This is a short review of a film I haven't seen in a long time, and would like to see on DVD as soon as possible. It's 1979's Voices, the only big-screen effort from television producer/director Robert Markowitz and TV writer John Herzfeld. Now that I think about it, given this pedigree, I suppose the film is a little tv-movie in quality--the visuals don't pop out at me much as strong memories.
But I do recall being touched deeply by this love story between an aspiring musician (Michael Ontkean) and a deaf dancer (Amy Irving). I know, I know--the possibility for cliches are endless here. But I stand by my memories of Voices being a legitimatly-earned-tear-inducer. To boot, it also has a memorable score by Jimmy Webb, the songwriter behind "By The Time I Get To Phoenix," "MacArthur Park," and "Wicita Lineman." His song "When Will I Touch You Again?" is one of the film's highlights (but I won't tell you anything else). More music is provided by Willie Nelson, Burton Cummings, Tom Petty and the Atlanta Rhythm Section.
It's Ontkean and Irving together that set this movie sailing. Both are lovable and real, end of story. There is definite emotion laid into this film on their parts. Barry Miller, Alex Rocco, and Herbert Bergof play the three generations of men at home who build up and tear down Ontkean's dreams of becoming a professional musician. They're good, but their parts are overwritten. Voices, which I have not seen since I caught it on cable in the mid-1980s, works best when its two attractive leads are snuggling together on-screen. If you ever see Voices langishing in some box of VHS tapes, or on Ebay, get it. You won't be sorry.
One of the ultimate "Saturday Afternoon" movies for me is what looked to me to be a waste of time at first glance--and this was when I was 15 or so! I know. Foolin' Around looks terrible. But I was quite smitten with HBO back in 1981 or so, and would watch anything they showed. And I'm glad because I love Foolin' Around. It's a dumb li'l movie following Texas architechture student Gary Busey as he arrives at a Minnesota school for his studies. Volunteering for a science experiment that goes nutso, our hero meets rich girl science student Annette O' Toole. He falls for her and she for him, but she's engaged to be married to ultra-blonde asshole John Calvin. What's more, her father is architect Eddie Albert, and her mother is the shrewish Cloris Leachman. The mother loves the blonde asshole, the father hates him. (Leachman, it should be said here, is having an affair with the butler, well-played by Tony Randall.) So Foolin' Around here turns into a hybrid of The Graduate, where it's up to Busey to disrupt the inevitable don't-do-it wedding scene.
I know it sounds like I hate this movie. I would count it in the "guilty pleasures" category. But I watched it numerous times, even once in my 20s, and I still loved it, so I don't know why I should feel so guilty. I always like Gary Busey's aw-shucks style, and I think the very pretty Annette O'Toole really takes a shine to it as well, making the love story quite believeable (and that's a feat). I like Eddie Albert in a role that would have you thinking he was going to be the bad guy, but the director, Richard T. Heffron, had enough sense to cast Albert against type (he'd been playing villains in movies all throughout the 1970s). Albert's chemistry with Busey is tops as well--they have a terrific scene together on the top of an in-progress building, where Albert puts an engagement ring on the end of a steel girder to test Busey's committment to his daughter. (I need to mention that the movie features two very catchy songs by Seals and Crofts--strangely, just like another Annette O'Toole movie reviewed here recently, One on One).
It's just a warm-hearted trifle, Foolin' Around. That's all it is. But I LIKE warm-hearted trifles. So sue me. This is definitely one of my put-it-on-DVD wishes. To see Busey in his prime again, playing his only real romantic lead, and to see the young Annette O'Toole cavorting with him would somehow--don't ask me how--be ecstacy to me. (By the way, the Busey illustration is by Brooklyn's own "Caricature King" Dan Springer; filmicability has linked to his amazing visual blog everybody's gotta be in a gang. Check it out!
This is one of those "Saturday Afternoon" movies I like so much--sort of funny, sort of dramatic, a little romantic, not too demanding but not totally stupid either. Just real breezy and simple. Star Robby Benson co-wrote this likable story of a pampered high school basketball star who gets a scholarship to play with UCLA, but finds himself overwhelmed by a backbreaking practice regimen, a full class load, and the insults from the school's hard-assed coach (played with muscle by G.D. Spradlin). I like that the movie has a lot the say about the general overreaction to the talents of sports stars (though it throws in the towel and gets behind our boy Benson in the end). And I think this is the sort of movie role that made Benson a star in the 1970s--he's an innocent, but he's not totally stupid (at least, not by the final reel).
