ONCE A THIEF

Alain Delon

ONCE A THIEF (1965). Director: Ralph Nelson. Colorized.  

Born in Trieste, Eddie Pedak (Alain Delon), lives with his wife, Kristine (Ann-Margret), and little girl in San Francisco. An ex-con who may have shot a detective, Inspector Vido (Van Helfin), during a robbery -- Pedak was acquitted, however -- he comes under suspicion of a new robbery and murder in Chinatown and now Vido is on the case. Meanwhile Eddie's creepy brother Walter (Jack Palance) and his even creepier associates want Eddie to join them on another job that might net a huge profit in platinum. Eddie resists until he gets fired and discovers he can't get unemployment. But this caper might not go off without a hitch.

Delon with Van Heflin

Jazzed up -- literally -- with a loud, brassy and distracting score by Lalo Schifrin, Once a Thief still can't disguise the fact that its plot is really old hat. The ex-con trying to go straight; the unpleasant family associate who wants to drag him back in; the cop who's out to get him etc. etc. It's all been done many times before and this adds nothing new to the recipe unless you want to count two "sex symbols" in Ann-Margret -- who's not very sexy in this -- and Delon. Halfway through, the movie turns into a caper flick, but the robbery itself doesn't take up that much screen time. There is some excitement during the climax when thieves turn out, and Eddie and Vido turn into unlikely allies when the former's child is kidnapped. 

Ann-Margret with Delon

Delon gives a good performance; Ann-Margret is overwrought (even considering the circumstances) but effective enough; and Heflin turns in his customary professional job. Jack Palance seems more interested in putting on a show than in creating a real character, but on that level he's fine. John Davis Chandler and Tony Musante are suitably repulsive as Walter's unsavory associates, and Jeff Corey is notable as the lieutenant who tries to keep Vido in line. 

Verdict: Despite some interesting sequences and elements, this doesn't quite work. **1/2. 

BUS RILEY'S BACK IN TOWN

BUS RILEY'S BACK IN TOWN (1965). Director: Harvey Hart. Screenplay by William Inge, writing as "Walter Gage."

Bus Riley (Michael Parks of Kill Bill) has spent three years as a sailor and now has come back to his small town and his family, which consists of his mother (Jocelyn Brando) and two sisters, worshipful Gussie (Kim Darby) and disdainful Paula (Mimsy Farmer of Four Flies on Grey Velvet). Also in the household is a boarder named Carlotta (Brett Somers), who objects to Bus' noisy presence. Bus discovers that his old sweetheart Laurel (Ann-Margret) is married to a wealthy older man, but bored and childish, she won't leave him alone. Bus had planned for a career as an assistant mortician, but that doesn't work out when lonely and middle-aged Spencer (Crahan Denton) -- who runs the funeral parlor with his no-nonsense mother (Ethel Griffies) -- wants Bus to move in with him and all that implies. Bus gets a job selling a house disinfectant device to lonely housewives while dallying with Laurel, but a neighbor girl named Judy (Janet Margolin) also catches his attention, especially after a tragedy in her family. But will Bus have the strength to cut all ties with selfish Laurel?

Michael Parks

Bus Riley's Back in Town started out as a short play by William Inge, who turned it into a screenplay, then was dismayed when changes to the script were made to accommodate Ann-Margret (who later claimed that she didn't care for the changes either). So dissatisfied was Inge that he used the name "Walter Gage" instead of his own. I don't know what the screenplay was like before it was changed, but Bus Riley comes off mostly like warmed-over Inge, with snatches of Picnic and other plays,  For instance, in both movies we've got a widow with two daughters who takes in boarders, one of whom is a neurotic spinster, not to mention a handsome hero who ignites sexual interest in many.

