HAROLD AND MAUDE (Hal Ashby, 1971)

by Paul Rowlands

Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack, Charles Tyner. 91 minutes.

Maude: 'Your hearse?'

Harold: 'Yearse.'

Maude: 'Try something new each day. After all, we're given life to find out. It doesn't last forever.'

Maude: 'Greet the dawn with a breath of fire.'

HAROLD AND MAUDE is one of the all-time great cult films, and one of cinema's most affecting, beautiful and unconventional love stories. It's one of the most unique, and one of the most entertaining pictures to have come out of the 1970's. A black comedy and unconventional romance, concerning a relationship between a 20-year old and a 79-year old, and with suicide, and the question of whether life is worth living as it's central themes, was able to get financed by a major studio in 1971. And that says a lot about how open to risk, and how brave even major studios were in the 1970's.

Bud Cort (BREWSTER McCLOUD, 1970) plays Harold, an eccentric (he drives a hearse), morbid (he attends funerals for fun) 20-year old rich kid, who is monumentally depressed and bored with his life. His mother doesn't understand or even listen to him, and doesn't see how deep-seated his depression is. She's only concerned with finding him a wife, and stopping his prank suicides, which he estimates at numbering around fifteen (similar to Christian Bale not being able to have his status as a serial killer believed in his societal circle in AMERICAN PSYCHO, 2000, Harold can never get his mother to take his 'cries for help' seriously). Harold keeps running into an elderly woman at funerals he attends. Her name is Maude, she's nearing her 80th birthday very soon, and she is even more eccentric than he is (she likes to steal cars and pose nude, and lives in an abandoned train carriage). The pair strike up a deep friendship that eventually turns to love. The path to true love never runs smooth, however, and Maude has her own plans for her 80th birthday.

HAROLD AND MAUDE has fully rounded, fascinating characters in Harold and Maude, and their relationship proceeds convincingly, touchingly and fascinatingly. (Colin Higgins based his brilliant screenplay on his Master's thesis at UCLA.) It's clear Harold is an old soul living in a young man's body, and Maude is a a young woman living in an old woman's body. They are a perfect match, even if society may abhor their union. In Maude, Harold finds a reason for living, being elevated by Maude's vivaciousness and wisdom (she basically becomes his and the audience's mentor; the mentor/ pupil relationship is present in many of Hal Ashby's movies). But in order for him to live, Maude must die in a narrative sense. For her, their relationship (and eventual marriage) is her last taste of autumn before she takes her own life on her 80th birthday (like filmmaker Donald Cammell, she believes that choosing the right moment to end your life is the way to go).

There are images in the film that get close to the bone (especially on a first viewing) - there are a series of hilarious praank suicides that include Harold hanging himself in the opening scene (it's later revealed to be a prank), pretending to cut his hand off to scare a potential suitor, fooling a date that he has burned himself alive and then walking in the room, committing a fake hara-kiri - but this isn't a deliberately shocking film. It's just a film that believes death shouldn't be taken too seriously, and the scenes are wonderful, darkly funny. highlights. There is one scene where Harold shoots himself in the head rather than listen to his mother prattling on, and we see the bullet wound. It's a fantastic scene because it indicates to the audience that 'this is just a movie, have fun with it'. (The comic tone seems to have inspired the even blacker FIGHT CLUB, 1999, and there are similarities between the films in 'Jack' and Tyler's mentor/ pupil close friendship, and also in the location where 'Jack' and Marla meet for the first time.)

Ruth Gordon lights up the film every time she appears (who else could have played the part?), and Cat Stevens's jaunty, peppy song score gives the film unexpected sparkle and a spring in it's step. (Stevens also contributed to the score for DEEP END, 1970.) Bud Cort is wonderful casting as Harold, so pale and deadpan, and the slightest expression in his face is wonderfully revealing. The pair's comic adventures - for example, liberating a tree from outside a building, and being chased by a motorcycle cop (Tom Skerritt from ALIEN, 1979, credited as M. Borman), whose vehicle they eventually steal - are great fun. The scenes where the pair hang out (eg. Maude teaching him to how to play the banjo) are touching and warm, and the scenes where they share their stories (especially when Harold reveals the source of his depression) are moving.

An amusing element of the film is it's satire of 'the generation gap'. Harold is so far removed from his mother's world and the world of people his age that he finds happiness with an old-age pensioner. Have things got that screwy? Is the generation gap that much of a far divide? But director Hal Ashby (one of the most important directors of the '70's with films like THE LAST DETAIL, 1973; SHAMPOO, 1975 and COMING HOME, 1978) and screenwriter Higgins (who never made anything as great again) have ensured that the film has a very real centre. The pain and joy in the characters' hearts is coming from a very real place. Maude has won her optimism through struggle (if you look closely at Maude's arm, you will see she has an Auschwitz ID number tattoo). Harold's outlook is merely nihilistic and not based on any life experiences, but simply boredom and disillusionment (the Vietnam War and drafting hang in the background, and his oppression by 'straight society' is very much in the foreground, represented by his mother and his General uncle who want to iron out his eccentricities. His mother wants him married off, or failing that, join the military!). If Maude can survive, and face her mortality with a smile, then Harold can certainly learn to embrace life. Maude had to endure Auschwitz to find her strength and joy of life, but her gift to Harold is to find his through her. The film compares the often idealistic, intellectual and emotional nature of the youth movement, with the hard-won wisdom of people like Maude.

