Roman Polanski was born August 18, 1933 in Paris. The sordid details of his flight from the United States in 1978 have often overshadowed discussion of the director’s work, which at the age of 77, includes one of the best films of 2010. Is he a world class filmmaker? In the month of August, I take a look at ten directed by Roman Polanski.

Chinatown (1974)
Directed by Roman Polanski
Written by Robert Towne
Produced by Robert Evans
130 minutes

The only thing really left to debate about Chinatown is whether it belongs among the 25 best films ever made, 10 best or whether it vaults over titles like Citizen Kane or Casablanca as The Best Film Ever Made. According to the legend as repeated by screenwriter Robert Towne, its genesis was a 1969 photo essay in a Los Angeles Times about Raymond Chandler’s L.A. Conceived as a love letter to the vanishing city of his youth and using something as vague as land and water as catalysts, Towne would sell Paramount Pictures production head Robert Evans on his concept for a ‘30s detective mystery and writing with Jack Nicholson in mind, deliver a 178 page script that both intrigued and bewildered director Roman Polanski. Pruning the epic script with Polanski, a point of contention was the ending. The screenwriter wanted good to win the day. The director preferred tragedy.

The power of Chinatown is the care the film takes to recreate Depression Era Los Angeles — which Gittes refers to only half jokingly as “a small town” at one point — and fill it with a complex story that remains mesmerizing no matter how many times it’s replayed. Through stunning production design by Richard Sylbert, a desaturated color scheme that evokes black & white photography and a sensual musical score by Jerry Goldsmith, Chinatown achieves the illusion it was produced in 1947 instead of 1974. Where most whodunits focus on little more than heists or serial killers, Towne weaves an ambitious tale of natural resources, corruption and family scandal that stretches clear into the horizon, much as the city of Los Angeles does. In addition to the sucker punch ending, Polanski contributes a rhythm that enables locations like a city morgue or a retirement home to leap off the screen and feel real.

In Los Angeles of the late 1930s, private detective J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired by “Evelyn Mulwray” (Diane Ladd) to verify that her husband Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling) — chief of the Department of Water and Power — is having an affair. Gittes shadows Mulwray at City Hall, where the engineer cites safety concerns for his refusal to build a dam that would ease the burden on agriculture, which gripped in a drought are sharing the water supply with the public. Gittes completes his job by snapping photos of Mulwray with a blonde in Echo Park. The photos are mysteriously reprinted in the newspaper and the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) reveals herself to serve Gittes with a lawsuit. Eager to uncover who set him up, Gittes seeks help from Mrs. Mulwray, who now prefers to drop the matter entirely. Before Gittes can question her husband, Mulwray’s body is pulled out of a reservoir.

Pressed for information by Lt. Lou Escobar (Perry Lopez) — Gittes’ partner when they patrolled the morally ambiguous streets of Chinatown — Gittes is hired by Mrs. Mulwray to solve her husband’s death. Snooping around the reservoir where Mulwray died, Gittes is cornered by two goons (Roy Jenson, Roman Polanski) and has a nostril cut open. Sensing that Mrs. Mulwray is hiding something, Gittes visits her estranged father Noah Cross (John Huston), a power broker who once owned the city’s water supply with Mulwray. His interest lies in finding the girl the private eye photographed with Mulwray and he hires Gittes to do so. A key to the mystery lies in the San Fernando Valley, where farmers are being pressured to sell by an anonymous landowner who stands to make a fortune if the dam project that Mulwray blocked is now approved.

Alex Simon of The Hollywood Interview sat down with Robert Towne on the 35^th anniversary of Chinatown for an exhaustive interview on the development of the script.

Richard Ballad caught up with Roman Polanski 35 years previous for an interview in the August 1974 issue of Penthouse Magazine.

