete Morgan), Richard Widmark (Jefty Robbins), Celeste Holm (Susie Smith)

Not to be confused with the 1989 bone-cracking mulletfest starring Patrick Swayze, Road House (1948) is a bar-centric noir tale of a lounge singer who can’t sing and the men obsessed with her. It’s also a story about bowling, miscarriage of justice, chain-smoking, and drunken gunplay. However, being that Road House is a film noir, shot in silvery shades of black and white, the movie is fundamentally about shadow, mood, and attitude.

Ida Lupino plays the lounge singer, Lily Stevens, a city girl hired by a small town club owner named Jefty (Richard Widmark) to perform in his bar/bowling alley. Lily’s singing voice is slight, diminished to a hoarse rasp from years of chain smoking, but Jefty’s main interest in Lily doesn’t involve her vocal chords. Unfortunately for Jefty, Lily not only spurns his advances; she makes moves of her own on Pete Morgan (Cornell Wilde), Jefty’s clean cut childhood friend and the manager of Jefty’s Road House. Although Pete initially takes a dislike to the smoky songstress, he eventually warms to her. The budding romance leads to a planned elopement; but when Jefty discovers the couple’s plans, he frames Pete for a petty theft to keep his friend’s hands off the girl he covets. While Pete avoids prison, there’s no avoiding Jefty, and the lopsided love triangle is doomed to collapse violently.

Road House is usually categorized as a film noir, although it is missing some of the usual trappings of the genre. Noirs as a rule are city-bound, featuring rain swept streets, filth-ridden alleyways, and fedora-wearing hoodlums. Instead, Road House gives us rustic lodges, bowling alleys, and hunting jackets. Noirs also generally feature a “doomed man” lead (often a first-person narrator) that is drawn by circumstances toward an inevitable end of failure or death. While there are some aspects of the “doomed man” plot attached to Cornell Wilde’s role, he is in no way the lead (Lupino owns the first half of the film and Widmark steals the remainder), and Wilde’s fate is neither as dark or inescapable as that of his noir counterparts.

Still, despite these atypical aspects, Road House is most definitely a noir. The dead animal carcasses that decorate Jefty’s joint are every bit as threatening as the alleyways of Chicago, especially when illuminated by a few shafts of light in the dimly lit bar. The clipped, smart aleck dialogue is also very much in the noir style, and professionals like Lupino, Widmark, Celeste Holm make the script sing.

Finally, there’s the booze. Most noirs feature some boozing, but due to its bar setting, Road House includes more cocktail content than most of its ilk. Whiskey is always close at hand in the bar, office, and living quarters of the Road House, and the characters joke about having to resort to cooking sherry when the bar’s closed. Around the mid-point of the movie, there’s a barroom brawl worthy of the 1989 Patrick Swayze film of the same name; and the gunplay that accompanies the picture’s violent conclusion is alcohol-fueled. It should also be mentioned that Lupino gets to perform a raspy version of the greatest saloon song ever written, “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).”

While some of the plot points are implausible--it's difficult to imagine that Lupino’s singing would increase business in the bar, that Pete’s attitude toward Lily would make such a swift 180, or that a judge would release Pete in Jefty’s custody--the film makes up for these lapses in logic with atmosphere and aggression. Attitude is everything in a film noir, and Road House has attitude to spare.

Drinks Consumed--Scotch and other whiskeys, brandy, beer, and champagne

Intoxicating Effects--Brawling, physical violence, destruction of property, bar tossed, slurred speech, and the giggles

Potent Quotables--JEFTY: I won’t miss it. I’m the best shot in the world. And when I get drunk, I’m a better shot. I’m a better shot. The drunker I am, the better I get.

Video Availability--Road House DVD (Fox)

Similarly Sauced Cinema--One of the only other film noirs to feature a rustic setting is the greatest motion picture ever produced in the genre, Out of the Past (1947).

Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Third Edition (Paperback)

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