Superman (1978)

 

“You’ll believe a man can fly” was the famous tagline that advertised the film Superman, and you actually do believe it while watching the film. The visual effects had to be top-notch for this story to work, and the filmmakers did an excellent job (for 1978, of course) in keeping the wires invisible to us in the audience. Christopher Reeve plays the caped superhero with a bit of charm and his alter ego, Clark Kent, as if he were a bit of a doofus, so it’s entertaining to witness the actor’s range. His haircut doesn’t necessarily do him any favors, but he certainly fills out the suit nicely, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. The film is loaded with lots of famous faces: Glenn Ford as Pa Kent, Superman’s adoptive father; the great Jackie Cooper as Daily Planet editor Perry White; and perhaps most famously of all, Marlon Brando at Superman’s father back on Krypton. Starting the film with the explosion of Krypton – and a side story about Jor-El (Brando) sentencing three criminals to the Phantom Zone just to set up the sequel – does let the film play just a bit the mythology surrounding Superman. We get to see his discovery by the Kents after his spaceship crashes on Earth when Kal-El was still a baby, and there are a few scenes about what it was like to be a teen (Jeff East) with superpowers. We even get to watch the creation of the Fortress of Solitude. It’s not until Clark arrives in Metropolis and meets Lois Lane, his colleague at the Daily Planet, though, that the film really becomes intriguing, and that’s perhaps my biggest (and, really, only) complaint about the film. It just takes too long to get going. We have to wait almost 48 minutes to get a glimpse of “the” suit, and an hour before the villain even shows up. Gene Hackman plays Lex Luthor, one of the greatest villains in comic book history, but the plot here doesn’t seem quite… ambitious enough? Luthor wants to steal two missiles to set off a catastrophic earthquake along the San Andreas Fault in order to destroy California. Maybe I’m too old-fashioned, but the comic book villains tended to have much bigger evil on their minds, didn’t they? Luthor is assisted by Ned Beatty’s bumbling Otis and Valerie Perrine’s Eve Teschmacher, neither of whom is a fully developed character. Aside from Reeve, the actor who gets the best material is Margo Kidder as Lois Lane. There’s some nice, playful banter between Lois and Superman, and watching her fly alongside the Man of Steel is a nice interlude (although that poem or song or whatever she has to recite in her mind? – ugh). The big moments of special effects – Superman saving a damaged airplane, him reversing time by flying incredibly fast around the world, even the destruction of the planet Krypton – are probably the reasons that most people remember this film fondly. Well, that, and believing a man can, indeed, fly.

Oscar Win: Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Sound, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Score

Foul Play (1978)

 

