Kind of Blue? Fade In (1968)

"Both pictures are either going to be great or be disaster areas. There will be no middle ground with either one."

Judd Bernard, Producer for Blue and Fade In

As previously mentioned, Fade In was filmed at the same time as Silvio Narizzano’s film Blue (1968) and it features the fictionalised story of two people involved in the making of that film. It’s a meta concept with Blue’s stars Joanna Pettet and Terence Stamp shown arriving and on their way to the Utah desert set with the latter even getting a speaking role as a garage attendant asks of the film will feature John Wayne. It’s an intriguing concept and whilst the ideal way to experience ethe two would have been to have them on the same bill, it took a number of years for Fade In to make it to the screen and this was as a TV movie in late 1973, after its star Burt Reynolds had made Deliverance and become one of the biggest names in Hollywood.

So, what happened and why was this charming if low energy film consigned to the darkness for so long? A clue can be found in the fact director Jud Taylor asked for his name to be taken off the picture as did the scriptwriter Mart Crowley… "I did write one film, Fade-In, with Barbara Loden and Burt Reynolds in starring roles. However, it was butchered by other writers. It was never released. I paid Paramount $1700 to take my name off the project."

The credited writer was Jerrold L Ludwig, one of Mr Crowley’s butchers, whilst director was “Allen Smithee” a made-up name devised to get around the requirement of the Directors Guild of America that each film was to have a named director. The studio didn’t like Taylor’s cut and he certainly didn’t like theirs and perhaps even they weren’t that keen…

 

Burt Reynolds and Barbara Loden make film...

The film starts in an intriguing enough way as massive trucks trundle through the desert as seen only in fictional form and a century earlier in Blue. Then its almost a shock to see Terry Stamp driving his e-type Jaguar – oh Tel, you were living the dream mate! – towards the location, reminding the viewer perhaps of David Hemmings in his open top Roller in Blow Up (1966). Stamp was so location-specific this makes his appearance in Blue even stranger.

Pretty soon though we’re seeing Burt Reynold’s as Rob, a local rancher looking to get some work as a driver on set, waiting as Joanna Pettet’s plane arrives – cue some appreciative comments form his pal Bud (the ever-reliable James Hampton) before Rob sets eyes on Jean (Barbara Loden), the film’s assistant editor, who he is to chauffer. The two hit it off and Rob proves to be a gentleman walking her home and protecting her from a couple of his drunken pals… he’s already BURT, handsome, pensive and a powerful presence.

Rob and Jean get to know each other and we also get some fascinating glimpses of Blue being made from the camera’s sweeping around the filming of the deadly meeting of Blue’s compadres and the Mexican soldiers to Jean demonstrating the art of editing and the Kuleshov effect, cutting the action to generate an emotional narrative for the audience. In his turn Rob show the city girl his world from acting the cowboy and skinny dipping – there’s a lot of Burt on show!

 

Their romantic journey continues even as Jean’s place-holder boyfriend Bill arrives from Los Angeles… she’s more interested in her new lover although she finds him struggling to accept this. It’s a tale of people from two completely different worlds, one perhaps more real than the other and you wonder what will happen when the play-acting ends and both have to return to reality?

Dusty Verdict:  Fade In has a terrible reputation but it’s likeable enough in its lightweight way. It certainly benefited from being seen directly after Blue and the two together make for an interesting time capsule of Hollywood ideology from this period. If Stamp was out of place in Blue Reynolds is perfectly cast in this world and there are more than enough hints of his star power and persona to come.

A rainy-day film for romantics… after being hard to find for decades both films are now on blu-ray along with a documentary on Silvio Narizzano, whose idea it all was! Details of the Australian version are here!

 

 

The alpha male gaze... Shamus (1973)

Ah Burt Reynolds, top-earning movie star for five years later in the decade and fresh off the back of his stunning turn in Deliverance, here displaying that unique chemistry that made men want to be him and women, no doubt, want to be with him. This is by way of balance with other films I may has assessed with reference to the characteristics of female stars, always couched in the most respectfully considered of phrases of course, but here the male gaze is very much on Burt’s physique through large chunks of the film. Director Buzz Kulik just can’t get enough of the Burt-bod and it’s displayed as often as possible along with the actor’s laconic charm.

