Movie Review: The Day Of The Locust (1975)

A Hollywood drama, The Day Of The Locust is an acerbic yet listless condemnation of an industry's sordid underbelly.

It's the 1930s, and Tod Hackett (William Atherton) arrives in Hollywood with dreams of making it as a set design artist. He finds an apartment at the rundown San Bernardino Arms and meets his neighbours, a collection of wannabes at the margins of the movie industry. He quickly falls in love with Faye Greener (Karen Black), a vivacious extra striving for greater roles, but she rejects him. 

Faye's father Harry (Burgess Meredith) is a former small-time vaudevillian and now a door-to-door salesman in poor health, peddling a miracle cure. He collapses in the apartment of inhibited accountant Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland), which leads to Faye and Homer starting a muted relationship.

Tod secures a job in the studio art department run by Claude Estee (Richard Dysart) and Ned Grote (John Hillerman), and never loses hope of winning Faye's heart. He meets her friends Miguel (Pepe Serna), who is involved in cockfighting, and cowboy Earle Shoop (Bo Hopkins). Tod and Faye attend a fake healing church sermon run by Big Sister (Geraldine Page), and survive a spectacular on-set calamity while filming a recreation of the Battle of Waterloo.

An adaptation of the 1939 book by Nathanael West, The Day Of The Locust attempts to shine a light on the victims of Hollywood's unforgiving culture. But the film is an overlong and momentum-free effort, a suffocatingly boring journey through the gutter of the boulevard of broken dreams. 

The riffraff characters are a collection of down-and-outs lacking self awareness and pathetically still pursuing the bright lights. They are uniformly unappealing and one-dimensional in their capacity to hit the same notes and achieve the same outcome, director John Schlesinger unable to generate sympathy or trace engaging arcs.

And so Tod expresses his love for Faye early, she makes it clear he's not good enough for her, and this dynamic remains unchanged, much like their careers are stalled in the same place. She gravitates towards accountant Homer, who may have some wealth but compensates with a vacuous personality. Donald Sutherland sleepwalks through the role with a startled, deer-in-the-headlights look, except that a deer may have more to say than Homer does.

Elsewhere the cockfighting subplot and stag film interlude offer crass symbolism about Hollywood's sex-obsessed and bloodthirsty ruthlessness, while too much time is invested in Harry Greener before he mercifully expires. Other characters including studio executive Claude Estee, excitable cowboy Earle Shop, madame Mary Dove, foul-mouthed dwarf Abe and child actor Adore (Jackie Earle Haley) may have been more prominent in early drafts, but in the final product they barely register and simply add clutter and bemusement.

The set designs are attractive, and if nothing else The Day Of The Locust is always gorgeous to look at. The drama ends with a gargoylian opera of stampedic violence, fantastical puss popping into the oblivious eye of a movie premiere. As metaphors go its an appropriately overripe ending to a bloated yet dreary spectacle.



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Movie Review: Madame X (1966)

A melodrama about one woman's downfall, Madame X sinks into a churning sea of sentimentality. 

Clay Anderson (John Forsythe) is the scion of an influential Connecticut family, living with his mother Estelle (Constance Bennett) in their grand ancestral home. He marries San Francisco shopgirl Holly Parker (Lana Turner) and they have a child. Clay travels constantly in pursuit of a diplomatic career, and Holly succumbs to loneliness and seeks comfort with suave bachelor Phil Benton (Ricardo Montalban).

Clay's sudden return from a long trip and Phil's unexpected demise threaten a tragic scandal. The vindictive Estelle is eager to preserve the family reputation and pressures Holly into faking her death and disappearing forever from the lives of the Andersons. Initially relocating to Europe and meeting charming musician Christian Torben (John van Dreelen), her life spirals downwards. In Mexico she falls into the clutches of serial swindler Dan Sullivan (Burgess Meredith) as fate conspires to reunite her with the Andersons and her now grown son Clay Jr. (Keir Dullea).