Annette O'Toole, having been a guest star on numerous television shows for ten years, got her first big movie role here as Benson's anti-jock tutor who agrees against her better judgement to help Benson with the books. Her red hair, blue eyes and saucy spirit are enough to make One on One a movie worth watching. Spradlin, too, is a big draw (most may remember him as the general who gives Martin Sheen the orders to terminate Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now or as the crooked senator in The Godfather Part II). His coach is a mean ol' cuss, that's for sure. '70s songsters Seals and Crofts had a Top 40 hit with "My Fair Share" and warble the title tune as well. One on One is directed by Lamont Johnson, who'd won a Emmy a few years earlier for directing the downbeat Execution of Private Slovik. Both that and this charming sports drama should be released on DVD as soon as possible. Here's a great scene with G.D. Spradlin trying to make Benson's life very difficult.
When I was about nine years old, I tuned in to The Wonderful World of Disney one night to watch what I thought would be your typical Disney fare--cartoons, or a live-action adventure with li'l prairie dogs, or even a faboo tour of Disneyworld (an episode kids always wanted to see).
Instead, what I got was something that blew my mind, and I hope it blows yours. But first...
I was never a big fan of cars. Anyone who knows me also knows that automobiles and I have never found common ground. Other kids were drawing Torinos and Corvettes during geography lectures--me, I was drawing spaceships and movie logos. I have always found sedans to be burdensome, dangerous objects--certainly something I didn't want to control myself. A 3000-lb burnin' hunk of metal powered by fermented dinosaur juices? No way. Not for me, you can have my share. Believe me, the roads are safer without me on 'em. Besides, I think cars make people mean as hell and start them down the road thinking of other cars as mere obstacles to be vanquished rather than potentially deadly objects being controlled by other stressed-out people. It's all a big video game to most drivers. And certainly everyone's getting crabbier behind the wheel now that gas is four bucks a gallon some places. Geez, what're guys gonna be like when it hits $20 a gallon?! It'll be Mad Max all over again.
When I got to be a teen and then a young adult, living in Atlanta (the East Coast car capital of the USA) was very difficult for a guy who was not only unwilling to drive, but actually would get physically ill behind the wheel of a car. Lemme tell ya, it made dating nearly impossible, unless the girl was willing to do the carting-around, which is still seen (unfairly, I think) as a sign of male weakness (and what girl wants that?)
It became a big issue for me. Why's everybody so car-crazy? Why is life like this? And I started to think and think about it, and I came to the only conclusion, really: that it's all about sex. This love affair we have with cars is because they make sex and access to it much easier, even inevitable. Yes, ya got those people who'll tell you it's about freedom. And it is. Freedom to get sex. Freedom to make money to get sex. Freedom to pick up girls who want to have sex. That's what cars are all about. Chicks love cars. They love feeling safe and pampered, going fast and having the world at their feet. It turns 'em on. And most guys like turned-on girls (including me!)
"But it's not just that! I love to drive! It's fuuuuun!" Look, Clarence, driving ain't supposed to be fun. You want fun, go get on a rollercoaster, laughing boy. That's fun. Driving's supposed to get you somewhere you wanna go and when you get there, then you have your fun. It's this "fun" idea that causes horrible, bone-crushing, gore-gushing accidents. And stop talking on your cell phone, for Christ's sake, you ignoramus!!! Goddammit, fuckstick, turn your goddamn radio down so you can hear me honkin' my goddamn horn at ya! Hey, Mac! See this?! See this?! Yeah! You know what you can do with that finger! Yep! You got it! Right up there, too--sun ain't shinin' down there!!! WHAT?! WHAT?! I'LL KIIIILLLL YOU!!! Ahh, same to ya, jerk-off! Jesus, God, just get me home...what time is it?!