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In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

Yojimbo (1961)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa & Ryûzô Kikushima, story by Akira Kurosawa
Produced by Akira Kurosawa
110 minutes

To watch a samurai picture by Akira Kurosawa is to read a book adapted by Hollywood in the ‘70s and ‘80s for what we take for granted as the modern action movie. Inspired by the idea of a helpless citizenry trapped between two factions who were equally despicable and corrupt, Kurosawa authored a script with frequent writing collaborator Ryûzô Kikushima that was financed by Toho Studios, home of Godzilla and the company which kept Kurosawa under contract. A blockbuster back home — where it became one of the biggest grossing movies ever in Japan — Yojimbo would be ripped off by Sergio Leone as the basis for the spaghetti western A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and remade by Walter Hill as Last Man Standing (1996), with Bruce Willis battling Depression Era gangsters. Neither comes close to eclipsing the majesty of Yojimbo.

Defining any one aspect that makes Yojimbo a classic is an exercise in futility. Toshirô Mifune anchors the film with a rough charisma and physicality that western action heroes like Eastwood, Stallone and Willis would become celebrated for. Composer Masaru Satô gives the film a medieval swing with a sensational musical score. Cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa and assistant cameraman Takao Saitô collaborated with Kurosawa to give Yojimbo an eye popping visual sheen and depth, respectively. The trend to play graphic violence for the occasional laugh would outrage critics when it started showing up in American movies like Bonnie and Clyde, but executed so fluidly, broke new ground in terms of style. Beyond exploiting violence to sell popcorn, Kurosawa’s moral bearing is felt throughout Yojimbo, which mocks greed and actually condemns violence.

Somewhere in Japan of the 1860s, a samurai who offers the name “Sanjuro Kuwabatake” (Toshirô Mifune) wanders into a town held hostage by a war between two gambling houses.  Taking shelter with an old tavern owner named Gonji (Eijirô Tôno), Sanjuro learns that the trouble started when Seibei (Seizaburô Kawazu) promised his territory to his cowardly son. Seibei’s lieutenant Ushitora (Kyu Sazanka) took half the boss’s men and allying himself with the sake merchant appears likely to topple Seibei. The local constable greets mercenaries arriving in town and receives a commission for selling their services as a “yojimbo”, or bodyguard, to the highest bidder. War has also been good business for a coffin maker (Atsushi Watanabe) whose hammering has Gonji at the end of his rope.

Seeing an opportunity to rid the town of its twin evils, Sanjuro challenges three hoodlums in Ushitora’s employ and dispatches them with his sword. Seibei agrees to pay Sanjuro the sum of 60 ryo to work for him. Seibei’s wife Orin (Isuzu Yamada) advises that it will be cheaper just to kill Sanjuro once the war is won. As the factions gather for battle, Sanjuro abandons his employer, climbing a watchtower to enjoy both sides killing each other. The carnage is postponed when an inspector from Edo arrives. During the ceasefire, Ushitora’s brutal but stupid brother Inokichi (Daisuke Katô) bids against Orin for Sanjuro’s sword. As the samurai plays both houses against each other, Ushitora’s shrewder and much deadlier brother Unosuke (Tatsuya Nakadai) returns to town with a revolver and a healthy suspicion of the interloper.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average 10,518 users: 96% for Yojimbo

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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In the month of July, I take a look at films released in my very favorite film stock and aspect ratio: black & white in anamorphic. Unless they’re being financed with credit cards, movies are rarely shot like this anymore because they’re impossible to sell to television. Yet these dreams sneak onto Turner Classic Movies every now and again …

In Cold Blood (1967)
Directed by Richard Brooks
Screenplay by Richard Brooks, based on the book by Truman Capote
Produced by Richard Brooks
134 minutes

Richard Brooks’ screen version of the “non-fiction novel” by Truman Capote opened the same year as The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde, so if there’s a debate about which 1967 film had the greatest impact on future of motion pictures, In Cold Blood is not in that debate. The murder of the Clutter family never warrants the thousands of man hours that were dedicated to analyzing and recreating the crime, but the film illustrates how a gifted actor, composer and cinematographer can elevate material into something magnificent. Ignoring suggestions by Columbia Pictures that Steve McQueen & Paul Newman play Perry Smith & Dick Hickock, Brooks cast unknowns in Robert Blake & Scott Wilson and tried to inject as much realism as possible into this true crime story, shooting at some of the actual locations and casting participants in the 1959 murder trial as extras.