Foul Play is a bit of a cross between a romantic comedy and a thriller/suspense movie featuring repeated references to (much better) Hitchcock movies. It’s also a bit of a mess, frankly. Goldie Hawn plays Gloria Mundy (the pun on “worldly glory” doesn’t get used to full advantage here), a librarian who is recently divorced. Thanks to encouragement from a friend who tells her to take more chances in life, the normally shy Gloria picks up a guy whose car has broken down. Scottie, the guy she picks up, hides a roll of film in a pack of Marlboro cigarettes that he leaves with Gloria, promising to meet her for a date later that night. A group of criminals wants the film, and after killing Scottie, they make Gloria the object of repeated kidnapping attempts and apartment break-ins to retrieve the film. Chevy Chase plays a police lieutenant who helps her (and who falls in love with her, of course – this is a Hollywood film, after all). However, he is initially unable to be much help because the bodies keep disappearing. It takes a while before he and the other police and even Gloria’s friends begin to believe her. The film is set in San Francisco, much like Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and the climax occurs at the San Francisco Opera House, circumstances similar to the climax of The Man Who Knew Too Much. Foul Play never reaches the artistic heights achieved by any of the Hitchcock films it references, though. In fact, Mel Brooks does a better and funnier homage in his High Anxiety from 1977, just one year earlier. Foul Play doesn’t even restrict its allusions to Hitchcock. In another twist, Chase and Hawn have a rough fast drive through the streets of San Francisco that is reminiscent of the centerpiece chase in What’s Up, Doc? from six years earlier (although that film does it better). The plot unfolds a few clues at a time, and aside from the romantic relationship between Hawn’s and Chase’s characters, it winds up being about some weird, convoluted plot by a group called the Tax the Churches League to kill the Pope during a performance of The Mikado. However, the plot is rather beside the point. It’s the performances here that are key to whatever success the film has. In addition to Hawn and Chase (was he really this cute back then?), the cast includes top-notch actors such as Burgess Meredith at Gloria’s landlord with a rather unbelievable past and some amazing martial arts skills for an old guy, Rachel Roberts as one of the leaders of the Tax the Church League who matches Meredith’s martial arts skills pretty well, Brian Dennehy in an early role as Chase’s police partner “Fergie,” the great Billy Barty as a Bible salesman in a very funny sequence, and character actress Marilyn Sokol as Stella, Gloria’s coworker who’s prepared for any male-initiated crisis (mace, brass knuckles, etc.). However, it’s Dudley Moore who almost steals the movie as Stanley Tibbetts. Hawn’s Gloria picks up Stanley in a singles bar, hoping to escape from her potential kidnappers by hiding out at his place. Stanley, though, thinks he’s about to get lucky and starts revealing some ridiculous “modifications” to his apartment, including a Murphy bed with lights and sound effects and a cabinet with a couple of fully inflated sex dolls. He’s almost down to just his heart festooned boxer shorts before Gloria catches on to what’s been happening while she’s been looking for her potential kidnappers through Stanley’s window. Moore gets two more scenes, one of them in a massage parlor, the other at the opera, and he’s hilarious in each one. He would star in 10 the following year and in Arthur three years later, achieving superstar status. It’s hard to forgive the use in Foul Play of language like “dwarf” or “albino” to describe people, and the portrayal of a couple of Japanese tourists is both unnecessary and teeth-grindingly offensive. I know that these terms and depictions were not as heavily criticized in 1978, but they should have been. And I can’t quite forgive the film’s pretending that the famed Nuart Theatre is in San Francisco since any resident of Los Angeles knows better. Foul Play marked Chase’s first leading role after he left Saturday Night Live for movie stardom and Hawn’s first movie in two years. They do have a fun chemistry, but all I could recall from having seen it in the theaters during its initial release was Barry Manilow’s “Ready to Take a Chance Again” playing over the opening credits as Gloria drives her yellow convertible Volkswagen Beetle along the coastal highway. That was fun to revisit. The rest of the film? Aside from Moore’s standout performance, not as much.

Oscar Nomination: Best Original Song (“Ready to Take a Chance Again”)

The Swarm (1978)

 

The Swarm is quite possibly one of the worst films ever to be nominated for an Oscar (although making that list could be quite entertaining). Granted, this film about a series of attacks on Texas towns by killer bees only received one nomination, Best Costume Design, but even that seems bizarre given that most of the costumes are merely Air Force uniforms, orange or white protective jumpsuits, and the kind of clothes that ordinary people wear each day. Maybe it was the sheer volume of costuming that garnered the nomination. Consider the cast list, including seven former and future Oscar winners: Michael Caine (ostensibly the lead, an entomologist famous enough that one of the President’s key aides knows who he is), Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland (who benefited the most from the costume design by having several matronly, teacher-y dresses throughout the film), Ben Johnson (stuck in a rust-colored leisure suit), Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Patty Duke Astin, Slim Pickens, Bradford Dillman (billed late in the credits, but actually playing a very significant role), Fred McMurray, and Henry Fonda (in a small role as an immunologist who tries his own antidote on himself, no doubt unethical behavior among scientists). Unfortunately, with such a large roster of performers, there’s very little time to develop a story for each one of them that allows for viewers to care much about what happens. For example, de Havilland’s teacher is involved in a love triangle with McMurray’s mayor/drug store owner and Johnson’s retiree, but it’s tough to care which one she will pick. They’ll all be dispatched by the killer bees very soon anyway. Sadly, this would be McMurray’s last film and de Havilland’s penultimate film. Everyone involved was probably embarrassed about participating in this disaster film (in multiple meanings of the phrase). A few of the sillier choices suggest just how inept the filmmaking is. One of the worst is that there are no bee stings visible on any of the bodies of those killed by the bees. The bee attacks are always shown in slow-motion so that you can watch the actors suffering from being covered in bees, which must have been very frightening. Those who survive the stings and are suffering from the toxic venom of the bees hallucinate that they are being attacked by enormous bees. The bees keep being described as “African” killer bees, which leads Widmark’s Air Force general to make some incredibly (although probably unconsciously so) racist comments such as calling the attempts to kill the bees a war “against the Africans.” Sigh. However, the end credits provide perhaps one of the most hilarious moments. Apparently, there was some fear that there might be a backlash regarding the portrayal of bees in the film, so the following disclaimer is one of the last things on the screen: “The African killer bee portrayed in this film bears absolutely no relationship to the industrious, hard-working American honey bee to which we are indebted for pollinating vital crops that feed our nation.” That should have kept the bees from filing a lawsuit claiming defamation of character. The Swarm was one of the last of the disaster films made by famed producer-director Irwin Allen, who made two great films in The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, among his many contributions to film and television, but who followed up this film with another stinker, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.