The film's very broad piss-taking of the military in the form of Harold's uncle General (Charles Tyner) brings a counterculture vibe to the film. Hal Ashby was very much at one with the counterculture and was an actual hippie, with long hair and a long beard. His participation in the film and his slightly advanced age (he was 42 when he made the film) meant he brought experience and wisdom from both the current and previous generations. He was able to see what both mindsets had to offer, apt for a film with two leads from two very different generations. Ashby brings a lot of energy to the film, but his direction is very restrained, and there is no camera or editing trickery. He thankfully doesn't signify the mood to the audience or tell us when to laugh, he 'lets it be'. The people who 'get' the movie appreciate his 'hands off' approach. He allows the film to be what it is, and part of the fun of the movie is just going along for the very unique ride. He's also an excellent director of actors, as his filmography shows. COMING HOME won Oscars for both Jon Voight and Jane Fonda, and is a film that clearly shows his feelings towards the Vietnam War. Something in HAROLD AND MAUDE must have appealed to the youth of the day because it quickly became a cult film amongst college students and actually played at the Westgate Theater in Minneapolis for three years straight! The film was even re-released in 1978. In it's odd tone, deadpan humour, eccentric male lead and upbeat, song-centric soundtrack, Wes Anderson's superb RUSHMORE (1998) has something to owe to Ashby's film.

HAROLD AND MAUDE is now considered a classic film, and one of the great romantic comedies, winning modern AFI awards and being selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. But it flopped on it's original release, and garnered some quite hostile reviews (Art Murphy in 'Variety' described it as having 'all the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage'). It is still very much an under-seen picture and a cult film, despite being a Broadway stage play, and being adapted for French TV. Even now, it seems that the premise and theme of the film turn certain people off. But if you're open-minded and you love great films, HAROLD AND MAUDE is essential viewing. It's for anyone who has enjoyed a mentor/ pupil friendship or has experienced an odd but important friendship sometime in their lives. And it's also for anyone with a slightly twisted sense of humour, like myself.

NB. Colin Higgins wanted to direct the film and did a test, but the studio went with Ashby. Ashby briefly appears (uncredited) in a shot between the leads at an amusement park, watching a model train. Cat Stevens' 'Tea for the Tillerman' was also the theme song to the TV comedy series 'Extras' (2005-07).

DELETED SCENES/ SHOTS: Shots of Harold and Maude kissing and canoodling were cut out by Paramount who thought audiences wouldn't accept them. A lovemaking scene wasn't even filmed. One deleted scene involved Harold and his mother: 'it opened up with a shot of a large, silver-plated serving dish. A hand comes in and removes the cover and there, on a little bed of parsely, is Harold's head. Two hands come into the frame and pick up the head, and we move back and there's Harold holding his head and looking at it. He sort of peels off the latex blood and walks over to his bedroom chair where a headless dummy sits. He puts the head on the dummy, but the head really isn't sitting right, and he goes into the closet to find something. Swing around to the door and his mother enters in an evening gown. She says, 'Now listen up Harold. Your computer date will be arriving and it would be nice if . . .' and so forth. Cut to the closet and Harold is just sitting there listening to her talk to this dummy in the chair. And then she says, 'Well, I've got to go to this ballet with the Fergusons . . .' and she turns a little. 'You're looking a little pale, Harold. You try to get a good night's rest . . .' and she leaves.' (Colin Higgins, interviewed by Michael Shedlin for Film Quarterly, Fall 1972.)

AVAILABILITY:

The film is available on DVD on bare-bones editions. A limited edition R2 has a free fold-out poster (from the 1978 re-release). Criterion will release the film in March 2012 on Blu-ray and DVD.

SOURCES:

'Cult Movies' by Danny Peary, Delta Books, 1981.

'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls' by Peter Biskind, Simon and Schuster, 1998.

'Harold and Maude': Wikipedia entry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_and_Maude

'The Harold and Maude Home Page': A very useful site for reviews and interviews. http://haroldandmaudehomepage.com/harold.htm

Paul Rowlands is a Japan-based writer. After completing a BA Humanities course (majoring in English and Science) at the University of Chester, he moved to Japan in 1999. Paul writes for the James Bond magazine, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and has had an almost lifelong obsession with cinema, something the advent of DVD only increased. An aspiring novelist, short story writer and screenwriter, he has until now mainly wrote about film for his own pleasure, various blogs and for so far unpublished projects. Paul is also preparing his own short film, and has at least three writing projects in various states of completion.

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (Brian De Palma, 1974)

by Paul Rowlands

William Finley, Paul Williams, Jessica Harper, George Memmoli, Gerrit Graham, Rod Serling (introductory voice-over). 92 minutes.

Some cult films improve their reputation and gain so many more fans over time that they effectively lose their cult status and become regarded as bona fide classics. Brian De Palma's SCARFACE (1983) is such an example. Unfortunately, De Palma's PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE is not such an example. It opened to poor box-office everywhere except three locations: Los Angeles, France and Winnipeg, Canada, where the film played for eighteen consecutive weeks! It's highly likely that those who have enjoyed De Palma's more high-profile releases like CARRIE (1976), THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987) and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1994) don't even know this film exists.

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE was the penultimate film De Palma made before the great success of CARRIE (1976) took him into the mainstream. (The original title was PHANTOM, but King Features Syndicate, owners of the copyright to the comic book character of the same name, objected. De Palma capitulated because he didn't want a court case, even though he believed he would have won.) It's a musical (also written by De Palma) that cleverly, imaginatively and humorously incorporates elements from the movies THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (specifically the 1943 remake), and the silent classic THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920), and also literary sources such as 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (1890), 'Frankenstein' (1818) and the legend of 'Faust' (first printed appearance: 1587).