Playing a natural born killer itched by the occasional impulse to do good, Robert Blake is brilliant. Quincy Jones composed a jazz score that initially seems inappropriate for heavy drama, but the music keeps the viewer off-balance, unsure of how we’re supposed to feel about what’s happening. The best reason of all to revisit In Cold Blood is the cinematography by Conrad Hall, one of the most vivid examples of the harsh beauty he would become renowned for. In terms of precision, lighting a black & white movie is like being called up to pitch in the majors and Hall was one of the league’s superstars; few movies using monochrome film stock or widescreen framing utilize the medium as gorgeously as In Cold Blood. Largely forgotten in spite of the number of actors he directed to Oscars, Richard Brooks brings intelligence and a point of view to the examination of a motiveless crime.

Stepping off a Greyhound bus in Kansas City with a guitar and most of his possessions in a box, Perry Smith (Robert Blake) makes an urgent call to the Kansas State Penitentiary, hoping the pastor there can put him in touch with a friend whose guidance he desperately needs. Instead, smooth talking ex-con Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson) picks him up, violating Perry’s parole by returning him to Kansas. Dick is eager for Perry’s help breaking into a home 400 miles west in the town of Holcomb, where according to a former cellmate of Dick’s, farmer Herbert Clutter has $10,000 or “maybe more” locked in a safe. Chewing Aspirin for chronic leg pain he’s suffered since a motorcycle accident, Perry resists going along with the robbery, but is talked into it by Dick, who has never killed anyone and covets Perry’s experience in that area.

When Clutter, his wife, 16-year-old daughter Nancy (Brenda Currin) and 15-year-old son are found shot to death, FBI agent Alvin Dewey (John Forsythe) begins pursuing leads. With no shotgun shells and no fingerprints to work from, the feds catch a break when Dick’s cellmate comes forward to offer information in exchange for a reward. Dreaming of sunken treasure, Perry drags Dick down to Mexico, a trip his partner finances by cutting phony checks along the way. Missing his gravely ill father (Jeff Corey), Dick compels Perry to return with him to Kansas. Arrested in Las Vegas for a stolen car, the men are interrogated by Agent Dewey and his men. Also hovering around the case is reporter Bill Jensen (Paul Stewart) who is obsessed by the senselessness of the crime and seeks answers of how something like this could happen.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 1,891 users: 83% for In Cold Blood

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes.

Here’s Part 2 of a bill featuring high tech conspiracies in L.A.

Blue Thunder (1983)
Directed by John Badham
Written by Dan O’Bannon & Don Jakoby and Dean Riesner (uncredited)
Produced by Gordon Carroll
109 minutes

There haven’t been many movies about the LAPD’s Air Support Division. That might be due to logistics, or maybe the best picture you could possibly make in that milieu has already been done: Blue Thunder. Screenwriter Dan O’Bannon was so incensed by the ghetto bird buzzing his L.A. abode that he was inspired to write a thriller — with USC Film School buddy Don Jakoby — about a Travis Bickle type going AWOL in a police helicopter above the City of Angels. Columbia Pictures loved the ballistic third act, the crazed lone nut in the first and second acts not so much, prompting rewrites in which the LAPD became good guys and government spooks were invented as bad guys. O’Bannon & Jakoby at the time lambasted the finished film, a box office hit that inspired two TV series in the ‘80s; Airwolf on CBS and the short lived Blue Thunder on ABC, one even cheesier than the other.

Blue Thunder is wound like a Swiss watch and designed with almost the same level of craftsmanship, briskly introducing us to Los Angeles, the rigmarole of the Air Support Division (dubbed “Astro Division” in the film to avoid hate mail flooding the LAPD) and issues of privacy on the approach to the year 1984. The action is set up gracefully and executed tenaciously, while a post-Watergate malaise gives the film an edge. John Alonzo’s lighting and Arthur Rubenstein’s electronic score were cutting edge for their time and hold up well, while the casting is superb. It’s easy to forget how strong a leading man Roy Scheider was, while the magnificent Warren Oates — in his final movie — chews up scenery like a buzzsaw. Director John Badham shot the film back-to-back with WarGames and was in a zone, fusing high concept, high tech, compelling characters and fun without crossing over into cartoon.

