The Right Stuff

The Right Stuff (1983) dir. Philip Kaufman
Starring: Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Fred Ward, Scott Glenn, Barbara Hershey, Sam Shepard

By Alan Bacchus

The Right Stuff is made great because of its unabashed American zeal - a cinematic rendering of the U.S. Mercury Space Program as novelized by Tom Wolfe, that great American novelist/satirist. It’s one of the great films of the 1980s and invisible to age - an era-defining mosaic of American history.

The film begins cleverly by first establishing the legend of Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard), the iconic test pilot who first broke the sound barrier. These scenes bristle with American machismo – the aloof loner who risks life and limb for personal glory and the thrill of speed. One day a group of government suits arrive in the Californian desert to recruit for the new Space Program. It’s greeted with ridicule by Yeager and his clique, but also curious adventure from pilots like Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid) and Gus Grissom (Fred Ward).

The film quickly moves forward to show us the unbelievable rigors and tests required to choose the first seven American astronauts. The first seven pilots become our seven heroes, with John Glenn (Ed Harris), Gordon Cooper, Gus Grissom and Alan B. Shepherd (Scott Glenn) as the leaders. For those who don’t know their history, Kaufman builds some nice suspense as to who would be the first American in space and climaxes with Gordon Cooper’s flight, not a historically significant event, but one born from character. Meanwhile Kaufman keeps Yeager in the film occasionally cutting back to his life as a test pilot still pushing the envelope on Earth while his compatriots receive the glory of going into space.

There wasn't much memorable from the '80s, but few could argue against it being the decade of the film score. And The Right Stuff is aided by one of the great ones. Bill Conti (Rocky) won an Oscar for his music, which is as grand and soring as its subject matter – a rarity in today's cinema. It's a mixture of classic orchestral sounds and then-modern synth sounds. Nothing is dated though. In fact, it transcends time.

Kaufman fills the screen with inspired iconic frames. There’s the much referenced long shot of the seven astronauts walking down the hall toward the camera on their way to a press conference. There are numerous shots glorifying Yeager, including his heroic walk back to the base after his final crash. And there are the images of John Glenn, Neil Armstrong and Gordon Cooper jammed in their cockpits looking up into the awe of space.

The special effects are a marvel and completely invisible to the audience. There’s little or no noticeable blue screen work, instead the near lost art of model making, awesome aerial camera work and untraditional light and chemical effects.

The Right Stuff feels like the Nashville of the '80s - an American classic about the power of American spirit, innovation and perseverance.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) dir. Philip Kaufman
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartright, Art Hingle, Leonard Nimoy

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Though I hadn’t seen it in years, this film stuck in my head as an under-appreciated sequel, perhaps even better than the original 1956 Don Siegel-directed classic. Philip Kaufman is a fine director, someone who got better with age though, and like his pre-Right Stuff work, the film is marred by tonal and visual inconsistencies, and not enough to render it better than the original.

The original film famously used the robotic, soulless, doppelganger doubles as a metaphor for the uniformity and and general fear of authority in the Communist-scare McCarthy era of the 1950’s. In the 70’s, cinema attitudes were much the same, while political thrillers such All the President’s Men, Klute and Three Days of the Condor reflected the prevailing distrust of government due to Watergate, in horror the same influence could be felt.

The mix of b-movie sensabilities with covert political metaphors and much higher production values than back in day resulted in films like Soylent Green, Rollerball, Demon Seed, Capricorn One, all those Planet of the Apes movies, as well as Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

To give Kaufman some credit off the top, it’s a great opening. Fantastic special effects show the arrival of the alien plant spores travelling the galaxy, arriving on earth, and inbedding themselves into the plantlife of Earth. We're then joined up with Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) who notices her husband has been acting weird and aloof of late. Not only him but others around her skulk around like zombies, devoid of emotion, but with a clear purpose or mysterious agenda. She tries to convince her colleague, restaurant health inspector Matthew Bennell, played by Donald Sutherland that something's afoot, but doesn't believe her and prescribes some treatment with her psychologist colleague played by Leonard Nimoy.

The group connect up with a pair of their friends Jack and Nancy (Veronica Cartright and Jeff Goldblum) who own a massage/mud bath parlor and together they discover the alien plot to replace everyone’s sleeping bodies with doubles created from giant eggplant-like pods.

