No.232 : The Klansman (1974)

 

The Klansman at the IMDb

Well, this should be good - a 70’s thriller starring Lee Marvin and Richard Burton. Actually no, this is probably one to avoid given that possession of a copy would probably be classed as a hate crime. The film has seemingly fallen into the public domain as the copyright wasn’t renewed, probably due to the potential embarrassment ownership of the film would confer.

Still we’re no snowflakes here at the Definitive Blog and censorship is never a good thing so let’s have a look. The film starts well with sheriff Lee Marvin driving along to a funky Stax Records soundtrack. Sadly he soon arrives  at the scene of a boorish mob cheering on a retarded fat black man who is pulling the clothes off a terrified woman. Rather than arrest everyone Marvin sends them home after making sure the simpleton gets his $1 pay day.

The Alabama county does however sit up and take notice when Linda Evans gets raped in her car by an unseen assailant. The Ku Klux Klan decide it was probably a black man who did the crime and they set off for a good old fashioned Southern lynching. They chance upon OJ Simpson and his pal and, although OJ gets away (again!), his friend gets shot up after a frankly pointless castration.

Meanwhile aged landowner with indeterminate accent Richard Burton is in bed with his sexy naked girlfriend. Richard looks the worse for wear but is wearing his natty pjs. His girlfriend wants to get married and isn’t happy that Burton is hosting an civil rights activist fearing that he’ll will be after her ‘chocolate milk’. Think he’s after something stronger, Love.

OJ is hell bent on revenge and dresses up as a Klansman to lure out and kill one of the good old boys. To further make his point the shoots the bloke carrying the flaming cross at his first victim’s funeral. Marvin knows OJ is the killer but is either a bit lazy or happy to let things sort themselves out.

Burton moves in Linda Evans after the townsfolk cast her out for getting raped and also helps the activist Loretta after she gets raped too. Bit of a theme developing here?

Eventually things come to a head and sides have to be picked. As a mass of walking bed sheets approach Burton’s mansion we have to guess who will survive and will racism be solved for good?

If you hadn’t seen this film you wouldn’t believe it existed. First off, the two leads are pissed throughout, with staggering and slurred dialogue the norm. There is one fantastic scene near the end where Burton, and his poorly matched stuntman beat up a tough with a variety of karate chops. It is laugh out loud funny but does distract from the drama somewhat.

Marvin’s motivation is confused throughout, with him looking on impotently as rapes and murders are happening all over town. He has a son going to West Point so he may be trying to break the cycle of local idiocy, but he’s too steaming to convey any emotion or impassioned pleas.

The politics are probably well meaning, with the Klan members depicted as a bunch of red necks. It is quite a broad brush approach however, especially when rape victim Evans gets the ire of the townsfolk when she dares to show her face in church after being raped.

There are plenty of murders and the pace is reasonable, but you really can’t condone a film where rape and murder are abundant but dwarfed by endless racial abuse. The baddies may get their comeuppance, at a price, but you’ll feel like a good scrub having sat through this whole cavalcade of horrors.

The TAG Line : How Not to Manage Race Relations 40%

No.84 : The Vikings (1958)

The Vikings at the IMDb

Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis star in this 1958 campy historical romp which my cynical eye believes not to be 100% factual.

It is England in the Dark Ages and the Vikings are raiding and ruffling the ladies’ clothes. The king has been killed and his Queen is been pensioned off by the new pretender to the throne. The Queen confides in the Bishop that she was impregnated by a Viking and the child will be the rightful heir. The Bishop sends the infant off to Italy so a bunch of priests can look after it - a likely tale! The boy is given a rare jewel to prove his lineage - well DNA testing is about 1200 years away.

Meanwhile the Vikings return home with much revelry and a fey Englishman who has fled the land after being correctly accused of helping the raiders. They go for a tour of the grounds and after Kirk’s falcon fails a test he’s upstaged by a slave who has the better bird. A fight breaks out and Kirk ends up one eye down. The slave, who turns out to be Tony Curtis under a beard, is condemned to the traditional ‘death by crabs’ - and not in a good way!

A seeming intervention by the Gods saves Tony from his nippy fate and he is claimed by the English traitor - possibly because of that rare stone he wears around his neck - remember that? A bit of digging reveals the infant was saved from the priests by the Vikings without them knowing his true identity. The Vikings soon set off for England again with a plan to kidnap the King’s bride to be - a rather fetching Janet Leigh. They get there and back in five minutes and after a bit of squabbling over who gets first dibs Tony frees the wench and they make off in a stolen longboat.

