The Deep (1977)

 

The Deep stars Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset as a pair of vacationing divers searching for treasure in Bermuda. Both Nolte and Bisset as David and Gail, respectively, are at the peak of their physical attractiveness in this film, and she, in particular, is the focus of a lot of the camera’s gaze, particularly when she emerges from the sea in a wet t-shirt, a sequence that was the subject of a lot of attention upon the film’s release. They’re mostly looking for jewels and other gold objects among the ruins of the Goliath, but it isn’t until they find an ampule of morphine that everyone else suddenly becomes interested in their dives. Louis Gossett Jr., sporting some of the largest butterfly-collared shirts in filmdom, wants them to locate the other 9,800 or so ampules of morphine reportedly on board the shipwreck, and he’s not above having his henchmen take Gail hostage and enact a strange voodoo-ish ritual involving the smearing of blood over her torso with a chicken foot in order to persuade the pair to help him find the drugs. It’s a strange moment tine the film, particularly the way it is intercut with comparatively calm moments with Nolte. In supporting roles, you have Robert Shaw, not as crusty here as he was in Jaws, as the local expert on diving and what you might find in wreckage, and Eli Wallach as a survivor of the Goliath’s shipwreck. Shaw keeps calling Nolte and Gail “Boy” and Gail “Girl,” and Wallach’s character is Adam Coffin, a pretty clear homage to Peter Coffin from Moby-Dick, so every character seems to need some little quirk to help you remember them better. Nick and Gail agree to help recover the morphine with the help of a giant suction hose, but then the hose sucks up a grenade and the explosion almost knocks the ship off the cliff on which it is precariously located, making the mission even more dangerous. Besides, there are sharks and a particularly nasty moray eel who tries to eat everything that comes within its path and who keeps reappearing at the most inopportune times. Most heterosexual male viewers will undoubtedly recall the wet t-shirt without also remembering the horrific scene where Bisset is strip searched by a group of thugs. It’s a shameful moment clearly designed to objectify Bisset even more than she already has been, and it serves no useful purpose to the overall trajectory of the plot. However, more worthy of attention is the beautiful underwater cinematography and the clarity of the images that we see – and a lot of the movie does take place underwater, after all. The Deep is shot very well and quite effectively, but only the film’s sound achievements were acknowledged by the Academy.

Oscar Nomination: Best Sound

The Slipper and the Rose (1977)

 

The Slipper and the Rose is subtitled The Story of Cinderella, and it rather broadly follows the outlines of the original tale. However, the focus here is rather equally divided between Cinderella’s back story and that of Prince Edward (Richard Chamberlain), heir to the throne of Euphrania. Edward, however, wants to marry for love rather than for political advantage. (Actually, Chamberlain’s Edward seems rather uninterested in marriage and seems to enjoy the company of his friend and bodyguard John more than the possibility of marrying a woman. And given that John is played by the handsome Christopher Gable, I’m not sure that I necessarily blame the prince. Funny how we tend to reevaluate older films when we learn information about the performers’ personal lives, isn’t it?) Cinderella, meanwhile, faces torture from her stepmother after her father’s death, and it’s only the appearance of her Fairy Godmother (the delightful Annette Crosbie, playing the sardonic, overworked role for all she can wring from it) that provides her with a possible escape from her terrible life. The centerpiece of the film is, of course, the ball intended to put a large number of eligible young women in Edward’s presence so that he can choose one to marry. It’s fun to watch the Fairy Godmother turn a group of dancing mice into horses for the carriage. I’ll admit that Gemma Craven makes a rather wan Cinderella, but almost everyone suffers when compared to some of the scenery-chewing supporting cast like Dame Edith Evans as the dithering Dowager Queen and Michael Hordern as the befuddled but clever King. Too much of this movie is inexplicably shot in soft focus, but the sets and costumes and props are all beautiful, especially the glass slippers. Those shoes are, quite frankly, spectacular. The music, which was the source of the two Oscar nominations for this film, range from lovely (Best Song nominee “The Slipper and the Rose Waltz”) to the bizarre (“What a Comforting Thing to Know,” a song about how one day you’ll be buried alongside your dead ancestors that is performed in a crypt). The subplot about John, the Prince’s friend, being in love with a noble woman, a lady-in-waiting, provides the basis for “Position and Positioning,” a song in which servants seem to be dancing happily about their station in life. The Slipper and the Rose ends with the Fairy Godmother getting Cinderella, who’s been in exile since leaving her slipper at the ball, to Edward’s impending nuptials just in time for the happy ending that we’ve come to expect from this fairy tale (and, probably, all fairy tales).