Ann-Margret

As for the actors, most of them are so good that you wish they had been given better material. This includes Brett Somers, whose part seems to have been cut to the bone; Kim Darby, whose feelings for her brother seem to border on the incestuous; Griffies and Denton as mother and son; Alice Pearce as a potential customer; and Janet Margolin in a sensitive turn as Judy, among others. As for Ann-Margaret, her appearance does not really unbalance the movie as some have suggested, and I happen to think that she's excellent in the film. Her sex-kitten mode is completely appropriate for her part, and she runs with it, out-acting Parks, whose James Dean impressions do little to suggest that the chief reason for casting him wasn't his considerable sex appeal. Both he and Ann-Margret are, in a word, voluptuous.

Margolin, Parks and Denton

An interesting aspect to the film is its pre-Stonewall treatment of homosexuality. One could argue that mortician Spencer is almost guilty of a form of harassment when he makes his suggestion to Bus (although he places his hands nowhere besides Bus' knee), but the man comes off as more desperate and pathetic than anything else. Bus doesn't get angry, but he is clearly disillusioned and simply walks out of the room. Later, at a minor character's funeral, he is friendly to Spencer and vice versa but it is, of course, awkward, and he excuses himself quickly. Inge himself was a deeply closeted homosexual man.

Michael Parks

For a time the star build-up certainly worked for Ann-Margret, but Parks' period of movie stardom was very brief, with him returning to television where he started with Then Came Bronson. He managed to amass 145 credits, however, and had a successful career by any standard, although mega-stardom eluded him. As for Bus Riley it got a surprisingly good review from the New York Times at the time of the film's release, but other reviews were mixed. It is probably the weakest of the films inspired by Inge's work. Harvey Hart also directed Dark Intruder.

Verdict: Inge Lite. **1/2. 

CARNAL KNOWLEDGE

Art Garfunkel and Candice Bergen

CARNAL KNOWLEDGE  (1971). Director: Mike Nichols. Screenplay by Jules Feiffer.

In college post-WW2, two friends, Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel), contemplate getting laid and what type of woman they'd like to wind up with. Sandy begins dating Susan (Candice Bergen), but so does Jonathan, sleeping with Susan behind his friend's back.

Ann-Margret and Jack Nicholson

Years go by. Although married, Sandy wants more excitement in the bedroom and hooks up with the more aggressive Cindy (Cynthia O'Neal). while Jonathan shacks up with Bobbie (Ann-Margret of State Fair), who -- a la Rosalind Russell in Picnic -- is almost desperate to get married. Things don't go smoothly with either relationship, but then Jonathan is a complete chauvinistic pig -- his truly disgusting nature becomes even more apparent by the end -- and Sandy, although apparently more "sensitive," isn't much better.

Best friends? Garfunkle and Nicholson

Carnal Knowledge was a popular and admired film in its day, probably due to its frankness, but it doesn't hold up well. It is an absorbing picture nevertheless because of the acting and because there's some suspense over what will happen to the characters. Bergen, Ann-Margret, and Garfunkel (so good you wished he did much more acting) are all excellent, and while Nicholson was already falling into that certain stock "Jack Nicholson" mode, his performance is also good. O'Neal and Rita Moreno are quite effective in smaller roles.

Triangle: Bergen, Garfunkel, with Nicholson in background

But one is left with the sensation that this screenplay was an old and unsatisfactory stage play dusted off by Jules Feiffer and turned into a movie by a compliant Mike Nichols working in a Woody Allen mode. The movie, deliberately paced and with long takes, is expertly shot by cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno [Haunted Summer]. Some scenes, such as when Jonathan shows Sandy and his new girlfriend slides of all of the women he's screwed (Susan gets in there by "mistake"), are quite contrived. Mike Nichols also directed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Verdict: Two pigs in a poke. **1/2.

STATE FAIR (1962)

Pat Boone and Ann-Margret

STATE FAIR (1962). Director: Jose Ferrer.

