Movie Reviews: The Beverly Hillbillies (1993)

A limp comedy, The Beverly Hillbillies contains maybe two laughs and a lot of wasted talent.

In rural Arkansas, massive oilfields are discovered on the swamplands owned by widower Jed Clampett (Jim Varney). He sells the land for $1 billion, and moves with his tomboy daughter Elly May (Erika Eleniak), doofus nephew Jethro (Diedrich Bader) and crusty mother-in-law Daisy May (Cloris Leachman) to a massive mansion in Beverly Hills.

Banker Milburn Drysdale (Dabney Coleman) and his assistant Jane Hathaway (Lily Tomlin) quickly swing into action to ensure that the Clampetts remain good clients. As a result Jethro gets an undeserved position at the bank, and Jane attempts to satisfy Jed's quest for a new wife. Meanwhile, bank employee Tyler (Rob Schneider) tries to plot a way to get his hands on Jed's fortune, and sends in his girlfriend Laura Jackson (Lea Thompson) disguised as a French teacher of manners to infiltrate the family.

Based on the 1960s television sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies is a dumb exercise in milking a familiar property well past the expiry date. Directed by Penelope Spheeris with a script mushed together by four writers but containing barely any ideas, the film is devoid of charm, humour and wit. Instead the attempted jokes remain at the sub-juvenile level, the antics maybe somewhat funny for the sheltered sub-10 year old set.

The entirety of what passes as plot is made up of bankers Drysdale, Hathaway and Tyler tripping over each other to either suck-up to the Clampetts or steal from them. The family are stock rural simpletons straight from the hinterlands as imagined for 1960s television comedy, and what may have been funny on the small screen in decades past - granny totes a shotgun! daughter is an animal loving tomboy! - has long since gone stale. Acknowledging the pathetic bankruptcy of actual ideas, Spheeris throws in some Benny Hill-style fast-forwarded group chase idiocy.

Respected actors Lily Tomlin, Cloris Leachman, Dabney Coleman and Lea Thompson generally embarrass themselves with varying degrees of over-acting, and are joined by braindead comedy regulars Varney and Schneider, who are more comfortable in these kinds of gutters. Dolly Parton, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Buddy Ebsen contribute cameos.

The only good thing that can be said about The Beverly Hillbillies is that it is mercifully short. The film comes and goes in about 90 minutes, leaving nothing behind except the stink of a talentless money grab.

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Movie Review: High Anxiety (1977)

A parody of Alfred Hitchcock's signature films, High Anxiety stumbles and falls into low-brow comedy of the stupid kind.

The respected Dr. Richard Thorndyke (Mel Brooks) arrives in Los Angeles to take over as the head of the Psycho Neurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous. The previous head died under mysterious circumstances, and Richard soon encounters the weird characters who make up the hospital staff. Nurse Diesel (Cloris Leachman) hisses evil and looks like death warmed over, the oily Dr. Montague (Harvey Korman) is ambitious and incompetent, while Dr. Wentworth (Dick Van Patten) appears nervous enough to be a patient and is primed to be the next victim.

Thorndyke, who suffers from a fear of heights condition known as high anxiety, meets some of the patients and finds wealthy industrialist Arthur Brisbane (Charlie Callas) locked in his room, acting like a dog. On a trip to San Francisco to attend a conference, Thorndyke is approached by the icy blonde and breathless Victoria Brisbane (Madeline Kahn), Arthur's daughter, who wants to help her father. After a series of strange events, Thorndyke begins to suspect that the Institute is home to a nefarious conspiracy.

Directed, produced and co-written by Brooks, High Anxiety attempts to recreate the parody success of Young Frankenstein, this time by celebrating psychological suspense thrillers, but fails miserably. With a complete absence of ambiance, plot, or wit, Brooks defaults to lowest common denominator primitive humour, and the film collapses into a series of unrelated and entirely unsophisticated sketches.