Seymour “Buzz” Kulik worked mostly in TV and this film does have the feel of a TV movie being neither as gritty as a Clint Eastwood cinematic release nor as long on budget. We get plenty of good location work in New York along with a huge dash of class from Dyan Canon who, in the absence of a great script literally laughs her way through certain scenes. She first meets Burt’s character, a private dick called Shamus McCoy, in a bar as he pinches her bottom pretending it was an effeminate man nervously nursing a beer; Dyan knows there’s not enough here and we know but she smiles her way through all the same with enough brilliance to suggest real chemistry between the characters.

Burt

Shamus is indeed “of its time” but I chose to believe that the focus on Reynold’s sexuality is more ground-breaking than it might look, certainly in the absence of overt nudity from Cannon and the other female performers. It feels like a succession of early 70s tropes all tied together by a vaguely believable storyline laden with character quirks and action opportunities for the former parole officer, truck driver and stunt man.

"I don't care whether he can act or not, anyone who has this effect on women deserves a break…” said Lew Wasserman after Reynolds signed a seven-year deal with Universal in the late 50’s. But Burt worked hard to become a naturalistic player and enjoyed that huge career as a result of his work ethic as well as his natural charms. By 1973 it may have looked like he could walk his way through any movie and in Shamus he does exactly that… and he’s a force of nature matched only by Cannon’s elegantly restrained star power: she’s a Dyan Dazzler alright and technically very gifted. She had in fact withdrawn from the business after her toxic time on Such Good Friends (reviewed elsewhere on this blog) but was keen to work with Reynolds and they do work a screwball charm together.

Burt and Dyan showing their chemistry

Shamus starts of with the brutal murder of a couple who are burned to death in their bed and a packet of diamonds stolen. The titles roll as we cut to Shamus waking up with a hangover and a blonde in his bed atop a pool table in his “characterful” warehouse apartment somewhere in downtown Manhattan. Heck, minus the blonde-night stand (Melody Santangelo) and the pool table we’ve all had wakeups like this, albeit without Burt’s Velcro-vulnerable torso.

He gets the call to visit the local Mr Big, or as he is properly entitled, Mister E.J. Hume (Ron Weyand) who has all the signifiers of a weirdo criminal; large mansion, check, security guards walking huge attack dogs, check and aircon in his office which he keeps near freezing… check, but possible over-elaboration. Shamus is frightened of the dogs, possibly hinting at some childhood trauma or at least good common sense given the size of them. He gets offered the job of retrieving Hume’s diamonds and finding out who had the audacity to rob him…

Mister E.J. Hume and his men

This is a hot one and almost no one is talking not even at Shamus’s favourite pool hall not even the insatiably chatty Springy (Larry Block) , who can’t stop quoting sporting facts, unloading the contents of a memory almost full of photographic memories… Springy set out to find what he can while Shamus pops upstairs to a gambling den to chat with his childhood pal is Lieutenant Promuto (Joe Santos – who also played Jim Rockford’s favourite cop!), street-wise and willing to help his friend if only to keep him out of trouble.

A lead from one of the card players leads Shamus to a junky – cue chase and threats with violence – and from there to a bar called The Health Club where he meets Springy for a de-brief and, despite taking a brief time out to sexually harass Dyan Cannon’s Alexis Montaigne, who’s brother owns the bar, he spots a dodgy looking waiter. He stakes out the joint from a bookshop across the road run by an attractive redhead (Kay Frye) and passes the time by making a pass… sometime later her leaves the shop and then sets about assaulting the waiter in exchange for a little more information to lead him on.

Dyan Cannon, Burt and Alex Wilson

He’s beginning to make connections which is exactly why he is ambushed in his apartment by three guys who beat him up and tell him to reconsider his career path. Springy finds him fully clothed in the bath soothing his bruises in his overly quirky way. But he’s not the kind of man to take a beating and knowing now that Alexis’ brother Felix (Alex Wilson) is involved he heads to their plus midtown apartment to find out exactly how much…

The film is a jumble of set pieces and set characters and naturally Felix is an Ivy League smart Alec too involved to feel the need to explain himself to a private eye. Still, it’s a chance for Shamus to charm Alexis some more and we know where this is headed… but he’ll have to work at his chance to play pool with Alexis.