Maverick police helicopter pilot Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) breaks in a new partner, the baby faced Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern) who’s transferred over for some supposed peace and quiet in the haze above Los Angeles. While the men spy on a yoga practitioner in Encino known to perform in the nude, a city commissioner is attacked outside her home in Brentwood and shot. Reprimanded for his flight patterns by the loquacious Captain Braddock (Warren Oates), Murphy contends that the attack on the city commissioner was no attempted rape but a stakeout. A Vietnam vet compressed with PTSD, Murphy makes up with his oddball girlfriend (Candy Clark) and returns to the crime scene, where a memo he retrieves from the commissioner’s lawn has the cryptic word THOR written on it.

Assigned a special detail, Murphy accompanies Braddock and two feds to the demonstration of a prototype helicopter designed for crowd control in the Los Angeles ’84 Summer Olympics. “Blue Thunder” is equipped with a 20mm gun turret, turbine boost, whisper mode and surveillance devices that see and hear through walls. The test pilot is Colonel Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), a nefarious operator Murphy knew in ‘Nam. In an attempt to rub out his competition, Cochrane sabotages Murphy’s chopper. Staying alive long enough to take Blue Thunder for a test spin, Murphy and Lymangood discover the feds have big plans for THOR (Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response), instigating social unrest in L.A. to justify military expenditures. Framed by Cochrane and the feds running the project, Murphy commandeers their toy and takes to the friendly skies.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 147 users: 65% for Blue Thunder

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes.

Here’s Part 1 of a bill featuring high tech conspiracies in L.A.

The Star Chamber (1983)
Directed by Peter Hyams
Screenplay by Roderick Taylor and Peter Hyams, story by Roderick Taylor
Produced by Frank Yablans
109 minutes

Though Michael Douglas had played opposite Geneviève Bujold in Coma and Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome, uncovering conspiracies in the healthcare and energy sectors, the producer and actor took a step toward becoming a movie star with The Star Chamber, an unabashed B-movie of the type that used to star Richard Widmark or Sterling Hayden when movies titled Panic In the Streets or Crime Wave played the bottom half of the bill. With an irresistible plot involving Superior Court judges rendering their own justice whenever the law gets in the way, The Star Chamber is a Dirty Harry picture for people who can read without moving their lips. Equipped with way more intrigue and drenched with far greater suspense than required, when it comes to audience appreciation, this movie overachieves.

Co-star Hal Holbrook — Old Man Conspiracy in Magnum Force and The Firm — calling Michael Douglas “kiddo” isn’t the only thing that dates The Star Chamber like a vintage coat. While Sharon Gless makes a refined impression in her three scenes, no time is wasted on a romantic lead or subplots that don’t relate to the one we paid a ticket for: judges delegating vigilante justice. The script keeps most of its nuts and bolts out of view, remaining plausible by letting the audience’s imagination do most of the work. Adapted and directed by Peter Hyams, the film has credible dialogue, solid performances, elegant set pieces and is cloaked in the sinister shadow that Hyams would execute as his own director of photography on 2010, Narrow Margin and The Relic. The Star Chamber is the director at his most soldered.

Detectives (Larry Hankin, Dick Anthony Williams) on the hunt for a serial robber and killer in South Los Angeles spot a suspect drop something into his garbage can. Lacking a warrant to conduct a legal search, the cops wait for trash collectors to dump the contents of the can into a garbage truck’s scoop, where they retrieve the murder weapon. At trial, Superior Court Judge Steven Hardin (Michael Douglas) is given no choice but rule the evidence, subsequent search and confession inadmissible on a technicality. Lamenting the miscarriage of justice to his mentor Judge Caulfield (Hal Holbrook), Hardin’s next case forces him to set free two suspected child murderers (Joe Regalbuto, Don Calfa) when LAPD officers (Charles Hallahan, David Proval) produce crucial evidence in an illegal search.

The father (James B. Sikking) of the murder victim opens fire on the suspects in court. Visiting the man in jail, Hardin learns that the body of another boy has been found after he set the suspects free. While Detective Harry Lowes (Yaphet Kotto) begins pursuing leads, Hardin approaches Caulfield, who has tantalized his protégé with hints of doing something about his frustration with the legal system. He invites Hardin to join a panel of nine superior court judges who comprise “a court of last resort”, reviewing cases dismissed on technicality and employing their own executioner to carry out sentences. While Hardin’s child murder defendants are soon found “guilty” by the panel, Detective Lowes produces information that the men really were innocent. Unable to cancel the “sentencing”, Hardin takes matters into his own hands and risks exposing the judges.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 5 users: 80% for The Star Chamber

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes. Joe is not a professional curator and may not even show potential as an amateur one, but comments and recommendations for future double features are welcome below.

Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979)
Directed by Richard Lester
Written by Allan Burns, based on characters created by William Goldman
Produced by Gabriel Katzka, Steven Bach
115 minutes

The first prequel Hollywood ever cranked out is also the answer to the question of which one remains the best, Butch and Sundance: The Early Days. That may be faint praise in the company of titles like The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas, Exorcist: The Beginning or the Star Wars prequels, but if there absolutely positively had to be another Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, without Paul Newman or Robert Redford — whose characters were shot up by the Bolivian army in the climax of the original — then this belated follow-up is actually pretty good. A blithe screenplay constructed by Allan Burns (co-creator of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda), a solid cast and comic flourishes by director Richard Lester that deftly sidestep parody while providing plenty of grins all add up to a thoroughly enjoyable western adventure.

Part of the fun is the slight of hand that permits Tom Berenger and William Katt to pull off roles originated by Paul Newman and Robert Redford. That’s not saying they’re preferable to Newman and Redford (nobody is) or really recapture their on-screen chemistry (no one can) but Berenger and Katt hold their own and their casting keeps us in the movie rather than throwing us out of it. The Early Days recognizes what made William Goldman’s original script very good: surprises, action that tilts toward the irreverent and colorful banter zinging between the title characters. Collaborating with director of photography László Kovács and art director Jackson De Govia, Richard Lester spared no expense giving the film both visual panache and certain wit. None of it resembles the Old West and the film lacks the female presence Katharine Ross brought to original, but it all works fine.

One year into a prison sentence for horse theft, Robert A. Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy (Tom Berenger) is brought before the governor for a parole hearing. Vouched for by Sheriff Ray Bledsoe (Jeff Corey) — the crusty lawman who arrested him — Butch promises that if set free he will most certainly commit more crimes, but agrees not to in the state of Wyoming. Visiting a casino, Butch has his new pistol stolen by a lightning fast stick up artist named Harry Longabaugh (William Katt). To retrieve his gun, Butch joins the posse of noted lawman and tracker Joe Le Fors (Peter Weller) who gives up the hunt when his men show little inclination to pursue the kid into a rock fortification. Butch stays behind to parlay with Longabaugh, suggesting that his intellect and the kid’s reflexes would make a good team.

Returning to his old hideout, Butch is reunited with cattle rustler O.C. Hanks (Brian Dennehy) before being swept up in a raid by Sheriff Bledsoe. Convinced Butch set him up, O.C. threatens to kill him first chance he gets. Butch and the kid get their feet wet as bandits by knocking over high roller casinos and such. Butch bestows his young partner with the handle Sundance Kid, due to jail time the kid spent in Sundance, Wyoming and their adventures take them through snowbound Telluride and to the farmhouse in Circleville, Utah which Butch occasionally shares with his wife Mary (Jill Eikenberry) and two sons. Life as a citizen doesn’t sit well with Butch and with the help of two bumbling outlaws (John Schuck, Christopher Lloyd), Butch and Sundance attempt to rob a train carrying U.S. Cavalry troops and cash.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 2 users: 100% for Butch and Sundance: The Early Days

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes. Joe is not a professional curator and may not even show potential as an amateur one, but comments and recommendations for future double features are welcome below.

Harry and Walter Go To New York (1976)
Directed by Mark Rydell
Screenplay by John Byrum and Robert Kaufman, story by Don Devlin and John Byrum
Produced by Don Devlin, Harry Gittes
115 minutes

Disparaged by critics and ignored by audiences, Harry and Walter Go To New York deserves a reception much better than the one it was pelted with in July 1976, when all interested parties seemed to agree that the best thing for this lavishly produced comedy with music was to act like it never happened. Actor and veteran TV director Mark Rydell had delivered three solid films in a row — Steve McQueen in The Reivers, John Wayne in The Cowboys and James Caan & Marsha Mason in Cinderella Liberty — but unable to bank whatever producer Don Devlin was betting on, editor Monte Hellman was hired to recut Rydell’s footage. Harry and Walter Go To New York doesn’t jig to the rhythm of The Sting or any other recognizable genre really, but blunders onto something novel and even magnificent in its own right.