Scenes that are meant to be funny depict a psychiatric patient acting like a dog; a murder committed by loud music; and secret sadomasochistic sessions at the institute. While the suspense genre relies on nuance, hints of danger and careful build-up, High Anxiety dispenses with anything resembling a deft touch and piles on the harsh juvenile antics, almost all of which fall flat, with many of the scenes unnecessarily extended in length to mask the absence of substance.

The references to Hitchcock are plenty, including the recreation of scenes and themes from North By Northwest, Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds, Dial M For Murder and Spellbound. The Psycho shower attack scene is telegraphed minutes in advance, but the execution is still clever. Perhaps the one good joke in the film riffs on The Birds, with the feathered critters finding a new way to take their revenge on humans. Otherwise Brooks and his team of three other writers are unable to weave anything resembling an actual story worth following, and High Anxiety defaults to a line-them-up-and knock-them-down series of obvious references to other films.

All the performances are ridiculously over the top, with Leachman particularly guilty of manic excess. High Anxiety attempts to salute the master of suspense, but delivers a heap of nonsense instead.

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The Movies Of Cloris Leachman

All movies starring Cloris Leachman and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

The Rack (1956)

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Young Frankenstein (1974)

High Anxiety (1977)

The Beverly Hillbillies (1993)

Now And Then (1995)

Music Of The Heart (1999)

Spanglish (2004)

The Women (2008)

You Again (2010, uncredited)

Gambit (2012)

The Comedian (2016)

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Movie Review: Spanglish (2004)

A thoughtful exploration of parenting through the immigrant experience prism, Spanglish is a tender comedy brimming with a frothy human spirit.

The film is presented as an essay by Cristina Moreno, as she applies to enter Princeton University. Cristina names her mother Flor as her hero, and the film is a flashback recounting their story. In Mexico, Flor (Paz Vega) was abandoned as a young mother, and took it upon herself to cross illegally into the US with her daughter Cristina to seek a better future. After six years of confining herself to the Los Angeles Hispanic community, Flor still knows no English but strikes out into the world of the white people to try and make more money to better support Cristina (Shelbie Bruce), now almost a teenager. Flor finds employment as a housekeeper and nanny with the Clasky family.

Deborah Clasky (Téa Leoni) immediately takes a liking to Flor, despite having recently been laid off and still suffering through an emotional crisis. Her husband John (Adam Sandler) is a chef with a growing reputation. They have two children, Bernice (Sarah Steele) and George. Bernice is a bit pudgy, a condition that just adds to Deborah's stress levels and to the strain on John and Deborah's marriage. When the family moves into a beachfront home for the summer, they invite Flor and Cristina to stay with them. Deborah starts showering Cristina with affection, much to Flor's consternation, while John and Flor find plenty of emotions in common, despite the difficulty of communicating across a language barrier.

Written and directed by James L. Brooks with an eye to mixing societal commentary with romance and some humour, Spanglish succeeds in its delicate balancing act. The film unfolds with a gentle rhythm, the three main adult characters orbiting each other in search of emotional fulfilment, seeking happiness as parents and craving, in their own way, success for their children.

Flor, Deborah, and John are each facing major challenges, and they will complicate each other’s lives while simultaneously strengthening their dependencies. Deborah’s nervous breakdown reduces her ability to function as a wife and mother, as she is wrapped up in low self-esteem. She also latches on to Cristina as a more perfect surrogate daughter, seemingly smarter than Bernice and not suffering through the weight issues. Flor depends on Deborah for her livelihood, but quickly learns to resent the influence of her employer on Cristina.

Meanwhile, John is trying to survive his wife’s meltdown and the distraction of his growing professional reputation as a leading chef. The connection between Flor and John, both emotionally abandoned, is warm and genuine, and handled with an unusual sensitivity that allows the flame of love to flicker to life at its own magical pace.

