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"Stage-bound and too talky."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

The Robert Wise ("Blood on the Moon"/"West Side Story") adult comedy-drama
is based on the successful two-character Broadway play by William Gibson
(it starred Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft), that's expanded with the inclusion
of secondary characters for the film but unfortunately still remaims stage-bound
and too talky. Isobel Lennart adapted it from the play. One of the film's
main problems is that the leads are miscast. Robert Mitchum is too stiff
and acts as if he was doing us a favor by appearing in this production;
while Shirley MacLaine, considerably more suited for the part, but tries
too hard in a strained performance lacking the required energy needed for
her perky heroine to shine and has no on-screen chemistry for her lover
(though the two marrieds began an off-screen affair that lasted two years).

Embittered suicidal Omaha lawyer Jerry Ryan (Robert Mitchum) has
been in Manhattan for a month after his separation from his wealthy wife
of 12 years and loss of his job, arranged by his wife's family. The lonely,
self-pitying and indecisive Jerry contacts his hometown acquaintance Oscar
and gets to go to his artist party in Greenwich Village. At the party,
the square meets the 29-year-old extrovert bohemian Jewish Bronx dance
instructor Gittel Mosca (Shirley MacLaine) and the two lonely souls begin
an affair.

But Jerry is too uptight to have a wholesome relationship, still
thinking of his comfortable past life, and we suffer listening to a lot
of shrill dialogue while Jerry unwinds and tries to get his life back on
track. He soon gets a job with a prominent New York law firm and generously
sets the struggling Gittel up with a little dance studio in an empty loft.
But she's not happy because he still pines for his wife. The tension gets
to her and she has a hemorrhaging ulcer; after being hospitalized Jerry
devotedly takes care of her at home. 

When Jerry's divorce comes through, he fails to tell Gittel as he's
too afraid to marry her. It all comes to an unsatisfying conclusion as
Jerry makes an unintelligent decision that doesn't add up and seems phony
and sentimental. There's an underlying inertia that the film is never able
to satisfactorily solve.

THE STRAIGHT DOPE:
A lot of seemingly disparate elements come together surprisingly well in Bertrand Tavernier's excellent Coup De Torchon (1980). Working from pulp author Jim Thompson's classic novel "Pop 1280" Tavernier made some significant changes: He moved the locale from the American South to French colonized Africa. Where the novel contains significant statements on American racism in the 60's, Tavernier takes a look at the colonial attitude, a different, but equally potent brand of racism. By making this shift he has changed the dynamic from one group containing – and holding down – the other within itself to a group, the French, coming into the land of another, the Senegalese, and subverting their own home. This is an important difference, since the treatment of the indigenous people, while not the main plot point, informs the tone of the entire film. Most of the French characters are portrayed as selfish, violent oafs with far too much anger and bitterness in them.

The story concerns a local policeman, played by a very subtle Philippe Noiret, who has tired of being taken advantage of by more powerful and corrupt men. He slowly takes his revenge, but not always on those who deserve it. He is a fascinating character, full of moral ambiguity and confusion. He clearly abhors the racism of his neighbors, but also plays into the violence of his society. He allows everyone to think that he is simple-minded by never committing to anything (He often makes statements like "I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm not saying you're right") and by reflecting back what others want to see in him. His relations with his wife, her live-in "brother" (a mysterious relationship), his girlfriend, fellow cops, a local school teacher, and everyone else are complicated by his sense that he has a greater perspective. They are all caught up in their own miseries whereas he feels the weight of the whole society on his shoulders.

The film is full of strange images (like mismatched socks) and symbolism (Noiret helps the local clergyman hammer nails into a Jesus statue on a cross) that creates an atmosphere where everything has meaning. A film that rewards multiple viewings, Coup De Torchon seems to have something to say about men, women, race, society, and what we hold dear. The location likens it to other great films like Wages of Fear and Casablanca, films that also make statements on isolation and how humans treat each other in extreme circumstances. By setting his film noir in Africa and steering away from typical noir lighting and sets Tavernier has created a film that crosses boundaries, stylistically and thematically.

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Harrrrrr.

Make that, Harrrrr de harr harr.

Pirate films have long been ripe for a good spoof, and some of the Monty Python boys gave it a go in 1983 with "Yellowbeard." That same year, you may recall, the full Python troupe released "The Meaning of Life," in which bored cubicle people in an office hi-rise mutiny and take over the building that morphs into a ship. So pirates were on Graham Chapman's and John Cleese's minds back then. What I'd like to know is, why didn't the rest of them join the two main Python handlers in this satire of the Spanish Main?

Maybe Chapman and Cleese wanted to commandeer their own comedy ship and launch a separate attack. If so, they shanghaied one heck of a comic cast, including Peter Boyle, Kenneth Mars and Marty Feldman ("Young Frankenstein"), Madeline Kahn ("Blazing Saddles"), Peter Cook ("Saturday Night Live"), and Cheech & Chong (their own world). But the high-powered cast seems almost underutilized in a film that steers a surprisingly straight course at times. Cheech & Chong appear only briefly (if you blink, you'll miss them), so don't let their billboard-sized heads on the cover art lead you to think this is their movie. Maybe it should have been, because the two of them are hilarious in their limited space. But the narrative is much more on-compass I would have thought, and maybe that's why the full troupe didn't sign on.

The pirating action is as realistic as you'll see in any buccaneer film—even more so, because you see the tip of a sword come out the back of a sailor instead of the usual side shot where you know the blade is between the body and arm. And though the plot isn't exactly the same, "Yellowbeard" owes one heck of a debt to "Treasure Island." There's the tavern, the boy (in this case, Martin Hewitt as the 20 year old that Yellowbeard is told is his son), the blind man (here, Cleese as Harvey "Blind" Pew), the old pirate (Chapman as Yellowbeard) and the expedition to recover the pirate's old treasure. The scenes that most resemble ones from the Robert Louis Stevenson classic are perhaps not coincidentally the most reverently adventure-oriented. It's as if Chapman and Cleese couldn't decide whether to go for laughs or homage.

There are some laughs here, but feminists beware: some of the funniest lines have to do with rape and mistreatment of women.

Betty: "Well, it's been awhile since he had a little cuddle."
Yellowbeard: "I raped ya, if that's what you mean."

Yellowbeard: "I'm sure I killed the last one I raped, it can't have been you."

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