I mean, I...I...sigh...I could go on about my dislike of cars, touching on their negative environmental, political, and cultural aspects, blah blah blah. But I won't...Orson will do it for me. The movie quote below is my favorite exchange from Mr. Welles' 1942 masterpiece The Magnificent Ambersons. Joseph Cotton plays an early inventor of cars and devoted suitor to Isabel Minafer, George Minafer's mother (played by Dolores Costello). George (the young Tim Holt) hates Eugene not only because he's stealing his mother away from him, but because he sees Eugene as an agent of change from the old ways to the new. With Uncle Jack Minifer (Ray Collins) at the table, patriarch Maj. Anderson (Richard Bennett) starts things off:
Maj. Amberson: So your devilish machines are going to ruin all your old friends, eh Gene? Do you really think they're going to change the face of the land?
Eugene: They're already doing it major and it can't be stopped. Automobiles...
[cut off by George] George: Automobiles are a useless nuisance.
Jack: What did you say, George?
George: I said automobiles are a useless nuisance. Never amount to anything but a nuisance and they had no business to be invented.
Jack: Of course, you forget that Mr. Morgan makes them, also did his share in inventing them. If you weren't so thoughtless, he might think you were rather offensive.
Eugene: I'm not sure George is wrong about automobiles. With all their speed forward they may be a step backward in civilization. May be that they won't add to the beauty of the world or the life of the men's souls, I'm not sure. But automobiles have come and almost all outwards things will be different because of what they bring. They're going to alter war and they're going to alter peace. And I think men's minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of automobiles. And it may be that George is right. May be that in ten to twenty years from now that if we can see the inward change in men by that time, I shouldn't be able to defend the gasoline engine but agree with George - that automobiles had no business to be invented.
Brilliant talk there.
Anyway, this is all leading up to something much lighter. Back to Disney-time. So I'm sitting there, 1974 or so, Sunday night, and this INSANE thing pops up on screen as tonight's feature. I'll talk about it more later, after we watch it. So here it is, in three parts (it's 22 minutes long), via the wonderful You Tube (God, I love that site). From 1970 and narrated by a young Kurt Russell, get ready for: Dad, Can I Borrow The Car?
Gee, is there anything better than Dad, Can I Borrow the Car? Noooo. By far, the Disney company's coolest moment, it was directed by Ward Kimball, one of the original "Nine Old Men" who advised the Disney machine back in the day. He was an animator in the Diz biz since 1934, was the one who designed Jiminy Cricket from Pinnochio and redesigned Mickey Mouse from the '20s black-and-white little guy to basically the version of the character we know today. He'd won an Oscar the year before for another Disney short It's Tough to Be a Bird. So he was 56 years old when he produced Dad, Can I Borrow the Car? And you thought this was directed by some refugee from The Monkees or something. Nope. Kimball, pictured above, really let loose a bunch of old-guy hipness when he made this thing. That pic makes him look like a pretty funny character--I think that monster claw was even used in the movie!
The screams of laughter Dad provokes from my guttiwuts are endless--the wild-ass beginning with the "racing stripes" (if I were a rich man, I'd have exactly the car in this credits sequence, painted just like that buggy ends up); that bitchin' opening montage with that melange of oddball hotrods like a guy driving a burning cigar, a lemon on wheels, and a car hauling Mt. Rushmore away; that incredible, long B&W auto dealership commercial with all that gobbeldygook about "wrap-around hoods" and "pre-greased upholstry" (who IS that astounding actor with the fake bald wig anyway--that's the best commercial of all time!); those talking vehicles begging to be purchased (I love the old one that coughs and says "Get me soon, cause I'm goin' fast"...if only Cars could have been this cool); and, hey, was that a young, long-haired Jamie Lee Curtis as the girl who thinks he's trying to cheat off her test at the DMV? (The IMDB says Timothy Hutton's in this, too, but I couldn't spot him, could you? And, yeah, that was the Maytag repairman, Jessie White, a veteran of many a movie and TV show, doing some of the voices).
And, of course, there's all the references to sex and getting laid which, as I said, is what cars are all about. That scene with he and his friends taking the convertible under the car wash has to be one of the most suggestive things in a Disney film up to that period. I swear, some of the shots looked like soft porn! And with young Johnny watching over to the side, too! Gracious! Weird ending to this thing, too, with that kissing montage!