De Palma cleverly uses these elements and references to create an attack on the modern music business, and by extension, the modern entertainment business. It's not hard to see a parallel between the full-blooded bitterness De Palma exhibits towards the Swan character (Paul Williams), modelled on Phil Spector (previous names for the character included Spectre and Dorian), and his own problems in Hollywood making the comedy GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT (1972): 'Tom Smothers became very difficult to direct and was ultimately instrumental in creating a totally unworkable situation. I said to the studio; 'Either you do it my way or no way'. I was taken off the picture.' To add to his problems, the movie was shelved for two years by Warner Brothers, who didn't know how to market it.

The (actually quite convoluted) story involves music impresario Swan, who is planning to open a new concert hall he will call 'The Paradise'. Desperate for a perfect opening song, he is moved by a piece he hears writer/ singer Winslow Leach (William Finley) playing, and proceeds to steal it from him. When Leach confronts him at his mansion, he is beaten up and framed for heroin possession. Sentenced to prison, he is forced to enter a 'voluntary' experimental dental program where all his teeth are pulled, and replaced with metal ones. Leach manages to escape the prison, but suffers a terrible accident attempting to destroy a press at Swan's record factory: his sleeve gets caught in the press, and he crushes and burns his face, also managing to destroy his vocal cords. Believed to have drowned in the East River, Leach decides to become 'The Phantom of The Paradise'. Clad in a long, black cape and a black leather costume, with a silver, owl-looking mask, he starts to terrorise Swan and his musicians (scenes with The Phantom skulking around rooftops are echoed in Tim Burton's opening scenes in BATMAN, 1989), but is quickly caught and confronted by Swan. Swan proposes a deal to allow him to make the music the way he wants, persuading Winslow to sign a confusing contract that is literally a Faustian deal. Swan then proceeds to have him write a musical, and then be locked up forever in his mansion. Winslow escapes, and wants revenge, but his mission is complicated by the pact he has made with Swan, the fact that the girl he loves, singer Phoenix (SUSPIRIA's Jessica Harper) has also made a Faustian pact with Swan, and Swan's mysterious past.

Danny Peary, in his book 'Guide for the Film Fanatic', believes that the film is 'a devastating attack on the mean-spirited glitter-rock scene of the '70's, where young lynch-mob audiences demanded increasingly vulgar and cruel entertainment'. De Palma doesn't only focus his scorn on the machinations of the music business, but also on the audiences. Any entertainment business is a business. And audiences vote with their feet. Swan certainly does turn Winslow's beautiful music into commercial crap that is the antithesis of it's author's intentions, but the audience laps it up. Swan knows for certain that assassinating Phoenix on their wedding day will be good for business because he is able to read his audience: they have a love for grand gestures and a lust for death and violence. Swan is morally questionable for how he manipulates his audience, but it doesn't say very much about the general public that they can be so easily manipulated and buy into his crappy music and violent stage shows. De Palma is also unimpressed by how easily women allow themselves to be consciously exploited in order for a shot of fame. It's interesting that with this film, De Palma was laying himself down as a personal, individualistic filmmaker, who like Winslow, refuses to sell out and is highly reluctant to compromise: CARRIE was only two years away, and he was on the cusp of actually becoming a director-for-hire who would use success to finance more personal projects.

PHANTOM was not a big-budget picture, costing around $1m -$1.5m (by comparison, the year's top grosser, THE TOWERING INFERNO, cost $14m) but De Palma and his creative team make the money go a long way. The sets (designed by Jack Fisk, who also did BADLANDS, 1973), make-up (John Chambers) and costumes (Rosanna Norton) are beautiful and imaginative, owing as much to glam-rock as to the aforementioned literary and cinematic influences. De Palma's energetic style makes us forget that most of the action takes place in a mansion (particularly memorable is the chase scene where Winslow whizzes past camera and De Palma pans left, then pans right to catch him run into the room again - echoed in a similar scene in Martin Scorsese's THE KING OF COMEDY, 1982, which is an attack on celebrity culture - and the scary shots of of Winslow running through corridors that Ridley Scott might have remembered for similar shots in ALIEN, 1979. And of course, De Palma uses the split-screen process wonderfully.). Paul Williams's song score is vibrant, catchy and funny, and like the whole film itself, never succumbs to camp. The film never loses it's hard edge - De Palma never pans away from burned faces, blood or knife wounds, the attack on the music business is obviously coming from a real place (it ain't satire) and the characterisation of Swan - a music producer who uses the casting couch to get his way with women, gets his female singers hooked on drugs to toe the line, signs Faustian contracts with his employees and basically lies through his teeth to everyone he meets - feels uncomfortably real. It's the melding of fantasy, humour and reality that makes the film so interesting and not throwaway and conversely, it's probably what kept people from enjoying it in huge numbers at the time. The irony is that the audience De Palma was aiming for (or at least the studio) were the very audience who preferred glam-rock, and they of course rejected the movie.

