THE JAYNE MANSFIELD STORY

Loni Anderson

THE JAYNE MANSFIELD STORY (1980 telefilm). Director: Dick Lowry. 

Jayne Mansfield (Loni Anderson), a newly-divorced mom with a young daughter, tries to take Hollywood by storm and succeeds -- for a time. Jayne appears on Broadway in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and is lucky enough to get cast in the film adaptation. Overdoing the publicity bit while waiting for future assignments from her studio, 20th Century-Fox, she discovers that few people take her seriously, except perhaps her new husband, Mickey Hargitay (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Becoming one of those celebrities who would "go to the opening of an envelope," her career rapidly goes on the downslide, doing nude scenes in cheap Grade D movies and club acts in dives.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Loni Anderson

Although one might wonder if the story of a minor show business casualty is even worth the telling, this telepic succeeds because of some very good performances. Although she overdoes the squealing a bit, Loni Anderson probably gives a better performance than the real Mansfield ever did, turning the actress from a kewpie doll into a pathetic figure who garners some sympathy. (While there may be people far more deserving of our pity, self-absorbed actors who are desperate to stay relevant and employed do suffer in their own way, as evidenced by Mansfield's excessive drinking.) Arnold Schwarzenegger gives a surprisingly appealing and sensitive -- if such a term can be used in conjunction with the body builder -- performance, and Ray Buktenica and Kathleen Lloyd score as, respectively, Mansfield's agent and her friend and companion. G. D. Spradlin also makes an impression as Mansfield's liaison at the studio. 

Verdict:  Possibly more than the poor Mansfield deserves. ***. 

THE TERMINATOR

Arnold Schwarzenegger

THE TERMINATOR (1984). Director: James Cameron.

In the year 2029 Los Angeles and the world are in the midst of war started by rogue robots who want to destroy mankind. When a cyborg killing machine known as a "terminator" (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is sent back in time to murder the mother of the leader of the resistance -- John Connor --  he is followed by Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn of Deadly Intentions), whose mission is to save her life at any cost. At first Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is resistant to Reese's approaches, but after the Terminator wipes out a police station she realizes that his fantastic story is utterly true ...

Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton

I confess I was never all that carried away with this picture at the time of its release, and my opinion hasn't changed all these years later. The Terminator uses a number of sci fi and comic book tropes to tell its story, which is mildly interesting, and the characters are hardly that dimensional. (Harlan Ellison felt the opening moments of the film were too close to one of his stories and received a settlement and a credit on the DVD.) Although the movie moves at a very fast pace, it seems better edited than directed. The performances are good -- Schwarzenegger only needs to look determined and grim and he does that okay -- and the film has an undeniably exciting climax in a factory when the robotic infrastructure of the Terminator is revealed. The obligatory sex scene is tiresome, but necessary in some ways for the plot.

The Terminator sheds its Schwarzenegger skin

Although these questions may have been answered in the sequels -- to date there have been five -- one has to wonder why the unmarried Sarah doesn't ask Reese why her son in the future has the same last name that she does. And why does the cyborg have an Austrian accent? Bill Paxton has a very small role as a thug but in a few years he would be co-starring with both Schwarzenegger and Biehn [Aliens] in different productions (both directed by James Cameron). Dick Miller [A Bucket of Blood] has a cameo as a gun shop owner who gets on the wrong end of Schwarzenegger's shotgun. Brad Fidel's score is generally pretty cheesy, but the FX work by Stan Winston and others is fine.

Verdict: Odd that this mediocre and highly over-rated little film started such a successful franchise. **1/2. 

TOTAL RECALL (1990)

Arnold Schwarzenegger

TOTAL RECALL (1990). Director: Paul Verhoeven.

In the future Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) goes to a firm that specializes in implanting memories so you can "remember" the perfect vacation -- a stupid idea* if you ask me --  but when they begin the process on Quaid it develops that he has already undergone a memory-altering process -- he is actually a completely different person from whom he thinks he is. When people try to kill him, he winds up on a mining colony on Mars where in his former identity he was involved in a rebellion against Cohaagen (Ronny Cox of The Car), the sinister master of Mars. Total Recall is what might best be called "schlock sci fi" in that it takes many different elements from science fiction stories, films, and comics, and throws them all together to make little more than an Arnold Schwarzenegger Action Flick. On that level the film is entertaining, and it certainly worked for Arnold. He had appeared in action flicks before but Total Recall is the film that really put him over the top.  This was true, too, of European director Verhoeven [Showgirls], who had previously directed Robocop. Some saw this as an interesting filmmaker "selling out" to Hollywood to make crap, a notion that is pretty much born out by his later film projects. (He eventually left Hollywood to make films more along the lines of his earlier work.)

At one point in Total Recall the running Quaid dodges bullets and a perfectly innocent bystander gets shot, with Quaid using the man's body as a shield and then just throwing him at his attackers. Sure, this may be an act of desperation, but can you imagine Jimmy Stewart or Tom Hanks or even Audie Murphy (a real-life hero as opposed to a Hollywood one) not having any reaction to this? There had always been hard-boiled anti-heroes in movies, but by the time of Total Recall the heroes lost any trace of sensitivity and became not ordinary men up against extraordinary odds, but super-heroes (without the costumes) whose success seemed preordained. Compare that to Tom Hanks in the Da Vinci trilogy -- not great films, perhaps, but the hero is strong, intelligent, and recognizably human.

That said, the last quarter of Total Recall is quite exciting and amusing and has some good FX work, but it's never more than a moron movie. Cox is excellent, Sharon Stone (who later appeared in Verhoeven's Basic Instinct) is suitably sexy, Rachel Ticotin is adept, and Schwarzenegger is Schwarzenegger, which was enough for his fans. Jerry Goldsmith's score is one of his least interesting. Remade in 2012.

* If you know your memories are just implanted and never really happened, doesn't it sort of make it all pointless? What makes memories so wonderful is that they were real. Besides, memories can't compare to the actual experience.

Verdict: Arnold builds up the body count along with his muscles. **1/2.