The language barrier and the immigrant divide between Flor and the Claskys is used as a clever device for some pointed humour and social observations. Brooks finds a terrific peak in a scene where John and Flor argue while Cristina provides animated translation services. The degree of mutual dependency is emphasized by the need to tolerate the fragmented communication channels, while Flor’s willingness to learn a new language highlights the commitment of newcomers to their children’s success in the new world.

Adam Sandler plays John with a welcome laid back comfort, convincing as a man trying to keep his household together despite a disintegrating wife. Téa Leoni is all-in as Deborah, finding the fine line where stress and functionality rub against each other. Leoni plays Deborah as an often normal woman, but suffering from worrisome episodes of excessive and impulsive behaviour triggered by her emotionally fragile state.

Paz Vega steals the film as Flor, the heroine of the story and the central focus of Cristina's life. Vega learned her English along with her character on the set of the movie, and conjures up a performance of resolute courage. Cloris Leachman adds a dose of comic relief as Deborah’s mom and a former music pop star, abandoning her drinking when it’s time to become a parent again.

Warm and heartfelt, Spanglish is a treat in any language.

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Movie Review: Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

A staggeringly effective film noir that plumbs the depths of abject fears propelled by the Cold War's promise of nuclear annihilation, Kiss Me Deadly is a small story that just happens to be about dark forces unknowingly toying with the possible end of the world.

In the dead of night, hard boiled, bottom-feeding private detective Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) picks up desperate hitch hiker Christina Bailey (Cloris Leachman, in her film debut) on a lonely rural road outside of Los Angeles. Christina is wearing a trench coat with nothing underneath and has just escaped from a mental institution. She pleads with Hammer to "remember me" should anything happen to her. Sure enough, they are intercepted by a gang of thugs. Hammer receives a knock-out blow to the head; Christina is tortured and killed. Both are placed in Hammer's car and thrown off a cliff. Hammer survives, recovers, and with the help of his trusted assistant Velda (Maxine Cooper), starts to investigate Christina's story.

Hammer fends off police detective Pat Murphy (Wesley Addy) as a convoluted thread leads to Christina's former room-mate Lily Carver (Gaby Rogers), who is quick to put on a threatened sex-kitten act and asks Hammer for protection. Soon Hammer uncovers a locker key cleverly hidden by Christina. In the locker is a mysterious and seemingly dangerous light-emitting device. The nefarious Dr. Soberin (Albert Dekker), expert torturer, Christina's killer and Lily's co-conspirator, is eager to get his hands on the hidden contraption. Lily, Soberin and Hammer engage in what turns into a deadly battle to recover the devastatingly powerful energy weapon.

Kiss Me Deadly is a story of bottom-feeders racing to the abyss. The supposed hero, Mike Hammer, is worse than any of the low-lifes he investigates. Typically hired to snoop on cheating spouses, he resorts to blackmail and entrapment to maximize his fees, and even pimps-out Velda to create more infidelity as needed. In his pursuit of Christina's story, Hammer is a brute, breaking one man's precious music record for kicks and trapping another man's fingers in a drawer to get his attention.

Wanton violence is in Hammer's blood, and he becomes the perfect hard-skulled man to chase after the ultimate weapon of destruction, a box-sized nuclear device hidden under America's nose. The other evil-doers are either two-faced or faceless, Lily playing the waiting game and letting others do the dirty work, while Dr. Soberin's shoes are more prominent than his face, his army of interchangeable henchmen irrelevant.

The script by A. I. Bezzerides does not care about the who and why of the weapon; when widespread carnage and the potential for final extinction is the outcome, the what is the only thing that counts, and Kiss Me Deadly draws its terror from having exactly no one in control of technology packing a horrific outcome.

Ralph Meeker brings Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer to life with a sardonic smile, a perpetual cigarette, and an expression that acknowledges everyone is heading for the same final exit, but some will have a more exciting experience along the way. Maxine Cooper, in her debut, emerges as the major secondary role. Cooper creates a Velda who is both Hammer's victim and source of strength, the woman he abuses and depends upon. She suffers through it because she sees something worth loving in him, which is the main blemish on her judgement.