A year later (and about the time PHANTOM was wowing audiences in Winnipeg) THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) would have a very similar reception to the film. It opened well in L.A. (like PHANTOM) but did poorly elsewhere, until it began showing at midnight screenings seven months later in 1976 at the Waverly Theatre in New York. Currently it has grossed nearly $140m since it's release, and is one of the all-time cult movies. ROCKY HORROR indicates that there WAS a big audience for a musical that was outrageous and had classic SF and horror influences, but that the presentation was the key factor. PHANTOM has a very real centre, whereas ROCKY HORROR is a very entertaining slice of outrageous, camp fun that invites audience participation. It IS throwaway, but no worse for being so. Gerrit Graham is hilarious and the best thing in PHANTOM as the effeminate, whiney, foolish glam rocker 'Beef', whose stage character owes a lot to Frankenstein. But compare him to Tim Curry's equally hilarious turn in ROCKY HORROR. PHANTOM makes fun of glam-rock (or if you believe Peary, attacks it), whereas ROCKY HORROR is a full-blown celebration of it's excesses, invention and gender-bending. That said, the films have enough similarities that they have been paired together on double-bill screenings over the years.

If anything would have made the picture even more memorable, it would have been better performances. Jessica Harper is charming, especially in the audition that is watched by Swan and Winslow/ The Phantom, where she obviously gets the delicate balance of the film (she's very good at kooky comedy and humorous facial expressions). But she's not allowed to build a character like she was in Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA (1977) or in Woody Allen's STARDUST MEMORIES (1980). (She actually played Susan Sarandon's role in the ROCKY HORROR sequel, SHOCK TREATMENT, 1981.) Harper beat Linda Ronstadt in getting the part. William Finley, a regular from De Palma's early work, does well in the parts of Winslow (the character's surname of Leach is a nod to Wilford Leach, De Palma's drama teacher at Sarah Lawrence College, a big influence upon De Palma) and The Phantom, being perfectly in tune with the film's slightly crazed energy, but he was right in believing himself not to be menacing enough in the latter role. (Paul Williams and Jon Voight were apparently considered at different points, but De Palma wrote the part for Finley.) Paul Williams is odd casting as Swan, and again isn't menacing enough. Not enough is made in the film of the disparity between his height (5' 2'') and Finley's height (6' 4''), and the fact a small man is manipulating a tall man. He manages to create an interesting character, but it's not entirely convincing, nor is his put on accent. De Palma should take the bulk of the blame for their performances since he was very insistent on them playing the particular parts. George Memmoli (so memorable in MEAN STREETS, 1973 as the 'mook') is very good as Swan's sleazy right-hand man. They all contribute to a light surface that mask the real contempt for entertainment business practices that made De Palma write the film (and Finchley accept his part). You might not fully catch the dark centre of the film on your first viewing.

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE deserves to be more widely seen, and to be placed in De Palma's ouevre as one of his very best. It's certainly the most charming and funny film he has ever produced, and shows what great creativity he can conjure up under low-budget conditions. It is also remarkable in the way it achieves a delicate balance between attacking the very real world of the entertainment world and business, and for being a successful musical with influences that could have been incongruous: glam-rock, and classic horror literature and cinema.

NB. Sissy Spacek is credited as 'set dresser'. She assisted her boyfriend (and future husband) Jack Fisk, the film's production designer. The couple met whilst making BADLANDS (1973), which Fisk designed and Spacek acted in. Spacek later played CARRIE (1976) for De Palma. Swan's record label in the movie had to be changed from Swan Song to Death Records because Led Zeppelin's label had the same name. The original logo can be seen in certain scenes set in the Paradise, and the Death Records logo is superimposed over the Swan Song logo in the press conference introducing Beef. De Palma was inspired by an idea by his two friends (Mark Stone and John Weiser) about a 'Phantom of the Fillmore'. (There was a very similar photoplay to PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE included as a photoplay in National Lampoon's Magazine, November 1971 entitled 'Phantom of the Rock Opera'. De Palma insists he never read the story.) The location got changed to the fictional The Paradise after manager Bill Graham wouldn't cough up the rights.

AVAILABILITY: The film is only available on bare-bones releases, except in France where a 2 disc Ultimate Edition is available on DVD and Blu-ray.

SOURCES:

'Brian De Palma Interviews', edited by Laurence F.Knapp, University Press of Mississippi, 2003.

'Guide for the Film Fanatic' by Danny Peary, Simon and Schuster, 1987.

'Phantom of the Paradise': Wikipedia entry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_the_Paradise

'The Swan Archives'. An excellent website devoted to the film. http://www.swanarchives.org/

Paul Rowlands is a Japan-based writer. After completing a BA Humanities course (majoring in English and Science) at the University of Chester, he moved to Japan in 1999. Paul writes for the James Bond magazine, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and has had an almost lifelong obsession with cinema, something the advent of DVD only increased.

THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT (Michael Cimino, 1974)

Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, Geoffrey Lewis, Gary Busey, Bill McKinney. 115 minutes.

THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT is one of the most interesting films Clint Eastwood made in the 1970's, during a period when he was at the peak of his stardom (he was the decade's top box-office draw). It wasn't one of his biggest hits, and although it is in many ways a typical Clint vehicle, in other ways it really broke new ground for him and anticipated the critical respect his career has enjoyed since his Oscar-winning UNFORGIVEN (1992).

The film is a 'buddy' picture, a road movie and a heist thriller, a welding of three genres particularly popular during that era. Eastwood stars as 'The Thunderbolt', a bankrobber whose specialty is blowing open safes with a 20mm cannon. When we first meet him, it's clear that this picture is going to at least be a little different: Clint is wearing the dogcollar of a clergyman and addressing his clergy! The first shots of the movie, the beautiful scenery of Montana, inform us that this isn't going to be an urban thriller like COOGAN'S BLUFF (1968) or DIRTY HARRY (1971). When two thugs suddenly burst into the church, shooting up the place in an attempt to kill Clint, it's clear within five minutes that THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT is going to be an Eastwood action thriller like we are accustomed to, but also a little more offbeat, humorous and panoramic.

THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT is the directorial debut of Michael Cimino, who went on to win an Oscar for directing the controversial THE DEER HUNTER (1978). He would later be blamed for bankrupting United Artists with the flop HEAVEN'S GATE (1980).

The original idea for the picture came from Cimino's agent Stan Kamen at the William Morris Agency. Kamen suggested he write a script on spec with Eastwood in mind. Upon reading the script, Eastwood was sufficiently impressed to consider directing it himself, having been happy with Cimino's work on MAGNUM FORCE (1973) and very interested in making a road movie (EASY RIDER had been a huge success in 1969). Eventually, Eastwood decided to give Cimino the director's chair. it's clear Eastwood believed in Cimino's talent, but it's also highly probable that one factor was that he would be able to control him. Cimino later became famous for the number of takes he filmed, but according to Jeff Bridges, Cimino had to ask Eastwood for permission if he went over a few takes (but would alllow it if Bridges wanted to try something different), and according to first assistant director Charles Okun, Eastwood would refuse to go over four takes and wouldn't stand for long set-up times. (The year before, Ted Post and Eastwood had clashed over Eastwood calling the shots too much.) Warner Brothers considered the film too offbeat for Eastwood, and declined to finance the film. Eastwood (whose Malpaso Company would produce the film) took the film to United Artists instead.

In the film, Eastwood flees his pursuers by accepting a lift from a happy go lucky, con-man drifter named Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges). The story now becomes a 'buddy' movie, in which the pair strike up an unlikely friendship. 'Thunderbolt' is an ex-Korean War veteran, about ten years older (in actuality nearly twenty!), a professional and a loner. Lightfoot is charmingly cocky, carefree and energetic. 'Thunderbolt' is touched and amused by his insistence on them becoming friends, and eventually brings him along on his next caper, alongside two ex-colleagues (an angry George Kennedy and an hilarious Geoffrey Lewis) who mistakenly believe Eastwood betrayed him on a previous 'job' and stole the loot. Meanwhile, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot secretly plan to locate and grab the missing loot for themselves.

THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT is an interesting film because it delivers the entertainment we expect from an Eastwood vehicle, but there's something off-kilter going on both in and under the text. In his first film, Cimino exhibits mastery of tone. The picture's humour alternates between light and breezy (particularly hilarious are Kennedy and Lewis's adventures in suburbia as they get 'real jobs') and oddball. The scene involving the leads getting a lift from a deranged hillbilly (Bill McKinney in his first of seven Eastwood appearances - he's the guy who raped Ned Beatty in 1972's DELIVERANCE) comes out of nowhere and is both hilarious and a little disturbing. The hillbilly has an impressive car that attracts the hitch-hiking leads, but it becomes quickly clear that all is not right with their driver: he keeps a caged raccoon on the passenger seat and is going mad from the leaking carbon monoxide fumes coming off the broken exhaust pipe (which he has broken on purpose). Eastwood and Bridges are trapped in the back seat. Once they manage to get out of the car, the guy opens his trunk to reveal numerous white rabbits. As they proceed to escape, he starts shooting at them, before being overpowered by the mighty fists of Eastwood. The scene is an important scene in the film not only because it's an entertaining highlight, but also because it's a brilliant example of how the film works on two levels. It works as a funny detour that could simply exhibit Cimino's odd sense of humour, but it also works subtextually. It's ambiguous enough to have many possible readings (certainly the dangers of 'the road' or America itself that lurk below the surface is a persuasive one), but it arguably is meant to foreshadow, and subliminally prepare us for, the devastating ending where Jeff Bridges is kicked to death by George Kennedy and has a slow death that Eastwood fails to notice until he slumps on the car seat.

THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT is predominantly a 'male' film. Women don't get too much of a look in the film, and the characters don't seem too interested in the personalities of the women they meet, only their bodies (note the woman who flashes her naked body to Bridges from the living room window). This may just be a convention of the 'buddy' movie, which some commentators have decided is an anti-feminist genre anyway, but Cimino uses the genre to go a little deeper. Eastwood's sex scene in the film has him appear disinterested and embarassed. Peter Biskind (the author of 'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls', 1998) wrote a very interesting review upon the film's release, believing the film to have 'frank and undisguised contempt for heterosexuality' and 'occupy(ing) and exploit(ing) an area where homosexual and working class attitudes towards women overlap'. He goes on to say that 'the action becomes a thinly disguised metaphor for the sexual tensions between the two principle characters.' (Certainly there are not many things more phallic than a 20mm cannon or a cigar, objects prominent on the many different posters used to promote the film worldwide.)

One reading of the film is that Bridges' character is the catalyst for change in the film. His relationships with Eastwood and George Kennedy are very different but they share one quality: they are both attracted to him. Eastwood and Kennedy's characters are both war veterans who have been damaged or disillusioned by their experiences. In one shot we see that Eastwood has been physically damaged by war: he is wearing a leg brace. In another scene Eastwood pops his shoulder out, making the film one of the first examples where he is allowed to appear vulnerable. (Interestingly, Eastwood also had a damaged leg in THE BEGUILED, 1971). By the end of the film, Eastwood's notions of the limits of male friendship have been proved wrong. He has achieved a close relationship with Bridges. Kennedy is a repressed man who cannot abide his sexual attraction to Bridges, and when Bridges jokingly kisses him on the mouth (literally giving him what he wants), Bridges fate is sealed. He will die for bringing out into the open what Kennedy (and society?) wants to be sealed forever. One could also see Bridges' death as representing the death of '60's idealism. The energy and positivity of Bridges has real worth, but at the end of the day, 'traditional' and 'straight' values will always prevail. Eastwood returns to the familiar world he lives in at the end of the film, but he has been forever been changed and his victory (reclaiming the loot he had stashed away from a previous robbery) now seems hollow. America was changed forever by the idealism of the '60's, but it couldn't and wouldn't be allowed to exist forever.