Hero roles switch between Donald Sutherland, sporting an ugly perm and brown chevron moustache and Brooke Adams (Days of Heaven) who is delightful and better than Donald. Leonard Nimoy is decent as a celebrity psycholist not unlike Dr. Phil. Veronica Cartright is also fantastic in one of her many scene stealing character roles of her career. Jeff Goldblum appears to be acting in a totally different movie however, and on a different wavelength, even more askew than his usual twitchy performances. Kevin McCarthy even makes a fun cameo replaying his final frantic moments of the original film.

The creature effects of the bodies emerging from the pods is delightfully gory. As the film clips along, the more we learn about the extent of this silent alien invasion, the more gruesome and disturbing it becomes. At one point in the final act we see a homeless man’s head on a dog resulting from a transmutated duplication double.

Though there’s some wonderful on location work with much of the action in the picturesque San Francisco nightlife, Philip Kaufman’s camera work is marred with atrocious inconsistent camerawork. It’s that experimental style from the late 60’s, mixing traditional locked off classical compositions with silly handheld camerawork. The confrontation with the police in Brooke’s house for instance has the camera spinning around and crashing into the characters almost hitting their faces, an ugly distraction to an important and tense scene.

It’s a frantic and exciting final 10mins, which almost make up for the previous atrocious inconsistencies. We sense there is no light at the end of this tunnel. The final scene is truly a knock out, the meeting of Nancy and Matthew, both of whom are unsure if the other has been taken over or not, produces the film’s signature image, that of Mr. Sutherland...well. .. I can’t ruin the moment here... but it's terrifying.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is available on Blu-Ray from MGM/20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

The Wanderers

The Wanderers (1079) dir. Philip Kaufman
Starring: Ken Wahl, John Friedrich, Karen Allen, Toni Kalem, Allen Rosenberg

***

By Alan Bacchus

Gang culture of the 60’s, a common theme of the late 70’s early 80’s plays like a nostalgic version of The Warriors, somewhere in between the comic book action of The Warriors and the schmaltz of American Graffiti, Diner or even West Side Story.

It's 1962 New Jersey, Frankie Valle blasts throughout the streets. Young gang leader Richie (Ken Wahl) stops making out with his girlfriend to respond to the call from one of his fellow gang brothers. Richie meets up with the runt of the group Joey, who's being chased by the notorious Baldies gangs, identified by their intimidating bald heads. Richie and Joey who are part of the Wanderers engage in a thrilling chase sequence through the streets of Jersey before being saved by a new heavy in town and newest member of the Wanderers gang.

And so begins the cinematic adaptation of Richard Price's novel, the true life experiences of Price as a teenager on the mean streets of Jersey. Like the Warriors, everyone is split into racially segregated gangs. As mentioned, there's the Baldies and the Wanderers, but also the black gang the Del Bombers, who wear purple and gold , the Asian Wong gang who specialize in Kung Fu and the Irish Duckies. In between the macho posturing between the gangs, a coming of age story evolves between Richie and Joey. Richie, the womanizing leader of gang finds himself torn between his steady girlfriend Despie (Toni Kalem) and the new hottie in town Nina (Karen Allen), and Joey, struggles to stand up to his overbearing father as well as find a girlfriend himself.

What threatens to come off as ugly racial and genre stereotypes actually turns out to be one of the better gang /greaser pictures - at least for two thirds of the picture, but more on that later.

Some of the fantastical elements of The Warriors are there including the first confrontation with the Duckies, which is a great embellished and violent action sequence. Missing though is the effect of the violent behaviour. Fights and brawls are mostly humorous and ‘playtime’ for these machos males. Like most films about the 60’s we never really feel like emotional impact of the violence.

While its high on nostalgia and period detail, missing is the emotional pathos of say, American Graffiti. Kaufman often shows us a marine recruiter watching the shenanigans from the background. And with the spectre of Vietnam hanging over the film an added big picture historical perspective could have provided some emotional resonance. Unfortunately this pays off with a rather silly sequence when the Baldies get tricked into signing up for the Marines by a particularly slimy and moustache-twirling recruiter.