The killer graphic design was by John Emerson and Ed Garbert, with the stunning editing--the thing I think that first caught my young "WHAT IS THIS" eyes--is by Lloyd Richardson. And, naturally, there's Kurt Russell's funny, natural vocal performance, though I don't understand why they just didn't go on and use him as the lead actor; woulda made the movie that much better. I want to note that, though I saw this on TV, Dad, Can I Borrow the Car? did get a movie theater release, probably as a short in front of Superdad or The Cat From Outer Space or something. How do I know this? Because I have a movie poster for it!! Yayyyy! Coolest thing ever. I almost cried when I found it in this old warehouse I was helping clean up one time!! Score!!!
I'll never forget catching Inside Moves on cable back in the early 80s. It was like finding buried treasure, it really was. This 1980 film has now been almost totally forgotten--it's not even on DVD. But if you ever get a chance to see it, and have a prediliction for the sentimental, the beguiling, the intelligent, the well-crafted film, then you will love it as much as I did.
Richard Donner, normally the director of blockbusters like Superman, Lethal Weapon, The Goonies, and The Omen, dialed down the grandstanding he does so well to create this little personal movie about refound hope. After a fantastic credits sequence, we meet Rory (John Savage, in one of his few leads), a walking corpse whose attempt at suicide leaves him severely disabled. Across the street from his recovery house, Rory discovers Max's Bar and, inside, a vaudevillian trio of long-term patients (wheelchair-bound Bill Henderson, blind Burt Remsen, and Harold Russell, in only his second film after winning two Oscars for playing a WWII soldier who'd lost his hands in 1946's The Best Years of Our Lives). Behind the counter is bartender Jerry (David Morse), a wanna-be basketball star with one leg shorter than the other. It's here, with these guys, that Rory does his healing.
It's impossible to conceive of the person who wouldn't like this winsome movie. The performances alone carry you through. Add the brilliant John Barry score, the tender scripting by Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin, and the rich cinematography by Lazlo Kovacs, and you've got an unbeatable force. Yet, it's weird how this title has disappeared from people's view. For instance, it has one of the best Christmas-related scenes of all time (John Savage and Oscar-nominated Diana Scarwid slow dance to Sinatra's "Put All Your Dreams Away"). I'd play this film on TV at Xmas in a heartbeat. But where is it come yueltide? Nowhere. More importantly, why wouldn't Inside Moves be out on DVD yet? Music rights issues, perhaps? The Sinatra estate, maybe?
Yes, okay, the movie can be charmingly trite at times, with its subplot about Jerry's prostitute girlfriend (Amy Wright, a familiar face around the early 1980s) and her dealings with a red-suited pimp named Lucius (Tony Burton). But its scenes of genuine emotion, particularly between Savage and Scarwid, and between Savage and Morse, are enough reason to seek it out. I remember interviewing Richard Donner back in 1985 when he was going around the country promoting Ladyhawke. Though I was just a lowly college journalist, he graciously agreed to meet me for a one-on-one chat in Atlanta's Central City Park. I was a fan of some of his movies at that point, but mostly of this one. When I threw out how much I liked Inside Moves, his eyes lit up. "Wow," he said, "rarely does anybody mention it, but that's my favorite of my own movies." Justifyably so...
But I do recall being touched deeply by this love story between an aspiring musician (Michael Ontkean) and a deaf dancer (Amy Irving). I know, I know--the possibility for cliches are endless here. But I stand by my memories of Voices being a legitimatly-earned-tear-inducer. To boot, it also has a memorable score by Jimmy Webb, the songwriter behind "By The Time I Get To Phoenix," "MacArthur Park," and "Wicita Lineman." His song "When Will I Touch You Again?" is one of the film's highlights (but I won't tell you anything else). More music is provided by Willie Nelson, Burton Cummings, Tom Petty and the Atlanta Rhythm Section. 
It's Ontkean and Irving together that set this movie sailing. Both are lovable and real, end of story. There is definite emotion laid into this film on their parts. Barry Miller, Alex Rocco, and Herbert Bergof play the three generations of men at home who build up and tear down Ontkean's dreams of becoming a professional musician. They're good, but their parts are overwritten. Voices, which I have not seen since I caught it on cable in the mid-1980s, works best when its two attractive leads are snuggling together on-screen. If you ever see Voices langishing in some box of VHS tapes, or on Ebay, get it. You won't be sorry.