Oscar Nomination: Best Costume Design

Best Picture of 1978

The Winner: The Deer Hunter

The Other Nominees: Coming Home, Heaven Can Wait, Midnight Express, and An Unmarried Woman.


My Choice: Coming Home. This was a particularly strong year for movies. All of the nominated films are excellent, but Coming Home has always resonated with me because of the relationship between Jane Fonda's Sally and Jon Voight's Luke. This is a mature film for grown-ups. It makes its viewers consider the repercussions of war, but it does so without ever taking us to the battlefields in Vietnam. By suggesting that the war doesn't end when the soldiers return home, Coming Home manages to demonstrate that the United States in 1978 still had a lot of unfinished business regarding the Vietnam War. The film also shines a light on an issue that became a national disgrace, the treatment of the veterans when they got back home. I realize that many people might consider this film to be unpatriotic, particularly given the final speech Luke delivers, but what is more patriotic than asking for your country to be a better place for everyone? And it's also an intensely romantic film with an emotionally satisfying relationship between the two main characters. I truly admire all five of the nominees for Best Picture of 1978, but I have to go with the film that has the most courage and the greatest heart, and that is Coming Home.

Coming Home (1978)

Coming Home, one of two movies about the Vietnam War nominated for Best Picture of 1978, takes place entirely in the United States. Unlike the Oscar winner that year, The Deer Hunter, which devotes about one third of the narrative to what happens to its male characters in Vietnam, Coming Home is primarily about the consequences of the war back home, particularly on the women left behind and on the veterans who have been injured or disabled by war. It's one of those women and one of those veterans who are the focus of this gripping, emotional movie. Even more than the final third of The Deer Hunter, Coming Home suggests just how much of an effect on people's lives fighting in Vietnam had.

Jane Fonda plays Sally Hyde, a woman who has never led a truly independent life. She's married to Captain Bob Hyde (Bruce Dern), who's about to leave for Vietnam and is busy preparing himself for whatever the war might bring. Hyde is a bit of an idealist. He hasn't been to active duty yet, so he's destined to be disillusioned by what he encounters once he's there. For proof of that, all we need to do is look at Jon Voight's Luke Martin. Luke is a former football star who's been injured in battle and cannot walk. He's angry over his condition, certainly, but he's particularly angry because he cannot understand why his country sent him to fight in a country like Vietnam.

Sally and Luke attended high school together, and once she starts volunteering at the veterans' hospital where Luke is being treated, she begins to understand what he and the other veterans feel about their time in the service. She's surprised because it doesn't initially fit what she thinks her husband believes, but eventually, she comes to develop her own ideas about the consequences of the war. It's because she listens to the veterans. She even tries to enlist the help of some other other military wives, but they are reluctant to improve conditions for the injured veterans at the base hospital. They don't feel it's their "place" to do so. Sally, though, begins doing what she can to make Luke's transition into a normal life easier, inviting him to dinner as a first step to understanding him better.

Fonda and Voight won Oscars for their work here, and both are exceptional. Fonda shows us Sally as a woman without a clear sense of her own identity at the start of the film, but she grows into a fully realized individual by the end. She takes a place of her own near the beach and even buys a car (a convertible, that traditional symbol of independence) for herself. She comes a long way from being a volunteer entrusted only with handing out juice and coffee to a woman who's ready to leave her husband for her lover because it will make her happier. I wouldn't normally spend a lot of time discussing sex scenes in a film like this, but you merely need to look at those involving Sally and Bob to sense how different the experience is with Luke. She finally achieves an orgasm with Luke, perhaps further freeing her from her sense of obligation to her husband. That's a huge step for someone like Sally.