In this CinemaScope remake of the 1945 State Fair, the Frake family are off not to a fair in Iowa but in Texas. Mom (Alice Faye) and Dad (Tom Ewell) still want ribbons for their mincemeat and boar, respectively, but now the son Wayne (Pat Boone) races cars while sister Margy (Pamela Tiffin), still restless, is bored with her now-handsome fiance, Harry (David Brandon). At the fair Wayne meets up with entertainer Emily (Ann-Margret) and Margy encounters radio interviewer Jerry (Bobby Darin). Now let's see -- Darin  and Boone [Mardi Gras], of course, simply had decades of experience in musical theater (!) but in spite of this they are not as bad singing show tunes as you might expect. In fact, after Tom Ewell, Boone actually gives the best performance in the movie (credit director Jose Ferrer, perhaps). Boone has a nice voice, and puts over such numbers as "That's for Me" and a new song (Rodgers composed several new numbers for this remake), "Willing and Eager." Darin, usually a very different kind of singer, also delivers when he croons "You're Not an Angel." Faye is given a new number that she sings to her daughter, "Never Say No to a Man" and she and Ewell, who obviously can't sing "I Owe Iowa" anymore, perform "The Littlest Things in Texas" instead. The new songs are perfectly pleasant. Unfortunately, "Isn't It Kind of Nice?" is horrendously staged, first as a weird burlesque and then jazzed up with Ann-Margret [Any Given Sunday] tearing at that lobster again while she sings, although she is better when she relaxes a bit doing "Willing and Eager" with Boone. "It's a Grand Night for Singing" doesn't get a big production nearly as good as the one in the original. Unlike Dana Andrews in the first version, Darin plays the character like a cheap and common playboy, making it improbable that Margy would fall for him or vice versa; Wayne's hasty romance with Emily is only slightly more convincing. Wally Cox [The Night Strangler] is funny as the judge who gets inebriated on mincemeat. Alice Faye is okay as the mother, but there are times when you get the impression she'd rather be anywhere else than in this movie. She's given some funny lines -- "[Ewell] won't be happy until that hog shows up in Who's Who" -- but her delivery is always flat. Faye was to play the daughter's role in the 1945 movie but abruptly retired; this was supposedly her comeback. State Fair was finally turned into a Broadway musical in 1996 using songs from both movies and a couple from lesser-known Rodgers and Hammerstein shows.

Verdict: Has some nice moments but decidedly inferior to the original. **1/2.

THE PLEASURE SEEKERS

Gardner McKay and Carol Lynley

THE PLEASURE SEEKERS (1964). Director: Jean Negulesco.

"Boy is he confused. He gave his wife the mink coat and me the refrigerator!" -- party guest

Three young ladies living and working in Madrid encounter romantic difficulties: entertainer Fran (Ann-Margret) can't seem to get together with handsome doctor Andres (Andre Lawrence); Susie (Pamela Tiffin) becomes betrothed to a heel, Emilio (Anthony Franciosa), who has no intention of actually marrying her; and Maggie (Carol Lynley) is torn between married editor Paul (Brian Keith) and young reporter Pete (Gardner McKay). Jean Negulesco returns to the foreign soap opera genre he examined ten years earlier in the superior Three Coins in the Fountain, with another trio of mostly unconvincing romances set in Spain instead of Italy. The deceptively titled Pleasure Seekers may have some location shots of Madrid, as well as shots of the masterpieces in the Prado, but other than that it never leaves Hollywood. The acting is good enough, with a very attractive Gene Tierney [Whirlpool] getting a grand total of one good scene as Paul's wife as she tells off infatuated Maggie in a ladies room. Isobel Elsom [Ladies in Retirement] also gets one good scene as Emilio's mother. The movie might be called a semi-musical as there are several numbers for Ann-Margret as she sings during "Fran's" performances, but she also warbles a tune at a picnic; you can miss these. With Ann-Margret's singing, everything is subordinate to sex, and she vocalizes as if she's savagely tearing at a big chunk of lobster. TV star Gardner McKay's character is virtually undeveloped -- to his credit he doesn't just come off like "Adam Troy," the character he played on Adventures in Paradise -- and he made one more movie before becoming a playwright, Little is known about Andre Lawrence, who made his debut in this film and appeared in some Canadian and other productions afterward.