Up until the aftermath of the heist (in which Bridges is required to dress in drag), the film has maintained a balance of humour and action, crossed with 'buddy' movie elements and the mountainous landscape of Montana being almost a character in the film, courtesy of Frank Stanley's fine widescreen camerawork. With the 'aftermath', the film unexpectedly (although we have had the subliminal foreshadowing) shifts gears to become a tragedy. George Kennedy kicks Bridges to death, and as the pair approach their victory and find the stashed loot in a one-room schoolhouse, we the audience (and not Eastwood) see that something is very wrong with Bridges' condition. It's unexpectedly heartbreaking, being twinned with the moment of victory. Bridges' performance here is almost certainly what won him the Best Supporting Actor nomination (the second of six nominations). It's brilliant. First you see him get bothered, next worried, then unnerved, and finally overcome by the paralysis creeping through his face and body. It's one of the most memorable and moving bits of acting in cinema. The scene also marks Cimino as a major director. We now realise that he has subverted our expectations of what an Eastwood pic, a buddy movie or a heist thriller should be. It doesn't feel like a trick or a betrayal because subliminally we have been prepared, and we now realise that Cimino was playing for keeps all along. The ending doesn't make us feel angry because it feels right: life is light and breezy, sometimes oddball, sometimes exciting, is defined by how close we get to people...but the spectre of death, of a reversal of fortune, of fate, of the consequences of our actions, of being 'free' in a 'straight' society is always present even if we are too preoccupied to pay notice to it.

Eastwood was unhappy with the $9m domestic gross of the film (although it eventually recouped it's $4m budget over six times in the US alone) and blamed UA for weak promotion. He vowed he would 'never work for UA' again, and cancelled a two-film deal he had signed with the studio. Some have proffered that his anger was really due to the fact that he felt upstaged by Bridges and/ or he felt he should have been pushed for an Oscar nomination as well. Regardless of whether or not he should have been nominated (he should have been), his performance is both subtle (one can see a flicker of sorrow on his face when he drives off at the end with a dead Bridges beside him) and generous one (he allows Bridges to shine and never tries to upstage him, and with Kennedy and Lewis allowed their own space in the film, it's almost an ensemble piece anyway). He and Bridges have good chemistry), which makes the film work. They're a great match, the still, taciturn Eastwood and the ball of energy Bridges. One is really convinced that the actors really liked each other (which reading between the lines in interviews they almost certainly did). In fact, Eastwood has rarely been as relaxed, as self-deprecating and as human as in his scenes opposite Bridges. It's a shame they never collaborated again, and a double shame because the great majority of Eastwood's future co-stars never rose up to the challenge or had the chops to share the screen with him.

Bridges is simply a great actor who until recently was The Most Under-Rated Actor Alive. He's one of the most likeable actors ever too, and despite having the showier role, he is quite a subtle actor himself. Lightfoot is a character who could easily become tiresome (he's always 'on'), but he makes the character so 'alive' and in tune with himself that he becomes the pulse and heart of the picture, making his death all the more powerful. For once, we actually wonder whether Eastwood will be able to cope with the loss of a loved one and maintain his loner mindset.

THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT, despite it's cult status, deserves even more recognition. It's deceptively light and breezy tone and status as an Eastwood vehicle disguise the fact that there are more interesting things going on underneath if you're willing to look. It's also the most consistent, balanced and well paced film Cimino has ever directed, and deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as THE DEER HUNTER and HEAVEN'S GATE. It's so much more than just a minor work from a director who went on to bigger and better things.

NB. It's interesting that Cimino was the only director given a break by Eastwood who ever had a successful film afterwards. Even Cimino's success is limited to THE DEER HUNTER. That said, HEAVEN'S GATE and YEAR OF THE DRAGON (1985) now have their admirers (including me). James Fargo, Buddy Van Horn and Richard Tuggle have all failed to capitalise on their time with Eastwood.

AVAILABILITY: The film is available in the US on a limited edition Blu-ray from Twilight Time. It is also available on a barebones DVD, non-anamorphically enhanced. 

SOURCES:

'Clint: The Life and Legend' by Patrick McGilligan (Harper Collins, 1999.) A fascinating, revealing and depressing look at the dark side of Eastwood's life.

'Clint Eastwood in the 1970s': Wikipedia (entry for 'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot').

'Sexual Politics in 'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot' by Peter Biskind, 'Jump Up no.4, 1974.

'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot' : Wikipedia entry (particularly useful).

CANDY (Christian Marquand, 1968)

Ewa Aulin, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Ringo Starr, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, Charles Aznavour, John Astin, John Huston, Anita Pallenberg, Enrico Maria Salerno. 124 minutes.