Fonda's Sally also undergoes a physical transformation as the film progresses. When we first see her, she's dressed in what would have been considered proper attire for a housewife married to a military man. In fact, her dresses could be considered a kind of uniform. Her hair is straight and carefully tied with a ribbon, never a strand out of place. Later, though, she allows her hair to be curly, its more natural state, and even her clothes become looser and more, well, "fashionable." It's quite a shock to see her revert to her earlier look when she visits her husband for a while in Hong Kong. We've gotten to accustomed to the "new" Sally that we feel almost as uncomfortable as she does.

Voight has the harder acting job, though, I think. When we first meet Luke, he's lying on a gurney, pushing himself around with crutches. He yells at Sally because she knocks his colostomy bag off the gurney. He drinks too much, and he's usually in a foul mood around the hospital workers. They even sedate him sometimes just to keep him under control. When you contrast that image of Luke with the one of him as Sally's lover, it's clear why Voight won the Oscar. Luke is such a different man after Sally comes into his life. He's still disillusioned with the war, enough to chain himself to the fence at the recruiting center, but he also finds a sense of joy in spending time at the beach with Sally. The wheelchair ride they take is particularly romantic, as is the scene where she tells him she's going to Hong Kong to see Bob. It's tough to pull those moments off without looking too self-pitying, but Voight does so.

The film is also blessed with strong work by the supporting cast. One of the strongest performances is by Penelope Milford as Sally's friend Vi. Vi is not married to the soldier who leaves her for Vietnam, but she wishes for his return as much as Sally initially misses Bob. Vi also has a brother, played by Robert Carradine, who's suffered a nervous breakdown due to his involvement in Vietnam, perhaps adding to her concerns about her absent lover. Milford is so good in the scenes where Vi's emotions are the most revealed, such as when she and Sally go back to a hotel room with two guys, only to have Vi begin crying over the sadness of her life without Dink (Robert Ginty). It's a resonant scene, and it undoubtedly was a strong reason Milford was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

Dern was likewise nominated for Best Supporting Actor. It's perhaps the best acting I've ever seen him do in his long career. Here he portrays a man who becomes disillusioned with what the soldiers are doing in Vietnam, only to discover that while he has been gone, his wife has started an affair--even more disillusionment. There's always a sense that Dern's Bob is carrying a level of barely concealed rage, even in the movie's early scenes before he leaves for battle. He also isn't a very loving husband at any point in the film, so it's easy to see why Sally finds comfort with someone else. He has to reveal that the injury which has brought him back to the United States is embarrassing, not an injury suffered by a hero. Bob seems to come to a realization about what he's achieved in his life, and Dern's playing of the final scenes with Bob are particularly tense even though you know what he's planning to do.

There's an interesting series of scenes involving the U.S. government's surveillance of Luke. Particularly after the incident where he chained himself to the recruiting depot fence, Luke is considered a potential threat to national security. There are tapes and photographs of the times that he and Sally are together, and they always seem to have a van following them wherever they go. When Bob returns, it's the FBI agents who tell him about Luke and Sally's affair, prompting the confrontation between the three of them that is one of the film's most intense sequences.

The most devastating sequence in the film, though, comes near the end. Luke has been invited to a high school to speak as the counter-argument to a Marine recruiter. The film allows quite a few characters to discuss patriotism, actually, including one ironic speech at a Fourth of July picnic attended by the disabled veterans. Luke's speech to the teens is about what he was asked to do in Vietnam and what he wanted to achieve: "I wanted to be a war hero, man. I wanted to go out and kill for my country. And, now, I'm here to tell you that I have killed for my country or whatever. And I don't feel good about it. Because there's not enough reason, man, to feel a person die in your hands or to see your best buddy get blown away. I'm here to tell you, it's a lousy thing, man. I don't see any reason for it." It's a powerful anti-war speech. I know that many people think that all war movies are truly anti-war, but Coming Home certainly allows us not only to see the perspective of those who opposed Vietnam, but their reasons for arguing against America's involvement.

Oscar Wins: Actor (Voight), Actress (Fonda), and Original Screenplay

Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Dern), Supporting Actress (Milford), and Film Editing

Midnight Express (1978)

A nominee for Best Picture of 1978, Midnight Express depicts the arrest, trial, and imprisonment of an American for attempting to smuggle drugs out of Turkey in 1970. Based upon a true story--but apparently taking considerable liberties with it, according to those directly involved--this film's screenplay won Oliver Stone his first Oscar (before he started directing films as well as writing them). What is admirable about the film is that it fully admits to the guilt of its lead character, Billy Hayes. He's shown in the opening sequence taping the drugs (hashish, if you are curious) to his body, so his guilt is never in doubt. What Midnight Express grapples with instead is the extent to which someone should be punished for such an offense. Its focus is on what should be an appropriate sentence for the crime that Hayes has committed.