Verdict: Fairly terrible. **.

HOLLYWOOD SCREEN TESTS

HOLLYWOOD SCREEN TESTS: Take One (1999 TV special). Director: Edith Becker.

Narrated by Robert Culp, AMC presented this first of two specials showing and commenting on various Hollywood screen tests. The tests are interesting, even if some of them go on a little too long. We see tests for Candice Bergen, Ann-Margret, Mitzi Gaynor, Barbara Eden and Andy Williams doing a scene for State Fair, and Patty Duke in Valley of the Dolls, among others. (How anyone could have given the role in the movie to Duke after seeing how horrible she was in the screen test is beyond me!) Singer Marni Nixon, who dubbed Audrey Hepburn and many others, is tested for the lead in The Sound of Music, but wound up playing Sister Sophia. Dustin Hoffman does a "personality" test and obviously passes it, and there's also Raquel Welch, Marlon Brando, and several big names doing tests after they were already established stars.

Verdict: Fun. ***.

ANY GIVEN SUNDAY

ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (1999). Director: Oliver Stone.

This is the old chestnut in which an aging man, in this case a football player (Dennis Quaid), has to deal with the intrusion of a brash young newcomer (Jamie Foxx), both of whom interact with the coach, Tony (Al Pacino), who has to argue with the owner (Cameron Diaz) about whom to use for The Big Game. Any Given Sunday is well-done for what it is, all decked out in modern ambiance, but it's incredibly old-fashioned [and just plain creaky] at its heart. There is a very large cast in the movie -- everyone from James Woods to Ann-Margret [Bye Bye Birdie] -- but the movie is consistently stolen by a charismatic Pacino. Quaid [Legion], Diaz [The Box], and especially Foxx are also excellent, however. The frenetic editing of the movie keeps things moving briskly during its nearly three hour running time but it's the sort of thing you forget even as the closing credits are rolling.

Verdict: Even football fans may find this old hat if somewhat entertaining. **1/2.

BYE BYE BIRDIE

Ann-Margret belts out title tune in Bye Bye Birdie

BYE BYE BIRDIE (1963). Director: George Sidney.

When Elvis-type rock singer Conrad Birdie (Jesse Pearson) is drafted, a plan is developed whereupon he will kiss a lucky girl, Kim (Ann-Margret), goodbye on the Ed Sullivan show. Songwriter Albert Peterson (Dick Van Dyke), whose song Birdie will sing, hopes this will lead to lasting success as a composer, while his secretary, Rosie (Janet Leigh), hopes it will lead to their marriage. Kim's father (Paul Lynde) hopes that his daughter's Sullivan appearance will lead to more business, while her boyfriend, (Bobby Rydell), just wants to belt Conrad in the nose. Albert's mother (Maureen Stapleton) seems only to want to take pot shots at Rosie ... and so on. But will a substitute ballet selection mean that Birdie and Kim will have to be bounced from the show, dashing everyone's hopes? Based on the Broadway stage musical, this adaptation is good-natured and pleasant but overall not that memorable. Ann-Margret at 22 seems way too sophisticated for a small town high school girl, and is in fact borderline grotesque at times. Maureen Stapleton, who doesn't seem to know how to kvetch, gives one of her rare bad performances. Van Dyke, Leigh, Sullivan (playing himself) and Rydell come off the best, with Lynde not far behind. Pearson isn't bad as the ersatz Elvis, but he's generally a bit too much, overdoing everything -- less would have been a lot more. Some of the songs make an impression: "Ed Sullivan;" "Put on a Happy Face" (which has become a standard); "Kids;" and the whole splashy production number "Got a Lot of Livin' to Do." The finale has the principles sabotaging a sequence from a Tchaikovsky ballet just so Conrad can sing Albert's forgettable number "One Last Kiss." Oy vey!

Verdict: Pleasant but not much more. **1/2.