'CANDY'...is faithful in dreary spirit to the best-selling novel...and also to the larger, more seriously received schools of writing and cinema, which keep prolonging little trite, messy spasms of mediocrity and mistaking them for the courage to go too far. In two hours of the picaresque story of Candy, an innocent highschool girl who keeps being had in trucks, planes, hospitals and men's rooms and on billiard tables (a kind of reversal of the old Doris Day seduction comedies at exactly the same comic level), there is not enough material for a two-minute bawdy skit.' Renata Adler, New York Times, 18 December 1968.

'It's quite a turnout for your old man. A lot of New York's wealthiest, most respected and fairly depraved citizens are here tonight.'

John Astin, CANDY. (Astin, aka Gomez Addams, plays both Candy's 'father' and swinger uncle.)

(Please note that throughout this review I refer to Terry Southern as the 'author' of the film. This is mainly for shorthand, but also because he was the co-author of the book, he was involved in early work on the film and because it very much expresses his worldview.)

The novel 'Candy' was written by Terry Southern (DR. STRANGELOVE, 1964) and Mason Hoffenberg, and published in 1958. It's a loose, modern updating of Voltaire's 1759 satire 'Candide', and concerns Candy, a beautiful, naive and kind high school girl, whose efforts to help people and find the meaning of life find her sexually pursued by a variety of oddball characters across the US. Maybe I should add that she has arrived on Earth from outer space. The surreal, psychedelic, sex-obsessed late '60's was the perfect time to make a film version, but the first attempt failed. Southern's friend Frank Perry (the Oscar-nominated director of DAVID AND LISA, 1962) was set to direct and United Artists to finance, but after UA head David Picker lost his seat, things went kaput. French actor Christian Marquand (AND GOD CREATED WOMAN, 1956) then begged Southern to give him a two week option for free. Marquand managed to get his best and lifelong friend Marlon Brando to sign up for a role, and this not only enabled the film to get financed (in a deal between Italian, French and American companies), but also attracted many prominent actors and celebrities to the cast.

The biggest challenge was casting the role of Candy. Improbably, when UA and Frank Perry were involved, they desperately and unsuccessfully tried to convince John Mills to allow his daughter Hayley to play Candy. A rash of starlets and models were considered (including Twiggy) until everyone settled on 17 year old Ewa Aulin, former Miss Teen Sweden and Miss Teen International. Terry Southern had
been working on the film project up until her casting. After a non-American and Midwestern was cast, he left the project. Buck Henry, 'Get Smart' co-creator and THE GRADUATE (1967) screenwriter, took over scripting duties. (It's interesting to note that Henry was cast in 1976's THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, which of course also features an alien coming to Earth and being exploited by the humans he comes across.)

CANDY is just one of a series of overblown, farcical, big-budget, all-star extravaganzas that appeared from the mid '60's to the first few years of the next decade. They were more often than not surreal, psychedelic and episodic. Examples included WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT? (1965), CASINO ROYALE (1967), HEAD (1968) and the bizarre MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (1970). CANDY has the edge on all of those in that it does have a (loose) thread and themes that run throughout, and is actually funny, with spot-on observations about '60's America (some of which turned out to be prescient, especially the country's obsession with celebrity at all costs).

CANDY quickly became a cult film, is now quite a sought after DVD (the R1 is now out of print) and currently has a 80% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website, but it also has a reputation (as Cinema Retro magazine recently opined) as 'one of the worst movies ever made'. It wasn't successful in the US and was nine minutes shorter, but was popular throughout Europe. Reviews at the time were pretty savage, most criticising the film for a lack of morality and lack of laughs. Terry Southern was certainly disaapointed in the final film: 'The film version of CANDY is proof positive of everything rotten you ever heard about major studio production. They are absolutely compelled to botch everything original to the extent that it is no longer even vaguely recognisable.' Which, all things considered, means you are either going to 'get' the movie or you aren't.

      

CANDY is never boring. It's an unpredictable, episodic, fast-paced road movie. A good-humoured, vibrant piece of fun. A surreal, psychedelic, pop-art comic book come to vivid life. It makes a fun companion piece to the less artistically successful BARBARELLA, released the same year and co-written by Southern. The photography (Fellini's DP Giuseppe Rotunno), costumes (Mia Fonssagrives, Enrico Sabbatini, Vicki Tiel), set design (Dean Tavoularis) and music (Dave Grusin, The Byrds, Steppenwolf - the later two bands would also prominently feature on the EASY RIDER soundtrack a year later, a film co-written by Terry Southern) are all superb. Douglas Trumbull (in the same year as his groundbreaking and Oscar-winning work on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY) did the special effects for Candy's journey to Earth. But definitely the most entertaining aspect of the movie is the 
array of performances by major actors and celebrities, all willing to spoof themselves whilst also satirising a certian section of American life that Southern thinks needs to have it's balloon pricked. If you watch CANDY for only one reason, seeing a major actor or celebrity risk his reputation by coming across as foolish or reprehensible is one damn good reason. Here are some selected highlights:

Richard Burton as a celebrated, alcoholic, intellectual author (complete with wind running through his hair wherever he goes) who uses his fame to seduce high school girls. Most memorable scenes: on his hands and knees licking spilled whisky off the floor of a glass bottomed limo, and having sex with a mannequin. (The character's name is MacPhisto, which was also the name of a similar character Bono created for U2's Zooropa tour of 1993. )

Ringo Starr as a dumb, virginal Mexican gardener complete with an accent equal part bad Mexican and full-strength Liverpudlian. Most memorable scene: raping Candy on a pool table (while at the same time Burton does his thing with the mannequin).

