Short Take: Chinatown

One of the richest modes of Hollywood filmmaking in the 1970s was taking pulp genres, filtering out the kitschier aspects, and reimagining the material in more realistic terms. What The Godfather did for the gangster film, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller did for the Western, Chinatown does for the private-detective thriller. The defining feature of pulp detectives such as Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe is their above-it-all cynicism. (It's also probably their source of appeal for adolescent male readers--of all ages.) Chinatown's protagonist, Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson), has similar attitudes, but unlike Spade and Marlowe, it isn't romanticized. It defeats him at nearly every turn. He's at least as resourceful as the Hammett and Chandler heroes, but he's still unprepared for the depths of public corruption he uncovers, or for the horrifying secret of the story's heroine (Faye Dunaway). Robert Towne's screenplay is an elegantly woven mix of mystery and psychological drama. Roman Polanski's direction gives every scene a true-to-life rhythm without ever letting the pace go slack. When violence or other sensational elements erupt, they feel integral to the story. There's no pulpiness; those parts never come off as cheaply cathartic or shoehorned in to heighten the pace. The actors live up to the high standard of the script and direction. Jack Nicholson keeps his natural flamboyance in check, and delivers a richly nuanced characterization. He has a viewer all but inside Gittes' thoughts and feelings. Faye Dunaway capably balances the heroine's upper-class poise with her guardedness and near-neurotic anxieties. John Huston, who plays the heroine's father, oozes smarmy malevolence. The rest of the cast, including Diane Ladd, Perry Lopez, John Hillerman, Burt Young, James Hong, and Polanski himself, is note-perfect. The behind-the-scenes artisans do full justice to the 1930s setting. Cinematographer John A. Alonzo, production designer Richard Sylbert, and costumer Anthea Sylbert all turn in first-rate work. The fine musical score is by Jerry Goldsmith.

Short Take: The Godfather, Part II

The Godfather, Part II, directed and co-written by Francis Ford Coppola, is the best kind of movie sequel. It expands and enriches one's view of its predecessor, and it's an engrossing, accomplished work in its own right. The film picks up the story of Mafia lord Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in the late 1950s, and contrasts it with the experiences of his father as a young man (Robert De Niro). The flashback sequences are the most engaging part of the film. The arc of the father's early life--from orphaned immigrant to New York crime boss--is elegantly structured and beautifully dramatized. The picture does a marvelous job of recreating Manhattan's Little Italy in the early 20th century, and De Niro's finely modulated performance is perfect for the father's balance of judiciousness and brutality. The 1950s sections aren't quite as assured. Coppola doesn't present the various Mafia intrigues as clearly as one might like. But whatever reservations one has are dispelled by the climax. The father's violent methods, always rationalized in terms of family duty, reach their ironic culmination in the ruthless, soullessly vindictive action Michael takes. Family obligations are turned against themselves, and the tragedy of Michael's character assumes even fuller dimensions than it did in the first picture. This is one of the most devastating endings in all of film. The superb cast also includes Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, John Cazale, Talia Shire, Michael V. Gazzo, Lee Strasberg, G. D. Spradling, Morgana King, and Richard Bright. The beautiful, richly toned cinematography is by Gordon Willis. Dean Tavoularis oversaw the impressive production design. Mario Puzo adapted the scenes of the father's early life from passages in his original novel. The rest of the script is by Coppola.