Brad Davis plays Hayes, the American who spends several years in prison in Istanbul for his crime. While behind bars, he befriends a group of people who also share his outsider status in Turkey: Jimmy, another American, played a young and slim Randy Quaid; Max, an Englishman, played brilliantly by the incomparable John Hurt; and Erich, a Swede, played by Norbert Weisser. Hayes makes enemies in prison as well, including Rifki (Paolo Bonicello), who takes advantage of the prisoners and rats them out when he gets information on them. Chief among his enemies, though, is the head guard, Hamidou (played by Paul L. Smith), whose mindless brutality is depicted again and again throughout the film.

If Turkish prisons had not already enjoyed a reputation for their deplorable conditions and the mistreatment of prisoners, this film would certainly have given them one. As it is, you get to witness numerous scenes of torture and sadism on the part of the guards and even some of the fellow prisoners. It's quite uncomfortable to watch at times, and I won't describe any of the more intense scenes here. And the country of Turkey does not come off any better in the courtroom scenes either, given the seeming ease with which sentences can be changed (lengthened, in particular) based upon the constant nagging of a prosecutor. The film is pretty heavily stacked against a fair depiction of the country in which it is set, but I suppose to make the point about the conditions in the prison system more forcefully, the filmmakers felt the need to concentrate primarily upon those moments of the most intense pain and injustice.

This film does have much to admire about it. I thought the choice to use Turkish dialogue throughout the movie was especially effective. The filmmakers provide no subtitles, so we as an audience do not know what the men who arrest Billy are saying (well, unless you speak Turkish, I guess), and while he is in prison, at least initially, the Turkish spoken by the guards is even more disorienting. This allows the viewer to get some sense of the feelings that Hayes himself has, that he has been trapped in a world where no one understands him and where he understands no one. It does help to make him a more sympathetic character to an American audience when he is one of the few we can completely understand. Of course, that also makes us even more suspicious of the Turks in charge of the justice system, and the film seems to relish its ability to demonize the guards in particular. Every Turk must be dangerous in the world created by this film. No one ever accused Oliver Stone or even Alan Parker, the director, of subtlety. You may remember that Parker also directed another film I've already reviewed here, Mississippi Burning; reread that post if you're interested in how I feel about how Parker tends to handle controversial or sensitive subject matter.

I also have to mention the musical score. Throughout this film, that synthesizer-heavy theme by Giorgio Moroder becomes more and more ominous. It's quite an effective use of music to reinforce a mood, and it's no wonder that the music became almost as popular as the film. I can even recall a disco version of the theme song to Midnight Express. Hey, it was the late 1970s, and disco was all the rage. Try finding many songs from that era that didn't have a disco version. (Actually, I need to see if I can find that version of the song; I'd like to hear it again.)

This film is also filled with some of the most vivid homoerotic imagery I can recall in a mainstream movie, particularly one that is not about the subject of sexuality. Davis spends a large portion of the film shirtless or in his underwear, and his body is shot in a way that makes him an obvious object of desire on the part of the viewer. He and a fellow prisoner exercise (if that's what the kids are calling it these days) so that their bodies become either parallel or mirror images of each other, making the connections between their bodies a focus, especially given the evocative lighting of this particular scene. And even when the film depicts its homoerotic imagery directly, as when Erich attempts to seduce Billy in the shower, the men are allowed to kiss--more than once, too--and caress each other's bodies before Billy politely refuses Erich's advances. That he has allowed Erich to bathe him in an earlier scene only adds to the homoerotic tension between them. Unfortunately, that is also one of the flaws of this film. If you wish to keep your focus on the unjust treatment of prisoners, you probably shouldn't turn your movie into a gay male fantasy, even if it is only briefly. It's a juxtaposition that is just too jarring at times. That may make it, in some ways, more realistic, but as far as a moviegoing experience, it's a bit of a shock.