Oscar Nominations: Best Song (“The Slipper and the Rose Waltz—He Danced with Me/She Danced with Me”) and Best Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score

Pete's Dragon (1977)

 

Pete’s Dragon blends live action film with animation, and part of its overall success lies in the willingness of the audience to accept a cartoon dragon in the “real” world of the rest of the movie. The movie itself cleverly addresses this by having initially skeptical characters eventually come to accept the appearance of a dragon it their midst, and for the most part, this plot device works. The title character Pete (Sean Marshall) is an orphan who is running way from an abusive family headed by Shelley Winters’ Lena Gogan. Oh, and he has a pet dragon named Elliot who escapes with him. They wind up in a town named Passamaquoddy, a town seemingly filled to the limit with eccentrics, where they meet Lampie (Mickey Rooney), the lighthouse keeper, and his daughter Nora (Helen Reddy). Lampie is a drunk, so no one believes him when he first tries to convince them that he has seen a dragon. It falls to Nora to try to keep Pete safe. She’s alone at the lighthouse because the man she loves has been lost at sea. A couple of con men, Dr. Terminus (Jim Dale) and Hoagy (Red Buttons), arrive in town, and it isn’t long before they learn about the dragon. To be fair, it’s tough not to know about a dragon that runs through the schoolhouse and leaves a hole in his shape. He’s mischievous, impish, always getting Pete in trouble; he’s also a convenient scapegoat for all that ails the town, such as its low supply of fish. Dr. Terminus, Hoagy, and the Gogan family team up to capture Elliot; the Gogans are also trying to retrieve Pete since they consider him their “property” after having bought him from an orphanage to work on their family farm. While Pete’s Dragon may be a kid’s movie, it features some major Hollywood talent in its cast. Rooney is a real pro here; he can play drunk very convincingly. Marshall is okay as Pete, but he never had a significant career as an actor once the 1970s were over. Reddy is a natural, and her performance is a standout. The true focal points, though, are Winters and Dale, who seem to be in a scenery-chewing competition. It’s tough to pick a winner between the two of them since both of them seem to be enjoying overacting so much. They bring a lot of fun to the film. To be honest, most of the songs are rather forgettable (even though the music was the focus of the Academy’s attention), but the Oscar-nominated “Candle on the Water” is a true highlight and one of my all-time favorite Disney songs. It’s beautifully shot with Reddy in front of the revolving light of the lighthouse. It’s done mostly in just one take with a slow zoom to a close-up. Seeing the sequence always brings me joy. Throughout the film, we really don’t get a back story about how Pete met Elliot. How does one meet a dragon that can turn himself invisible? We only learn that Elliot appears to a child who needs protection. If there’s a message to this film, it may simply be about finding the people (or dragons?), the “family,” that you truly need at different points in your life. That may not be the most profound idea, but its simplicity may be what makes this film still resonate with viewers.

Oscar Nominations: Best Original Song (“Candle on the Water”) and Best Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score

Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)

 Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a disturbing and graphically violent film that takes full advantage of the 1970s backdrop of the intersections of the sexual revolution, the growth of feminism, and even the drug culture. Diane Keaton plays Teresa (Terry), a college student who becomes a dedicated teacher of the deaf but who spends her nights becoming increasingly involved in high-risk sexual behavior with a series of men, some of whom are dangerously violent. When the film begins, Terry is living at home with her Irish Catholic family, under the tyrannical control of her father (Richard Kiley), who embodies almost every imaginable stereotype of the cigar-smoking, Notre Dame-obsessed Catholic father. She’s also having an affair with her married college professor, Martin (Alan Feinstein), who takes advantage of her sexually and then emotionally abuses her. She loves him and enjoys exploring the boundaries of acceptable sexual behavior with him, but thanks to his demeaning attitude toward her, the relationship is especially toxic, so the audience is grateful when Martin ends it. One of Terry’s sisters, Kitty (Tuesday Weld in a small but Oscar-nominated performance), shows Terry another life: one of swingers and drug use and promiscuity that fits within the sexually saturated environment of the 1970s. There are porn theaters, sex shops, go-go bars everywhere on the screen, and there are many singles bars as well. Terry begins to frequent them, but the men she takes back to her small apartment only increase the sense of danger in her life. For example, Richard Gere’s Tony, a hustler with whom she has a series of encounters, has a switchblade (a glow-in-the-dark switchblade, no less). Watching Gere in one of his earliest screen appearances is fascinating, and his bizarre “dance” while wearing nothing but a jockstrap is a highlight of the film. (If you’ve never seen the film, pause for a moment to contemplate the image of a young, beautiful Gere in nothing but a jockstrap for an extended sequence; it’s breathtaking.) He’s quite beautiful, but his character becomes increasingly unstable as the film progresses. When Terry tries to date a “nice” guy, William Atherton’s James, a social worker, she finds him boring; she’s more interested in sexual activity than “proper” dates. Even though he begins following her, stalking, really, he doesn’t present enough of a danger for her to find him exciting and/or attractive. Keaton is quite spectacular here, giving such a different but perhaps even better performance than in the role the same year that won her the Oscar, the title character of Annie Hall. Her willingness to take such a gamble with an explicit role like this is astonishing; it would be tough to think of another actress who would have done both Annie Hall and Looking for Mr. Goodbar within the same year. She exposes both Terry’s fragility and her strength, and she ably depicts both the allure that anonymous and sometimes rough sex has for Terry as well as the gentleness with which she works with her young students. Her interactions with these students is really very touching, but it serves as such a stark contrast to her nocturnal activities. In addition to Gere, the film also showcases early film appearances by LeVar Burton, Brian Dennehy, and Tom Berenger. The final sequence, which involves Berenger’s character Gary, is not only brutal in its depiction of violence but also intensely homophobic. The shock of watching his reaction to being unable to perform sexually leaves the film on an incredibly dark note, but having his character be a sexually confused “gay” hustler who has earlier been the victim of a gay bashing presents an unsavory element to a film which has been already been difficult at times to watch.

Oscar Nominations: Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Tuesday Weld) and Best Cinematography

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

 

Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released later in the same year as the original Star Wars (now better known, somewhat ridiculously, as Episode IV: A New Hope), but it presents quite a different vision of outer space. Director Steven Spielberg’s film is more concerned with our fascination with extraterrestrial life, a subject he would revisit five years later in his masterpiece E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. We fear the unknown, Close Encounters of the Third Kind seems to say, but we find it intriguing as well. One of the two key plots involves the efforts of a team of scientists led by Claude Lacombe (played by the renowned French filmmaker Francois Truffaut) to make contact with aliens. This thread involves the famed five musical notes that were so ubiquitous in 1978, a motif that charms viewers the longer they watch and that serves as a means of communication between the humans and the aliens. The set pieces here are quite stunning: a group of World War II airplanes that show up in the middle of the Mexican desert, a massive number of people chanting in northern India, etc. The other plotline, the one that takes up a larger portion of the story until the two lines intersect, involves Richard Dreyfuss as Roy Neary, a rather typical blue-collar man whose encounter with the aliens has left him sculpting the same mountainous figure over and over. Roy uses shaving cream, mashed potatoes, even huge piles of dirt in his living room, all to the consternation and fear of his wife (played by Teri Garr) and his children. As he puts it, “I don’t think I know what’s happening to me.” It turns out he’s not alone in his obsession. He meets Melinda Dillon’s Jillian, who has lost her little boy Barry to the aliens and who has become just as preoccupied with repeatedly drawing the same image that Roy has been trying to sculpt. They begin a personal odyssey to Devils Tower in Wyoming and, after a series of adventures that includes escaping the custody of the government, they witness a spectacular encounter with the alien “mothership.” This final sequence dazzles thanks to the Oscar-winning cinematography, especially the use of lights to convey the size and speed of the alien ships. It’s thirty minutes of the best light show you’ll likely ever experience. The ensuing interaction between humans and aliens is just as astonishing and provides an opportunity for the film to demonstrate how much awe and surprise may still be available in places like the isolated Devils Tower but also in the small town America represented by Roy and Jillian’s home of Muncie, Indiana. Even though it is a science fiction film and involves alien encounters, Close Encounters of the Third Kind resonates with its examination of how people can be profoundly changed by these kinds of events.

Oscar Wins: Best Cinematography and Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Melinda Dillon), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Score