James Coburn as an insane, famous brain surgeon who performs public operations. He also brands all his women assistants with a tattoo. Coburn models a new look, dark haired and bearded, but hilariously plays the character like Derek Flint. Most memorable scene: either putting a two pin socket in the back of John Astin's head (this was pre-MATRIX!), or trading insults with hospital administrator John Huston (who knew a thing or two about overblown movies!).

Charles Aznavour as a hunchbacked thief. Most memorable scene: having sex with Candy in a grand piano while feathers fly through the air.

Walter Matthau as a Brigadier General who tries to rape Candy as his reward for giving her dying father a blood transfusion.

There are other hilarious cameos, but the performance that sends CANDY into the must-see category is courtesy of Marlon Brando. He is absolutely hilarious and brilliant. Brando in Indian make-up, long black hair and robes, plays a randy, fake guru who has created his own little world in the back of a trailer that he travels about the country in. I kid you not, it is one of his best performances. He's obviously having tons of fun, and his comic timing is superlative. Brando injects traces of Indian, Scottish and New Yorker accents in his voice to emphasise his fakery to the audience. His acting peeled my eyes back. I never realised he was such a gifted comedian. (Another thing to keep you rewatching his segment is to count him looking off-camera for his cue cards!)

The film ain't perfect. As with all 'scattershot' comedies, not everything works. But like a Godard film (who gets his own ribbing in the film), it isn't long before something great happens. It's a 'trip' you are either willing to take, or not. It's a one of a kind movie. It's scattershot and episodic in it's structure but it belies the very real targets Southern is aiming his arrows at. Like his work on DR. STRANGELOVE (1964), this is a comedy that could have easily been a deadly serious movie about the 'state of the nation' / world. Marquand has a good eye for bizarre and funny images, but his composition and framing is merely adequate. CANDY was Marquand's second and final film as director, his debut being the French romantic drama OF FLESH AND BLOOD (1964). He continued to work as an actor, and appeared in APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) but his scenes were deleted. They were reinstated for the 2001REDUX version. He plays the head of the group of people living on the French plantation.

The movie has much artistic worth. It's a time capsule of the dying embers of The Summer of Love. Every character is out for themselves. Nobody believes in anything, especially in the words that come out of their own mouths. Southern sees America as a sexually repressed land, where people make war, create religion, write books and perform surgeries in order to achieve the sexual satisfaction missing in their private lives. America isn't the 'land of the free' but the 'land of the repressed'. It's people are so repressed that they have become obsessed. Their masks are slipping because sex is a driving force in our lives and comes to the surface no matter what and in no matter what guise. A pure-hearted, generous beauty like Candy just sends such people over the edge. (The character who is at most ease with himself and the world is Candy's swinger uncle!) CANDY could be a satirical remake of SUPERGIRL (1984 - it has a similar credit sequence!), where she comes down to Earth to help humanity and spends the entire film being chased by lecherous, crazed men! CANDY also of course works as a satirical allegory on the return of Christ. If Christ had returned to the world created by Southern et al, he wouldn't be acknowledged and he would be 
exploited.

CANDY also articulates what it must be like to be a beautiful woman, to spend a life being gazed at. Candy's beauty is simply her shell, and combined with her purity, kindness and naivety, it makes her very appealing. Being an alien, she doesn't have the hang-ups about sex we humans have. Ewa Aulin has been criticised for her acting ability but she's perfect casting, and comes across as the sweet centre of a movie that threatens to implode with it's ambition, excess and energy at any point. It's basically a role that demands her to look nonplussed throughout the entire running time. That she isn't completely blown off the screen by the high-profile actors is a testament to at least how much she 
understood the role. Unfortunately her career never took off after the film. She only appeared in one more American film - the historical comedy START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME (1970) opposite Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland. She abandoned her acting career in the mid-'70's to become a teacher, after appearing in a few Italian giallos and sex comedies.

This is a film that demands to be seen and there is more creativity, humour, energy and talent in this film than the average Hollywood blockbuster. The dark humour (especially the public brain surgery operation) and sexual humour (especially the incest jokes) won't be for everyone. It deserves to be reassessed, and is actually quite a relevant film for our times, when one considers that you could find equivalents for many of the characters in modern society. And...it's damn funny that Southern was so right about the nature of his audience (ie. all of us). With the sex element of his book/ film, he knew he would attract the very people he was satirising in the story. I also love the optimism of his message: he's effectively laughing at the crazy and dangerous behaviour that arises out of us repressing our need for sex. 'All you need is love'.

NOTES: Brando actually named his son Christian after Christian Marquand. He was born in 1958 and unfortunately had a troubled life. He was convicted of the manslaughter of his half-sister's boyfriend and died of pneumonia in 2008. According to Empire magazine (February 2011), Ewa Aulin spent two weeks in therapy and production was halted after she endured mind games with Brando whilst filming their scenes!

AVAILABILITY: The film is available on Bluray from Kino Lorber. Extras include interviews with Buck Henry and film critic Kim Morgan.

SOURCES:

'Candy' review by Renata Adler, New York Times, 18 December 1968.

'Candy' review by Roger Ebert, 26 December 1968.

'Candy' review by Steven Puchalski, Shock Cinema website, 1991.

'The Movie That Killed the '60's' (article on 'Myra Breckinridge') by Dorian Lynskey, Empire magazine, February 2011 issue.

'Stories from Terry Southern, Part 3 ('Candy'). Terry Southern interview, 7th April 2010, Go Into the Story website.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING: Roman Coppola's CQ (2001) is a homage to similar films of the period like BARBARELLA and DANGER: DIABOLIK, which were both released in 1968, like CANDY.