As with many great detective stories, Kiss Me Deadly loses its linear coherence early, director Robert Aldrich finding all the edgy camera angles and drenching the screen with enough fatalistic grit and raging sexuality to render logic superfluous. Once Hammer embarks on his quest to uncover Christina's backstory, Aldrich alternates overdoses of masculine violence with gushing feminine lust, Hammer intimidating every man standing in the way of the truth and encouraging every woman willing to throw herself at him. For good measure, Aldrich throws in a scene of Hammer talking with Velda as she just happens to be performing sensuous ballet stretches, mixed-in with stripper-pole twirls, in form-hugging clothing.

On the way to confronting bombs that can end the planet's liveability, there is no real need to ask any rational questions: it's just Hammer time.

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Movie Review: Young Frankenstein (1974)

A comic parody of 1930s monster movies, Young Frankenstein combines biting satire with quality production values to deliver a constant stream of laughs. Director Mel Brooks and a perfect cast find the right balance between winking at the screen and losing themselves in faux theatrical melodrama to great comic effect.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) is a professor of medicine in the United States, and eager to distance himself from the legacy of his grandfather, the infamous mad grave robber and re-animator of dead bodies. Frederick is engaged to Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn), but she won't as much as let him kiss her, lest her lipstick be smudged. When he receives word that he has inherited the long-abandoned family estate in Europe, Frederick travels to Transylvania, where he re-opens the family's spooky mansion on the hill.

Three assistants are ready to help him fulfil the family destiny: Inga (Teri Garr) seems to have no specific skills but plenty of curves; Igor (Marty Feldman) is a willing hunchback with beady eyes; and housekeeper Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman) mainly looks stern and terrifies the horses, but still harbours a crush on Frederick's long-dead grandfather. Warming up to the task, Frederick steals the body of an imposing criminal and reanimates him into a Monster (Peter Boyle), but Igor's botched brain robbery means that although the Monster is none too bright, he is sensitive and capable of exhibiting human emotions in response to sad music. When the lumbering Monster predictably breaks loose and terrifies the local community, Frederick has to find a way to control the damage, safeguard his legacy, and save the Monster's life.

Mel Brooks takes aim at the monster movie brand with his sharp style of wit, and hits the target dead centre. Plundering the fertile ground of creepy eastern European towns, grave digging, experimentation in reanimation, and unnecessarily thick accents, Young Frankenstein never misses a beat in resurrecting the legendary films of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Despite all the farcical comedy and within its efficient 105 minutes of running time, Young Frankenstein still finds the time to raise a few interesting themes. Frederick's control over his destiny is a running thread through the movie. Initially firm that he wants nothing to do with the family history (to the point of insisting that his name is pronounced Frankensteen), Frederick is gradually and irresistibly drawn to the vision and mission of his ancestors. Society's treatment of those who are a bit different is another motif born with the Monster, with the innocent child showing no fear and the blindman displaying nothing but hospitality, while all the other townsfolk default to the torches-and-pitchforks stance.

Gene Wilder co-wrote the screenplay with Brooks, and plays Frederick with the smooth confidence of an actor finding the perfect groove. Marty Feldman's hunchback with the ever shifting hump is simply a riot, and is deservedly the most memorable character from the movie. But Peter Boyle delivers the best performance, a hideous Monster who talks only in loud grunts and yet has to display a range of emotions. Boyle's eyes and gestures are outstanding, and soon the Monster becomes a full-fledged person deserving of pity and coddling.

Gene Hackman has fun with a small but hilarious role as the lonely blindman attempting to kindly serve the Monster food and drink. In comparison, Kenneth Mars' performance as Inspector Kemp with one mechanical hand has not stood the test of time as well as the rest of the film.