I do still think this is a strong film whose theme is an important one. Even though it obviously chooses a side and manages to emphasize only the negative qualities of an entire country of people, Midnight Express makes for a compelling film. The attempts to escape that Billy and his fellow prisoners make are harrowing and tense, and the scenes in the psychiatric ward of the prison are frightening for their depictions of the ways that the mentally ill (and those who are merely accused of being mentally ill) are treated. You'll just have to adjust to the idea of having a man who is admittedly guilty of smuggling drugs as your hero. Hayes is not truly a heroic figure, but he is at times depicted as such here, and that may be the most difficult aspect of the film to watch.

The Deer Hunter (1978)

The Deer Hunter, winner of Best Picture of 1978, is the first Vietnam War movie that I remember seeing as a kid. That would have been thirty years ago at this point, when I was 15 years old, so watching it again this time was a bit of a revelation. This isn't a film that's primarily about what happened in Vietnam although I suspect that's what many people remember about it. This is really more of an investigation of the impact serving in Vietnam had on the soldiers who returned home. I'd forgotten that, and I suspect many others have as well if they haven't seen the film recently.

Only about a third of the film takes place during the war itself, and those scenes are primarily about the games of Russian roulette that three American soldiers have to participate in, thanks to their capture and imprisonment. Those scenes and some later ones involving the same brutal game being played for "fun" or profit were, of course, the ones that I remembered from my first viewing of the film years ago. They are just too shocking, in some ways, to be forgotten. Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage are the three friends who have wound up as POWs. They try to stay together as much as possible during the war but are inevitably separated and go in very different directions with their lives.

DeNiro's Michael returns home to the small Pennsylvania steel town where the three friends lived before, but he has difficulty adjusting to life after his military service. He begins to renew a relationship with Meryl Streep's Linda, a woman who had been dating his friend Nick but who has always had feelings for Michael as well. Savage's Steven has been injured in the war and is now confined to a wheelchair; he prefers to remain institutionalized rather than try to return home and create a life with his wife and child. Nick's story is the most heartbreaking of all; he has been severely emotionally traumatized by the war and seems to find an escape through his continued involvement in Vietnam's underground Russian roulette tournaments. Nick is played by Christopher Walken, who is very good here, a far cry from the parody of himself that Walken has been playing in recent years.

There are four parts to this film, and each is distinct in its tone and imagery. The first is set on the weekend that Steven gets married before going off to war. The other friends go on their last deer hunting trip before Michael and Nick join Steven. It's a bit more than an hour long, and much of that time is spent getting to know the individual characters in some detail. The second part is primarily focused on the three men in the prisoner-of-war camp and their subsequent escape. We are given only about 40 minutes or so of combat and capture, though, as if to suggest that the war itself is not the primary focus. Third comes the return to the United States for Michael and Steven. Michael, in particular, has become a very different man than the one who left for Vietnam early in the film, and The Deer Hunter gives us another hunting trip to show the contrast as sharply as possible. The final main portion of the film deals with Michael's return to Vietnam to retrieve Nick. Clocking in at a bit more than three hours, The Deer Hunter manages to take its time very carefully in depicting even of these major portions of the plot. Each is thoughtfully presented, and each contributes to the overall impact that the film has.

All of the members of the cast are excellent, and the direction by Michael Cimino is first-rate, worthy of his award as Best Director that year. Hollywood seemed to turn its attention finally in the late 1970s when it came to the Vietnam War. This was the same year as Coming Home, which was nominated for Best Picture against The Deer Hunter, and the following year saw Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola's epic reimagining of The Heart of Darkness as a Vietnam era parable. The Deer Hunter was, I think, one of the best films about the ways in which our country dealt with this time period, and it retains for me even more power today than it did when I watched it as a teenager all those many long years ago.

An Unmarried Woman (1978)

An Unmarried Woman was nominated for Best Picture of 1978, and I think it's one of the great forgotten movies of that decade. It's the story of a woman named Erica whose husband leaves her for a younger woman, someone he met while shopping. She learns to adjust--slowly--to single life as the film progresses, even taking a chance on love again, if a bit tentatively at first. This is a beautiful film filled with a true sense of what life for a divorced woman was like in New York at the time.

The heart of this film is the staggering performance of Jill Clayburgh as Erica. She's a remarkable presence here, always fascinating to watch. I'd never seen this film before, but I have seen Clayburgh in other roles. Nothing can quite prepare you, however, for the depth of her characterization in An Unmarried Woman. She makes you feel each emotion she goes through during the course of the movie. Clayburgh didn't win the Oscar that year for Best Actress, but I can't quite see how anyone else did a more powerful job. She's amazing, a complex and real person on the screen with all of her human traits, good and bad.