Another Hollywood remake of the 1908 French play by Alexandre Bisson, the 1966 version is colourful, glossy, and crushingly boring. Producer Ross Hunter aims for the glory years of Douglas Sirk social melodramas, but 10 years later and in the uninspired hands of television director David Lowell Rich, Madame X is a glorified small screen soap opera, lacking in context, depth and thematic commentary.

The problems start with the casting of John Forsythe (48 years old) and Lana Turner (44 years old) as newlyweds, creating a disorienting 15 year narrative shift. Not surprisingly, both are unconvincing. With his wealth and family connections Forsythe's Clay should be well further ahead in his career, while Turner struggles to settle in the role of a naive bride unaware what she married into. However, her performance improves with her character's age and Turner commendably embraces a dowdy and deglamourized image as Holly's fortunes nosedive. Constance Bennett, in her final film appearance, adds a welcome spark as the conniving mother-in-law .

The Jean Holloway script lacks subtlety, and the second half is one mother's neverending farewell to a tormented life. The final 45 minutes surrender to various levels of physical, mental and emotional agony, Holly often on her back in bed and flirting with death. The wallowing is made much worse by a syrupy and unrelenting Frank Skinner music score designed to emphasize all the weepy moments.

The climax arrives in a courtroom filled with far-fetched coincidences and characters floundering in oblivion. Madame X is destined for a hard life, and her film is equally dire.



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Movie Review: The Story Of G.I. Joe (1945)

A poignant view of war from the perspective of lowly infantrymen, The Story Of G.I. Joe is a glamour-free chronicle of the ravages of war. 

It's 1943, and war correspondent Ernie Pyle (Burgess Meredith) joins the raw recruits of the US Army's C Company, 18th Infantry, as they truck their way to the front lines in North Africa. Lieutenant Bill Walker (Robert Mitchum) is aware his men lack experience, and not surprisingly their first test ends in defeat at Kasserine Pass.

Months later Pyle rejoins C Company, now making their way through Italy. Walker has been promoted to Captain, and the men have become expert killing machines, efficiently dislodging German defenders from a church bell tower. But after endless days of marching and combat, the increasingly exhausted and jaded soldiers get bogged down at Monte Cassino, where fortified German positions pin them down into a muddy battle of attrition.

Ernie Pyle was a celebrated World War Two correspondent, his newspaper columns bringing the war home through stories of sons and husbands fighting and dying in distant lands. With a cast combining professional actors and actual servicemen, The Story Of G.I. Joe is based on Pyle's witnessed accounts and newspaper columns, although details were understandably simplified. Remarkable for the 1945 context, the movie is devoid of any propaganda or jingoism. 

Instead, this is the grim realism of war, men trudging for endless miles on foot, in the mud and rain, sleeping rough, combating fatigue, boredom, depression and desperation, and longing for home. Director William Wellman zooms in close and uses silence to great effect, capturing the transformation of raw recruits to battle hardened but increasingly soul-dead professional soldiers. The few scenes of combat are tense and sharply choreographed, while away from the front lines the incessant dull thud of artillery serves as a constant reminder of the unfolding destruction.

Pyle was in his forties, and in relative terms an old man in the eyes of the infantrymen. Yet he earned respect by sharing every step of their experience, and the unlikely warm bond between soldiers and journalist forms the heart of the film.

While the group's humanity is revealed through their concerted caring for a small dog, Wellman is able to define a few of the men as individuals, although their background stories and personalities are shrouded in the collective experience. Murphy (John R. Reilly) had his heart set on the glamour of the Air Force but was deemed too tall. Dondaro (Wally Cassell) is a rampant womanizer and seeks female companionship in every bombed out corner. Warnicki (Freddie Steele) is a quiet family man, and spends the Italian campaign desperately searching for a phonograph to try and listen to a voice recording of his young son. And Mew (William Murphy) has no family, and has to decide who to name as beneficiaries on his life insurance policy.