Kaufman’s dramatization of the 60’s milieu is progressive. The depiction of sexual discovery and the genuine fear and ignorance these macho men had of women is on the mark. Kaufman is aware of the stereotypes of the 'greaser' film and mostly avoids the hokiness of say, ‘Grease’. Kaufman even helps create some stereotypes, helping to birth the cinematic depiction of the Jersey mob, 10 years before Goodfellas and 20 years before The Sopranos. Their Hawaiian shirts and bowling alley locales are hilarious and perhaps its the first cinematic incarnation of the phrase 'forgettaboutit'. Kaufman even makes light of the grislier elements of the mafia by crafting a funny sequence out of a group of loan sharks who fall victim to the mafia’s punishment using a bowling ball as a blunt weapon.

Kaufman’s sharp direction and affable treatment of the subject matter is let down by a silly third act, which begins with a lengthy and head scratching football sequence that rivals the Vampire baseball sequence in Twilight. The final confrontation with the Duckies doesn’t make sense at all and is more in keeping with Roger Corman camp than intelligent observation.

And on a side note, watch for a fun over the top performance from Linda Manz of Days of Heaven fame and look in the final credits for Scott (Boss-zilla) Rudin was the casting director.

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972) dir. Philip Kaufman
Starring: Cliff Robertson, Robert Duvall, Luke Askew

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Philip Kaufman is a venerable old filmmaker, a career which spans 40 years with a variety of memorable and culturally significant films. Perhaps ‘The Right Stuff’ is his most famous film – certainly his best. But scouring his filmography you’d see a some sci-fi, ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (1978), the Daniel Day-Lewis starrer, ‘The Unbearable Likeness of Being’, ‘Quills’, ‘Henry and June’, of course, his screenplay credit on ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’

His breakout film ‘The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid’, though a flawed, has enough sparkles of greatness to warrant our attention.

The title refers to famous failed bank robbery by the James/Younger gang. This is not a Jesse James film though, but a vehicle for Cliff Robertson as Cole Younger, the charismatic leader of the gang. After a violent gunbattle with the Pinkertons, the gang finds themselves split up – Jesse James and his brother taking half the gang to Northfield to violate an amnestry agreement with the government and rob their new bank, and Younger who apparently is working with the Northfield bankers to trap James. Once in Northfield, it’s a doublecross and a reunification of James and Younger to take down the bank. But thanks to the new fangled time lock device installed the gang runs into some major problems and soon finds themselves under siege by the citizens of the town who band together to protect their own money.

Kaufman’s dank and dirty environment replete with muddy outhouses, a grim and psychotic depiction of James by Robert Duvall and the especially bloody treatment of the violence positions the film in the revisionist subgenre of Westerns. Part Altman, part Peckinpah, part (Arthur) Penn, it’s a conscious and admirable attempt by Kaufman to show us another side of the mythologized James gang. Unfortunately Walter Hill did this story monumentally better with ‘the Long Riders’ just 8 years later, a film which renders Kuafman’s film virtually irrelevant.

There’s an awful 'television' quality to much of it - specifically Paul Frees' voiceover which unnecessarily sets the scene with Dukes of Hazard-like hokiness. The only line missing is ‘previously on ‘The Great Northfield Massacre' . Add in Dave Grusin's cooky and bumbling country score and we’re in Bonanza territory. And lastly the title sequence featuring bubbly yellow font put the audience in a completely different tone of film to what Kaufman needs to establish off the top.

What we can still cherish is Cliff Robertson who is fantastic as Cole Younger, and so it was no surprise to see he was one of the producers, and thus, likely a passion project for him. The actual Raid sequence is superbly directed - not quite 'Long Riders' artistic grandiosity, but Kaufman’s use of the plummeting rainstorm echoes the famous waterworks in Akira Kurosawa’s ‘The Seven Samurai’ climax. Robert Duvall is grossly miscast, or perhaps grossly misdirected. As an unintelligible hillbilly psychopath he lacks all the lustre the name Jesse James conjures up. Perhaps it was by design from producer/actor Robertson who didn’t want his character overshadowed.

For Western genre fans, 'The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid' is still essential viewing as a decent benchamrk in the evolution of the Western.