Adapting a story idea by Devlin was screenwriter John Byrum, one of the original staff writers Jim Henson hired for Sesame Street. In many ways, Harry and Walter Go To New York is like something The Muppet Theater might stage on the Muppets’ night off. The jokes don’t have punchlines, at least none that would get very far without a laugh track, but a gentle type of backstage tomfoolery runs through the piece, which like The Muppet Show, allows some of the finest actors of the 1970s — Caan, Gould, Keaton, Caine, Lesley Ann Warren, Charles Durning, Carol Kane — to get in on the low key fun. Whether you think the story is much ado about nothing, the cinematography by László Kovács and production design by Harry Horner make every moment of this visually splendid knick-knack a marvel to watch.

In Sudburry, Massachusetts of 1892, the singing and dancing duo of Harry Dighby (James Caan) and Walter Hill (Elliott Gould) take the stage in a variety show whose audience is filled with just as much poultry as people. In New York City, renowned gentleman thief Adam Worth (Michael Caine) falls into a trap sprung by Rufus T. Crisp (Charles Durning), a bank president whose safe was cracked by Worth and his gang. Meanwhile, the dim witted Walter wants little more than a career in show business, but Harry’s criminal enterprise lands the entertainers in the same Concord prison as Adam Worth. Harry and Walter are put in his employ as butlers, maintaining Worth’s lavish cell and receiving his guests, including crusading journalist Lissa Chestnut (Diane Keaton) who arrives to do an expose on the thief.

While Worth charms Ms. Chestnut, Harry cajoles Walter into using her flash lamp camera to photograph the blueprint of a bank vault that Worth plans to crack. When they set the precious blueprint on fire, Worth has Harry and Walter exiled to the prison’s rock quarry, where it’s hoped the idiots will blow themselves up. Using a vial of nitroglycerin, Harry secures an early release for himself and his partner. Arriving in New York, Harry volunteers to Ms. Chestnut’s newspaper hoping to get his hands on the bank vault photograph. Once Worth is set free, the crime lord smashes up the newspaper office in search of the photo. To repair the damage and forge on protecting the public, Ms. Chestnut implores Harry and Walter to help her and her staff (Jack Gilford, Carol Kane, David Proval, Valerie Curtin) crack the vault first.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 1 user: 100% for Harry and Walter Go To New York

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” the programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes. Joe is not a professional curator and may not even show potential as an amateur one, but comments and recommendations for future double features are welcome below.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Directed by Joseph Sargent
Screenplay by Peter Stone, based on the novel by Morton Freedgood (as John Godey)
Produced by Gabriel Katzka, Edgar J. Scherick
104 minutes

Listening to a Beastie Boys LP or watching The Taking of Pelham One Two Three will not only assist a visitor in the successful navigation of the New York subway system, but for 1 hour 44 minutes, the latter is an electrifying 1970s cops and robbers thriller that captures the magnitude of NYC as well as the mettle of many of the people you’re likely to encounter there. Based on a 1973 bestseller by Morton Freedgood — a PR hack who published several potboilers under the name “John Godey” — Hollywood came calling during a bleak time for the Big Apple, which was depressed economically and threatening to crack with crime and ethnic tension. In an effort to turn the city’s fortunes around, Mayor John Lindsey invited the film industry to use Manhattan as a back lot, but his office initially found in this script exactly the type of social distortion he was trying to clean up.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is one of those once in a blue moon entertainments that fires on every cylinder from start to finish, sharply adapted by Peter Stone and supremely well cast right down to walk-on roles. If anything is better than “Walter Matthau as Lt. Zachary Garber” and “Jerry Stiller as Lt. Rico Patrone”, I don’t know what is; the equivalent would be Ricky Gervais and Patton Oswalt starring in a $150 million summer action movie; in other words, unlikely. Even more so than The Fugitive, this is an E-ticket ride through a great metropolis, with accents and plot developments that feel singular to that city above any other. TV journeyman Joseph Sargent does a yeoman’s job balancing action across different locations, while the peerless camerawork by Owen Roizman and musical score by David Shire send this movie into another stratosphere.