Walker is their leader, but unable to prevent the pain of war from extinguishing the spark in his eyes. In his first leading role Robert Mitchum does more with less in portraying a steady presence, until a searing scene unleashes the pain and guilt accumulated from marching an endless succession of young men into the arena of death.

The Story Of G.I. Joe distills the war experience to exhausted drudgery amidst physical destruction, an inescapable nightmare where nothing thrives except death.

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The Movies Of Burgess Meredith

All movies starring Burgess Meredith and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Story Of G.I. Joe (1945)

Madame X (1966)

A Big Hand For The Little Lady (1966)

MacKenna's Gold (1969)

The Day Of The Locust (1975)

The Hindenburg (1975)

Rocky (1976)

Rocky II (1979)

True Confessions (1981)

Rocky III (1982)

Rocky IV (1985, uncredited archival footage only)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Rocky II (1979)

The first of many sequels to the surprise hit of 1976, Rocky II continues the story of slow but likeable boxer Rocky Balboa. The film is a polished character study with a rousing climactic fight, but the raw tenderness of the original is naturally missing.

The film starts exactly where the original ended, with unheralded boxer Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) losing a split decision to heavyweight world champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), but winning the public's heart and the love of girlfriend Adrian (Talia Shire). Post-fight Rocky retires, marries Adrian, and quick spends the little money that he earned. He does his best to find respectable employment, but not much works out for him, and he ends up back at the meat processing plant and then running trivial errands at the gym owned by his trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith).

Apollo is embarrassed because the fight was much closer than it should have been, and starts a campaign to humiliate Rocky into accepting a rematch, vowing that this time he will win in short order. With his money and options running out Rocky reluctantly agrees to a second fight and starts training with Mickey, against the wishes of Adrian, who is now very pregnant. But without Adrian's support Rocky puts no real effort into training. When a health scare strikes the family, his attention is diverted further away from preparing for the fight, leaving him vulnerable to a potentially crushing defeat.

This time Sylvester Stallone writes, directs and stars, and all the gang from the original film is back, including Burt Young as Adrian's brother Paulie and Joe Spinell as Tony Gazzo, the friendly neighbourhood loan shark. The sequel is well-made, invests the time to build to its single fight, and allows the central character to grow and develop further as a person.

But Rocky II suffers somewhat from an egotistical undercurrent. Most of the film is about Rocky struggling to adjust to life outside the ring, and Stallone directs himself with a persistent whiff of humble smugness that gets tiresome. The performance is not the problem as much as the cutesiness of the character, as Rocky seems unable to do anything wrong, but the world around him conspires to turn a cold shoulder on the loveable lug and his equally sappy big dog. Moments of humour do help, and nevertheless it is difficult to dislike Rocky given his propensity for self-depreciation.

Once Apollo goads Rocky to commit to a rematch, the film switches to his lack of motivation due to Adrian's lack of support and then a long stint dealing with a medical emergency. This is by far the weakest part of the film, and although the attempt is laudable, Stallone is simply not ready to write, direct or star in dramatic scenes where emotions drive the plot. The whole segment comes across as childish, including Mickey screaming incessantly but uselessly at his boxer to shape up, and repetitive scenes of Rocky in a chapel waiting for divine intervention.

The climactic showdown kicks the energy level right back up to maximum levels. The rematch in the ring is more of a brawl than a recognizable boxing fight, both fighters throwing punches with wild abandon and ignoring anything that looks like defence or strategy. But it is also undoubtedly exciting, and Stallone finds a rousing ending to conclude the film on a high.

Just as Rocky the fighter deserved a rematch and a second shot at the title, Rocky Balboa the character deserved at least one sequel, and Rocky II is a decent enough effort. It was never going to carry the pathos of the original, but it progresses the story of an unlikely hero into the next phase of his career.

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