The story has more twists and turns than is healthy and whilst these “McGuffins” are all necessary to move the story on, you don’t necessarily care about the central crime at the heart of the story. What you do get is plenty of action in the closing stages, allowing Burt to run some stunts and escape the bad guys after uncovering – part – of the shocking truth in a warehouse. Then he finds a military connection via Alexis and the two have to escape the same careless henchmen this time driving in a US Army truck… Smokey and the Bandit never had it so good!

Dusty Verdict: This film is fun, but the reasons for it are most certainly not to do with the story, you have two bankable, exceptionally likeable stars and some great period New York City and the vague satisfaction that these are the good guys. But the stakes are rarely raised and that’s surely something that could easily have been fixed.

All the same, worth watching for Dyan and Burt! Plus, a cracking score from legend Jerry Goldsmith!

Easy-going rider… Sam Whiskey (1969)

I have fond memories of this comedy western from its television screenings – perfect family entertainment at a time when we had only three channels to choose from… we were more easily pleased.

Having not watched it since, I was unsure how the future star of the mighty Deliverance and,er Smokey and the Bandit would fare when confronted with my older, more considered, gaze…

Sam Whiskey now appears like a slightly higher-budget TV movie with extensive use of standard backlot real estate and westerners who look like they bathe and have regular haircuts. It ambles along in a pleasant way but there’s not much jeopardy or tension.

Burt Reynolds in typical pose

Burt Reynolds plays Sam Whiskey an adventurer who has failed to make the big time and yet whose reputation is enough to arouse the interest of a damsel in distress seeking criminal expertise. Laura Breckenridge (Angie Dickinson) is looking to clear her late husband’s name by returning the $200,000 in gold he stole from the Denver Mint during the Civil War.

The gold bars went down with all hands on a paddle steamer and she is convinced that they can be retrieved and then returned before the routine inspection (not sure why this has taken so long…)

Laura is a very persuasive woman...

In spite of Mrs Breckenridge’s obvious charms, Sam is reluctant to under-take what looks like an impossible task but, she reinforces monetary incentive with repeated amorous inducements leaving Sam weak enough to agree… Dickinson plays the sex-kitten very well but you do wish she’d been given just that bit more to do. She has good chemistry with Reynolds but their relationship is too much of a one-note affair.

Sam recruits local blacksmith Jed Hooker (Ossie Davis) to help even though Jed sees right through his bluff and bluster and the an old friend, inventor O.W. Bandy (Clint Walker) who just happens to have a machine gun.

Burt Reynolds and Ossie Davis

From the outset they are trailed by an overweight man with thick lensed spectacles, Fat Henry Hobson (Rick Davis) who wants to take the gold for himself.

They find the sunken boat and using Bandy’s devices, dive down into the river to start retrieving the gold bars… but all the while Fat Henry and his men are watching…

But the tone of Sam Whiskey turns in the next few scenes as Jed and Bandy are captured by some ornery lookin’ hombres who look set to torture and slice the men in horrible ways - Anthony James as Cousin Leroy was always excellent at “unsavoury” and he is genuinely so in the few frames he’s allowed.

Sam swims over from his hiding place and unleashes Bandy’s machine gun which, miraculously, mows down the baddies while leaving his pals unscathed… and it’s all over in a flash of clinical retribution.

Ossie Davis, unsavoury Anthony James and Clint Walker

The film’s uneven tone becomes more focused as Sam and the boys arrive at the Mint and have to work out an ingenious method of returning the gold. As their deadline looks more and more impossible genuine tension is felt as their scheme unfolds…

Dickinson rehashes her sexy moves as she holds a genuine Bank inspector captive, whilst Sam’s inventive criminal skill is put to the test: perhaps Mrs Breckenridge knew exactly what she was doing all along?

No giving away the ending though…

Arnold Laven directs very effectively and gives his stars full reign, although it still feels like Reynolds and Dickinson barely get out of second gear… Talking of which, a scene of Angie "bare-from-the-waist-up" was cut to ensure the film’s family friendly rating, which may also explain the shift to cartoon violence mentioned above. The film plays it very safe.

Angie Dickinson

Dusty verdict: Well worth a watch if you’re in the mood for amiable entertainment, Burt Reynold’s cheek and Angie Dickinson’s endless charm.

It’s available on DVD from the usual places and probably screens on TCM every other week… I’ll be keeping my old VHS.