On a subway train departing Pelham Bay Park Station in the Bronx at 1:23 in the afternoon, men sporting long coats, hats and wearing fake moustaches and eyeglasses move into position. Identifying each other as Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw), Mr. Green (Martin Balsam), Mr. Grey (Hector Elizondo) and Mr. Brown (Earl Hindman) and armed with submachine guns, the men access the motorman’s compartment and hijack the train, using Green’s expertise as a conductor to stop in a tunnel somewhere between 28^th Street and 23^rd Street. At the Transit Authority command center, the wry Lt. Zachary Garber (Walter Matthau) and Lt. Rico Patrone (Jerry Stiller) have their boredom interrupted when Blue radios threatening to execute hostages starting in one hour unless a ransom of $1 million is delivered.

While the Mayor (Lee Wallace) dithers over how New York voters will respond to his decisions — negatively, it seems, no matter what he does — his deputy (Tony Roberts) and wife (Doris Roberts) advise that it would be wise to pay the hijackers and avoid risking another Attica. Sparring with Blue over the radio, Garber is stumped over how the meticulous ex-British Army colonel plans to escape an underground tunnel. When a sharpshooter fires off a round on accident, Blue makes good on his threats and executes one of the hostages. With the ransom cash running late, Garber thinks fast and produces a ruse to prevent Blue from shooting anyone else, including an undercover transit cop whose identity remains unknown. As Pelham 123 gets moving again and hurdles toward Manhattan, Garber hits on how the hijackers plan to escape.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 208 users: 94% for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

What do you say?

In the month of June, Joe Valdez “takes over” the programming of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a series of double features on his favorite film themes. Joe is not a professional curator and may not even show potential as an amateur one, but comments and recommendations for future double features are welcome below.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
Directed by Michael Cimino
Written by Michael Cimino
Produced by Robert Daley
115 minutes

For everyone who’s wished that Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges could have acted together in the same movie, the good news is that it’s called Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. The GREAT news is that this screwball buddy caper road movie has everything that a fan of drive-in movies could want: bank robbery, fist fighting, fast cars and fast women. If those weren’t enough, Gary Busey (billed as Garey Busey) even shows up. The script by Michael Cimino came to Eastwood in 1972 courtesy their mutual reps at the William Morris Agency. Responding to the offbeat bent of the piece (“Michael must have written it in some hallucinative state” Eastwood joked to biographer Richard Schickel), Malpaso agreed to let Cimino — a Michigan State grad with an MFA in painting from Yale and a successful career directing commercials in New York — make his feature film debut.

One of the innumerable charms of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is that Cimino never seems in a hurry to go anywhere or prove anything here, putting the “idio” in “idiosyncratic” as if the Coen brothers were making a heist flick. Instead of being wed to pulp fiction, the material has a noble innocence to it. Filmed in the towns of Ulm, Fort Benton, Hobson, Augusta and Choteau in the Great Falls vicinity of Montana, it’s one half road movie and one half situation comedy, with four men who have nowhere else to go moving in together, taking day jobs and plotting the score of a lifetime. Whether a credit to the script or to the exuberance of 23-year-old Jeff Bridges, Clint Eastwood has never smiled in a movie as much as he does here. One of the few reflections of the time period it was made is a whimsical theme composed and sung by Paul Williams, “Where Do I Go From Here”.

At the rustic Spirit Lake Idaho Community Church, the sermon of John Doherty (Clint Eastwood) is rudely interrupted when a stranger opens fire and chases the pastor through a field of wheat. A white ’73 Pontiac Trans Am crosses the pastor’s path and he jumps in. The wheelman is a kid who just stole the car and gives the name Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges). Watching the pastor pop his dislocated shoulder back in, the kid deduces that this is no ordinary clergyman. Stealing a ‘73 Buick Rivera, the pastor tires of grand theft auto and parts ways with Lightfoot, only to spot two more associates, bank robbers Red Leary (George Kennedy) and Eddie Goody (Geoffrey Lewis). The pastor changes his mind about riding shotgun with Lightfoot and even accepts the company of two women (Catherine Bach, June Fairchild) the kid picks up in town.