There are some moments that really stand out for me. I was stunned--as I'm sure most viewers of this film are--that Erica's husband dumps her in public. Michael Murphy as her husband Martin could have easily chosen to portray his character as a cad, but you do get a sense of his own frustrations in scenes like this. Cliff Gorman, channeling a very different energy from his role in The Boys in the Band, plays an artist who has been hitting on Erica for some time, sort of typical male chauvinist. Their night of passion is, by turns, funny and touching and quite sexy.

However, my favorite parts of the movie are those involving Erica's "club." It's really four friends who get together regularly to talk about their lives. Their affection for each other is always obvious, particularly in the scene where the four of them are sitting in a bed talking about their lives and loves. This movie shows a tremendous bond between women, no doubt a tribute to the consciousness raising groups that were available during that time period. Pat Quinn, Kelly Bishop, and Linda Miller play the three friends, and they're all good, each one representing a different personality type, yet all of them fully supportive even in times of disagreement.

This is a modern-day "women's picture." It's about finding someone to love, certainly, but it's more about loving one's own self. I know that sounds pretty selfish or self-centered, but you can appreciate that Erica isn't looking to have another man in her life to serve as the center of her universe. Although Alan Bates as a painter who becomes her lover is certainly a good choice for the job, she needs some sense of her own identity. That's a strong feminist statement, one that doesn't get made very often these days.

I won't spoil the ending for you, but I have to say that one of the true joys of watching this movie is seeing Clayburgh walking down the streets of New York City with an enormous painting. It's a thrilling sequence, one that I think perfectly captures the right mood at the end of the film.

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

This is the 1978 version of Heaven Can Wait, although three versions of this story (one of them entitled Here Comes Mr. Jordan) have been nominated for Best Picture. Warren Beatty plays Rams football star Joe Pendleton, who is accidentally killed before he is scheduled to die, thanks to the interference of an overly eager angel. Once he gets to heaven, the situation becomes even worse because his original body has been cremated, so the angels (in the guise of Buck Henry and James Mason) attempt to find him another body to occupy. They choose the body of a millionaire who has just been murdered, and Joe assumes his new identity as Leo Farnsworth.

So overwhelming is his desire to play in the Super Bowl, however, that it isn't long before he's bought his old team and convinced his former coach Max, played with great mugging by Jack Warden, that he's the reincarnation of his old quarterback self. They begin training him for a return to football, despite his being significantly older than a football player should be.

The supporting cast is all top-notch, particularly Dyan Cannon and Charles Grodin as the would-be murderers (the old man's wife and his accountant, respectively). I remember seeing this movie when it was released in theaters--I was 15 years old then--and enjoying it immensely. It was one of the first "grown-up" movies I was taken to see, and I felt like I had been admitted to an exclusive society when I got all of the jokes. Even at that age (which was a younger 15 than it is today), I understood that Cannon's and Grodin's characters were having an affair, and I thus thoroughly enjoyed the scene where Leo bursts into the bedroom (all done up in a single print fabric) and announces that he wants a divorce.

My fondest memories, though, were of Beatty's co-star (and one of his many former lovers): Julie Christie. I don't recall having ever seen anyone as beautiful as she on a movie screen. I was entranced from the moment I saw her. And Beatty, serving as one of the directors, has shot her to be luminous. Each time she appears on the screen, you want Leo (and anyone else) to fall in love with her, to do whatever she asks. Of course, she wants the impossible, really, to have Mr. Farnsworth give up one of his money-making ventures because it endangers a small town she loves back in the U.K. Naturally, she persuades him, much to the surprise of his board of directors. But, honestly, could you deny Julie Christie anything? More than 40 years have passed since she first garnered worldwide attention in Darling, and she continues to dazzle audiences. She managed to take even a tiny part in the movie Troy and make it memorable, and I defy almost anyone not to cry when she is brought to tears near the end of Finding Neverland. She wasn't nominated in 1978 for Best Actress for Heaven Can Wait, but I hope she is on the short list again this year for Away from Her. She remains a marvel, and I'll always treasure Heaven Can Wait for introducing her to me almost 30 years ago.