PROPHECY

Talia Shire, Richard Dysart and Robert Foxworth

PROPHECY (aka Prophecy: The Monster Movie/1979). Director: John Frankenheimer.

Dr. Robert Vern, who usually works in the ghettos of Washington D.C., accepts an assignment to do a survey for the Environmental Protection Agency in the timber lands of Maine, where a dispute is raging between the Original People [Indians] and factions in the lumber industry. Not only does Vern discover that the natives are being seriously affected by something in the area, with an alarming number of still-births and deformed babies, but he suspects a huge mutant creature has already resulted from toxicity caused by the sawmill on the river. To make matters worse, his wife Maggie (Talia Shire) hasn't yet told him of her pregnancy, but she's eaten the same fish the Indians have; it contains a poison that "jumps the placental barrier" and lodges in the fetus. Then that monster comes a'calling ... David Seltzer's paperback novelization of his own screenplay for Prophecy was released several months before the film came out, and it was such an excellent horror novel that monster movie fans awaited the movie with anticipation. The trouble is, there hasn't been a more disappointing monster since The Giant Claw. The FX people came up with a mere lumpy and unconvincing disfigured bear instead of the creature described in the book or depicted in the movie's poster, something that bore traces of every step of the evolutionary ladder. But despite this serious deficit, Prophecy is not a complete waste because the story pulls the viewer along, the acting is solid, and the movie has genuine suspense in good measure. Along with Foxworth [Falcon Crest] and Shire, Richard Dysart [The Thing] is notable as a lumber man and Armand Assante [Human Target] scores as a militant Native American known as John Hawks. In real life methyl mercury poisoning did have very adverse effects on Indians in Canada, though so far no monsters have been sighted. John Frankenheimer also directed Seconds and other first-rate movies. NOTE: You can read more about movies like this in Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies.

Verdict: Good in spite of itself. ***.

BEING THERE

Peter Sellers

BEING THERE (1979). Director: Hal Ashby.

"Nobody likes a dying man, Chance, because nobody knows what death is."

"You always gonna be a little boy, ain't ya?"

"It's a white man's world in America for sure" -- Louise, the black maid, after she sees Chance on TV. 

Based on a novel by Jerzy Kosinski, this is the story of the simple-minded gardener Chance (Peter Sellers), who has to move out of the house where he worked after his elderly employer dies. By chance -- no pun intended -- his is hit by a limo, injures his leg, and is taken in by the very wealthy Eve Rand (Shirley MacLaine) and her ill, much older husband, Ben (Melvyn Douglas) who is friends with the President (Jack Warden). Before long Chance is "advising" the leader of the free world on policy, even though he really has no idea what he's talking about and can only relate everything to a garden. Instead of recognizing that Chance is mentally challenged, everyone thinks he's the height of profundity and he winds up on TV and being toasted by the media and intelligentsia. In this variation of Hans Christian Anderson's "The Emperor's New Clothes" -- which essentially said the same thing with more economy -- Ashby skewers the stupidity and superficiality of the rich, powerful, political, and influential, although one has to suspend disbelief that no one he meets after leaving his home seems to get that Chance is, well, just plain stupid. Sellers is fine, although he isn't really given the opportunity to go wild as he does in the Inspector Clouseau films. MacLaine and Douglas are marvelous, and there are notable supporting performances from Jack Warden, Richard Dysart as Ben's doctor, and Ruth Attaway as the maid, Louise, among others. As for the ending -- everyone can make up their own mind what that's about.

Verdict: Absorbing and sadly amusing satire. ***.