After Red comes gunning for the duo, the pastor reveals that he’s a Korean War veteran answering to the name Thunderbolt. A bank robber by vocation, Thunderbolt punctured the vault of an armored car company with a cannon firing 20mm artillery shells; the mastermind of his gang hid the money behind the blackboard of an old schoolhouse, but upon his death, only Thunderbolt knows where the loot is stashed. Believing he ripped them off, Red and Goody want Thunderbolt dead, but he explains to them that the schoolhouse and the loot have vanished. Lightfoot infects the thieves with the idea of hitting the same armored company again. The four men move in together and take day jobs to raise seed money for the job, devised more as an antidote to boredom and an excuse to build camaraderie than anything else.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 89 users: 86% for Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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Pale Rider (1985)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by Michael Butler & Dennis Shryack
Produced by Clint Eastwood
115 minutes

Proving that the western was as durable as an old Lincoln convertible — though the genre had been largely relegated to the scrap heap since John Wayne’s career fadeout The Shootist in 1976 — Clint Eastwood got back on the horse for Pale Rider, a worn down shoot ‘em up that paints over its rust with pure craftsmanship. Inviting the authors of The Gauntlet to kick around ideas for an oater, Eastwood went with an Ad Libs script by Michael Butler & Dennis Shryack that fills in the blanks by scribbling elements from westerns of much greater substance. Released with fanfare in June 1985, Pale Rider is a treat that melts as soon as you leave the air condition of the theater, but it’s well cast, gorgeously shot and maintains a disquieting tone, helping the film deliver on its poster, which promised “ … and hell followed with him.”

Pale Rider stretches its credulity far enough to snap, with miners who don’t seem armed with more than shovels and a savior whose origins are as ambiguous as the Book of Revelations verse being read aloud as he rides into camp. There’s no suspense because in addition to being played by Clint Eastwood, the hero’s supernatural prowess is spelled out plainly enough for people in the cheap seats to understand. Shot mostly on location in Idaho’s Sawtooth Range, Pale Rider never suffers from lack of scenic beauty though. With actors like Richard Dysart, Carrie Snodgress, Chris Penn, Charles Hallahan, Richard Kiel and always intriguing Michael Moriarty as his buddy, Eastwood cast the film magnificently. Collaborating with Bruce Surtees, scenes are bathed in menacing obsidian tones that elevate it above typical popcorn fare.

After raiders whip through a community of tin pan miners, 14-year-old Megan Wheeler (Sydney Penny) prays for a miracle to save them. The thoroughly decent Hull Barret (Michael Moriarty) — who’s courting Megan’s mother Sarah (Carrie Snodgress) — ignores warnings and rides into town for supplies. Greeted by the thugs who tore up camp, Hull is rescued by a lean, mean stranger who rides a pale horse and proves handy with a piece of hickory. Accepting an invitation to break bread with Hull, the stranger reveals a clerical collar and is soon given the handle of Preacher (Clint Eastwood). Hotheaded foreman of the mining operation Josh LaHood (Christopher Penn) visits the camp to scare the preacher off, but is turned away when his biggest, baddest employee Club (Richard Kiel) takes a sledgehammer to his sac.

LaHood’s ruthless father and magnate of the mining operation Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart) returns from Sacramento disconcerted by news that not only has junior failed to drive the tin pans off the dirt he covets, but that a preacher has appeared to unify their spirit. Meeting with LaHood, Preacher’s unearthly presence is enough to scare up a price of $1,000 per miner to pull up stakes and move on, but the tin pans reject the offer. LaHood telegraphs a marshal-for-hire named Stockburn (John Russell) and his six deputies to take over negotiations; based on the preacher’s eerie description, Stockburn is reminded of a man he knew, but who’s supposedly dead. While both Megan and her mother develop romantic pangs for the preacher, he appears on a path to take his pistols and wreck supernatural vengeance on Stockburn.

Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer” average among 24 users: 92% for Pale Rider

Metacritic “Metascore” average among leading critics: Not available

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