The low speed chase results in Kirk crashing his boat and Tony rescuing Ernest Borgnine, the Viking leader whom he takes prisoner. He also takes a fancy to Janet especially after getting a hot look at her sexy back when she reluctantly pitches in on the rowing. Tony delivers the Viking chief to the evil King but after helping him have hero’s death in the wolf pit he forfeits a hand to the malevolent monarch. Tony heads back to the Fjords and the eyepatched Kirk and soon the two join forces to gets some revenge and steal the girl. Will the two save the girl and who gets her fair hand? Will the crown be restored to the rightful heir and will an early episode of ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ save some sibling slaughter?

I wasn’t looking forward to this raid on the dressing up box but it was a lot of fun with plenty of action. It is of course hard to see beyond the two Hollywood stars hamming it up as Norsemen but they have so much fun in the roles that you soon forget your misgivings and sign on for the ride.

The cast is uniformly great but I especially enjoyed Frank Thring as the evil king. His overacting made Dr Evil look low key but he is so malevolent and hammy that he’s a joy to boo. Leigh is lovely if somewhat bland and Borgnine was almost unrecognisable as the rapist Viking Chief.

The production was lavish with some cracking locations and a cast of thousands, most of whom got killed by a variety of gruesome methods - axes, big rocks, arrows you name it. The fate and destiny elements were well signposted with a wise woman on hand to keep us right lest we have fallen asleep. The big ending battle was well executed with a couple of inventive ways employed to get into the impregnable castle. The closing scenes were more of a shock but I’m all for a few last minute surprises.

At two hours the film never drags and despite the action switching from England to Norway like they are a bus stop apart the customs and battles seemed well researched and authentic - unlike Tony’s false handless arm!

THE Tag Line : Vi-King of the Castle!

Rating : 77%

No.46 : The Accused (1988)

The Accused at the IMDb

I’m not a big fan of court room films, ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ notwithstanding. Like many sports films and any old ‘triumph against adversity’ gubbins the end is a foregone conclusion. There has been a slight renaissance with some sports movies like ‘Coach Carter’ and the ‘Bad News Bears’ remake where the big twist was that they lost but they also ‘win’ - but court room films don’t have that option. Either the bad guy gets banged up or he walks - no middle ground. Unless he walks and gets shot on the way out the court or he gets off on appeal off camera.

Yeah I know you’ve got the ‘Mockingbird’ defence and while that was a great film and the good guy lost at least it taught us innocent kids a bit about the realities of life.

Anyway ‘The Accused’ is a decent enough court room drama that is helped by only the last few minutes taking place in a court room. You still get the emotive speeches and pleas to the jury but at least you get a little bit of investigation along the way. Jodie Foster plays a trailer trash waitress, Sarah, who gets gang raped by three men on a pinball table while some jeering louts and a sensitive video game player look on.

After a pretty blow by blow account of the hospital forensic tests the three rapists get fingered and are put on trial. Fearing that her main witness was drunk and a bit slutty the DA, played by the woman out of ‘Top Gun’, plea bargains the rape charge down to reckless endangerment, much to the disgust of her client. Feeling a bit guilty herself Top Gun woman goes after the jeering mob in a hope of atoning for doing her job.

After a lucky break on the Pac-Man machine she traces the sensitive video games player who agrees to testify despite the pressure of his rapist friends. The trial is set and the lawyers have their show stopper speeches ready. Will the fragile waitress get the justice she craves or will the baying mob of louts walk free? It’s the first one!

I quite enjoyed ‘The Accused’ despite its obvious agenda and total lack of strong believable male characters. There’s no doubt that the case as presented was horrendous and brutal but the men were all such stereotype red necks and frat boys that it made the whole thing seem unbelievable. I’m pretty sure in the real case, on which the film was based, the drunken mob didn’t come up with catchy chants.

Foster was great as Sarah and really pulled off the tough and sexy yet fragile and vulnerable waitress. She rightly got an Oscar for her performance which must have been harrowing given the violent and humiliating subject matter. Top Gun woman was less good as the hard as nails, but has now learned a valuable lesson, DA.

I like the way the film showed various viewpoints of the unseen events before we saw the actual crime in the last half hour. I don’t know if this was a late addition as lots of the court room testimony later referred to was missing. It certainly made the film more real and had a lot more impact than another 30 minutes of court room drama.

The best scene for me was Sarah shopping for tapes when she encounters the most loathsome man you’ll ever see. Think of a male version of the landlady out of ‘Kingpin’ - certainly one worth losing your no claims bonus over.

This is the kind of film you can’t really enjoy. The grim subject matter and the foregoing conclusion rob it of any real thrill or drama and the scenes at the end where they’re all having a good laugh at the outcome don’t sit right. A worthy film definitely, but a watchable one? The jury’s out.

THE Tag Line : Accused of Being Grim & Predictable 62 %