Short Take: Lacombe, Lucien

Director Louis Malle's Lacombe, Lucien, set in France during the final weeks of the Nazi Occupation, is a haunting portrait of the banality of evil. The film's greatness is in its refusal to allow for easy judgments. Lucien (Pierre Blaise) is a rural 17-year-old who, in the opening scenes, is denied status and fulfillment everywhere he turns. He works as a janitor at a hospital that's too far from his hometown to make a daily commute. He's less than welcome in his family's home in any case; his father has been imprisoned by the Nazis, and the man his mother has taken up with doesn't want him around. He tries to join the Resistance, but the local leader--his old schoolmaster--considers him too dim to be of use. He then falls in with the local Gestapo, and for perhaps the first time in his life, he is made to feel like he belongs. Malle establishes Lucien as a moral idiot, and that he becomes a Nazi thug for the homeliest of reasons, but the film never asks one to view him with hatred. One sees how out of place he is among the gentry, the bureaucrats, and the hangers-on who make up the local collaborators. He falls in love with a Jewish girl (Aurore Clément) whose family is laying low in the community, and the film deftly renders the class tensions between him and the girl's father (Holger Lowenälder). The father, a bourgeois tailor, seethes at having Lucien, whom he regards as an uncouth hick, both living in his home and sharing his daughter's bed. It's impossible not to sympathize with his anger, but one also recognizes the snobbishness that's partly behind it. One's ambivalence about Lucien is strongest in the pastoral final section. The country-boy hunting and survival skills that made him of such use to the Nazis belonged here, not corrupted by brutalizing his countrymen. And one sees his happiness, particularly with his hearty laughter during a moment with the tailor's daughter. Malle shows the ideal of who Lucien is in this woodland setting, and that, in many ways, he's an innocent brought low by circumstances. The film ends with a brief text epilogue telling what happens to Lucien next. It leaves one torn over whether it's justice or tragedy, and one must ultimately reconcile it as both. Malle wrote the superb script with novelist (and future Nobel literature laureate) Patrick Modiano. He dramatizes it matter-of-factly and with striking intelligence. No implication is glossed over; it's there for all to see. Everything serves the material, from Tonino delli Colli's deep-toned cinematography to the shrewd casting of the non-professional Pierre Blaise in the title role.

Short Take: The Towering Inferno

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Producer Irwin Allen’s The Towering Inferno (1974) is the most prominent of the 1970s wave of Hollywood disaster movies. Much of it is fairly cheesy, but it's still a reasonably diverting time-killer. The silliness actually contributes to the entertainment value. The setting is San Francisco, on the day of the dedication of the world’s tallest building. (Yes, the movie would have one believe this skyscraper would actually be built in that notoriously earthquake-prone city.) The architect (Paul Newman) discovers that his specifications have been replaced with sub-par materials. The dedication ceremony and VIP party go forward that evening, but unbeknownst to everyone an electrical short has set off a small fire in a mid-building storage room. After the party has moved to the restaurant atop the building, the fire spreads and traps them. The film follows the man-of-action architect and the firefighters in their efforts to rescue the partygoers and various others. The all-star cast is a mixed bag. As banal as Paul Newman's part is, he plays it with conviction, and there’s no doubting why he and Faye Dunaway, who plays his girlfriend, were among the most glamorous movie stars of the 1970s. (Dunaway isn’t used for much beyond decoration, but she's such an elegant sight that it seems petty to complain.) Steve McQueen co-stars as the head firefighter, but his trademark cool is unfortunately indistinguishable from boredom. William Holden, who plays the building’s owner, probably gives the film’s best performance; he makes the viewer feel his desire to keep up appearances while wrestling with guilt over the unfolding tragedy. After Holden, the most accomplished work is from Fred Astaire, who delivers a graceful turn as an aging con man. But Robert Wagner, Richard Chamberlain, and Robert Vaughn make it quite clear why they were never able to make the jump from TV success to big-screen stardom. They’re bland, one-note performers: polished, but without much dynamism or wit. Jennifer Jones, O. J. Simpson, and others do little more than walk through. Stirling Silliphant is credited with the script, which is formulaic in the manner of ‘70s TV adventure shows. The dialogue is especially terrible. Irwin Allen directed the fairly impressive action scenes, and John Guillermin directed everything else. Guillermin’s work isn’t imaginative by any means, but he moves things along at a good clip. The film runs two hours and forty minutes, but the length never feels oppressive. And when things slow down too much, one can always have a chuckle over the characteristic awfulness of the ‘70s fashions: the picture is a treasure trove of dreadful clothes, ugly hairstyles, and eyesore interior decoration. The film is based on two novels: The Tower, by Richard Martin Stern, and The Glass Inferno, by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. Fred J. Koenekamp handled the cinematography for the scenes John Guillerman directed; Joseph F. Biroc shot those overseen by Irwin Allen.