A large part of Young Frankenstein's enduring success resides in the film's visuals, Brooks and cinematographer Gerald Hirschfeld recreating in spooky black and white the prototypical mansion on the steep mountaintop surrounded by incessant lightning; the secret laboratory filled with meaningless yet noisy and sparking switches, dials and levers; and the village of simpletons living in perpetual fog and fear of the experiments carried out by generations of Frankensteins.

A comedy masterpiece, Young Frankenstein is monstrously fun.

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Movie Review: The Last Picture Show (1971)

The lives and loves of the residents of a small Texas town in the early 1950s, The Last Picture Show is monumentally winsome. Peter Bogdanovich creates a memorable set of complex characters who take a life of their own, and live on in movie folklore despite the irreversible fading away of their town.

High school seniors and friends Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges) are facing an uncertain future. Sonny is sensitive and caring, and always looks after the mute Billy the street sweeper (Sam Bottoms). Duane is brash and confident, and more aggressively seeks a path to a better life. Their town of Anarene is dusty, windy, and exists solely to support nearby oil fields. The town's unofficial leader is Sam "the Lion" (Ben Johnson), who attempts to be a positive influence on the lives of the local teenagers and owns the movie theatre, pool hall, and cafe, where waitress Genevieve (Eileen Brennan) works.

Sonny does not much care for his girlfriend, and is soon having an affair with the much older Ruth Popper (Cloris Leachman), with the semi-tacit approval of her husband, the High School athletics coach. Duane very much likes his girlfriend, town beauty Jacy Farrow (Cybil Shepherd). But Jacy's mother Lois (Ellen Burstyn) thinks that Duane is not worthy of her daughter. Lois herself is not satisfied with her husband and seeks the affection of oilman Abilene (Clu Gulager).

Jacy uses Duane to lose her virginity and dumps him, turning her attention to older men and richer boys, including the oleaginous Lester (Randy Quaid). A shock awaits Sonny and Duane when they return from an impromptu trip to Mexico, and their lives are set on a nasty collision path involving Jacy. The teenagers need to become men in a hurry, as the destiny of the movie theatre and Anarene itself look ever more bleak.

Bogdanovich co-wrote the screenplay with Marty McMurtry, the author of the semi-autobiographical book, and filmed The Last Picture Show in brilliant black and white. The stark contrasts enhance the film's overall mood of an era of innocence ending, and a town crawling to a dusty death. Bogdanovich cajoles mature performances from a relatively inexperienced cast, Bottoms, Bridges and Shepherd creating characters desperately seeking better futures while struggling through a mundane present.

Timothy Bottoms gives Sonny a somewhat resigned persona as someone who makes the most out of opportunities that come to him rather than creating his own path in life. Sonny's relationship with Ruth is arranged by the coach; he unexpectedly inherits a business; and his relationship with Jacy is very much instigated at her initiative. Meanwhile Bridges portrays Duane as a scrapper who will have to fight for everything in life, and who will therefore lose most of what he values and hurt those who care for him.

Cybill Shepherd effortlessly provides Jacy with a dangerous innocence that becomes increasingly formidable the more she listens to her mother. Openly using sex as a siren to lure men, Jacy's means of escaping the drudgery of life in Anarene is to test drive lovers, with her mother's encouragement, until she finds the one who offers the best chance of easier riches. Jacy and Lois are a daunting mother / daughter couple and make for compelling viewing while representing a harsh indictment of some women's mores in small town Texas.

The countryside is wide open, the roads narrow and bumpy, the cars and trucks are battered, the paint on the walls is peeling, the old men are weathered, and the adults wear an expression of being in a constant battle for economic survival. And the ever present howling wind blows incessantly through Anarene, almost insisting that the town be blown off the map.

Only Billy the street sweeper appears to have the optimism to fight on for the future of the town, tirelessly sweeping the streets, until he too is forced to give up. The Last Picture Show is never more poignant than when the last cheerful light is turned off.

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