Flickers in Time

The Grey Fox
Directed by Phillip Borsos
Written by John Hunter
1982/Canada
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Miner: A professional always specializes.

Richard Farnsworth is excellent as a man who adapts his skills to a new century.

The setting is the first years of the 20th Century in the Pacific Northwest.  Bill Miner (Farnsworth) was a talented and successful stagecoach robber  back in the day.  He has just been released from 33 years in prison and heads to his sister’s place in Washington State.  He gets a job harvesting oysters.  He craves adventure though and is inspired to try his hand at a new specialty after he sees The Great Train Robbery (1903).

Bill escapes to Canada after his first job.  His affable and courtly demeanor makes him a lot of friends in British Columbia and wins the heart of free-thinking photographer Kate Flynn (Jackie Burroughs).  But the law is always one step behind him.

Farnsworth’s charismatic performance should really be seen.  The other highlights are the film’s beautiful cinematography and score.  Recommended.

The Verdict
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Written by David Mamet from a novel by Barry Reed
1982/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

Judge Hoyle: This case should never have come to trial. But you know better. You’re mister independent. You want to be independent? Be independent now. I have no sympathy for you.

This is a good movie, I guess. But I found it infuriating.

The setting is contemporary Boston.  There is a skeleton in lawyer Frank Gavlin’s (Paul Newman) closet that almost got him disbarred and helped make him a raging alcoholic.  Somehow he is hired to represent a young woman who is in a vegetative state  after a botched Cesarian section in a Catholic hospital.  Her sister and her husband are naive working class people with an opportunity to move to Arizona.

Frank drinks exactly as much after he gets the case than he did before.  He spends a lot of time in a bar where he meets Laura Fischer (Charlotte Rampling), a woman who isn’t answering many questions.  But she is beautiful and also drinks like a fish so they hook up.

Frank sees this case as his personal redemption.  It is so strong that the Archdiocese makes a generous settlement offer.  But it’s not enough in Frank’s eyes and the case goes to trial.  Frank is alone against an extremely high-powered law firm which is representing the Church and its insurance company.   I won’t go further into the plot which has a couple of major twists.   With Jack Warden as Frank’s friend and mentor, James Mason as a partner in the defense law firm and Milo O’Shea as a biased judge.

We are intended to admire Frank I think.  But he does several things that are so unethical it took my breath away.  Not to mention a Federal crime he commits.  Of course the law firm is not made up of saints either. This conduct is not condemned in any way.   I suppose we are to believe that the end justifies the means.

The acting is uniformly superb and I have no other complaints about the film.  It was nominated for Oscars in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor (Mason) and Best Adapted Screenplay.  It was Mason’s last performance in a major American film.

Spoilers

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
Directed by Nagisa Ôshima
Written by Nagisa Ôshima and Paul Mayersberg from a novel by Lourens van der Post
1982/Japan/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Col. John Lawrence: You are the victim of men who think they are right… Just as one day you and captain Yonoi believed absolutely that you were right. And the truth is of course that nobody is right…

If I had known this was as brutal as it is, I might have given it a miss.

The setting is a Japanese POW camp on Java, Indonesia in 1942.  The conditions are absolutely appalling and the Japanese overseers and Korean guards are brutal.  Colonel John Lawrence (Tom Conte) is the liaison officer between the Japanese and the prisoners.  He speaks fluent Japanese and understands the culture.  The Japanese  seem to like him. That does not prevent them from dishing out beatings and other punishments to him.

Major Jack Celliers (David Bowie) is also a captive.  He is 100% defiant. He brings flowers for his fellows to eat when they are to be on an ordered fast.  He talks back constantly.  So naturally he suffers.  With Jack Thompson as the Group Captain above the prisoners.

This film is one horrendous scene of torture and violence after another.  It does make a plea for understanding and compassion.  Conti is excellent.  Bowie seems miscast but is not bad.  Another rock star, Ryuichi Sakamoto, plays the camp commandant. The film looks beautiful and the score is fantastic.

I took this one out of order because I had misplaced it in my 1982 list.

Deathtrap
Directed by Stanley Lumet
Written by Jay Preston Allen from a stage play by Ira Levin
1982/US
IMDb
First viewing/YouTube (free)

Clifford Anderson: Are you trying to say that you don’t think that you can trust me?
Sidney Bruhl: How clearly you put it!

This Sleuth (1972) wannabe is too clever for its own good.

Nothing in the plot is as it seems and  I don’t want to give much detail.  Playwright Sidney Bruhl (Michael Caine) has been living on his one big hit and his wife Myra’s (Dyan Cannon) income.  All his recent productions have been flops and critically savaged.  Myra is ditsy  but has absolute faith in Sidney.

After his latest dismal opening night, Sidney reveals that former student Clifford Anderson (Christopher Reeve) has sent him a script is sure to be a big hit.  In fact it is perfect.  The name of the play is “Deathtrap”.  Myra gets very excited about the idea that Sidney could either co-write or produce this.  So Sidney invites Clifford to visit.  This he does.

The other major character in the drama is psychic neighbor Helga ten Dorp (Irene Worth) who keeps dropping in to get vibrations of death and doom.

What made Sleuth so great was the oneupmanship between Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine.  They played tricks on each other.  In this, Caine plays the Olivier part and Reeve plays the Caine part. That is not a match between equals.  And the tricks are played on the audience.  They get increasingly unbelievable culminating in a huge eye-roll of an ending.  It’s entertaining but was not really for me.

Frances
Directed by Graeme Clifford
Written by Eric Bergren, Christopher De Vore, and Nicholas Kazan
1982/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

Harry York: Frances, you’re crazy.
Frances Farmer: [softly] Don’t tell anybody.

The acting is the thing in this biopic of the troubled life of actress Frances Farmer.

The story begins in Farmer’s (Jessica Lange) hometown of Seattle. Her mother (Kim Stanley) has big dreams for her. Even as a teenager, Frances lacked a filter and shocked the locals with her prize-winning “God is Dead” speech. She further scandalizes society by accepting a free trip to Russia. Her beauty and her mother take her to Hollywood. But Frances continually bucked the system with her aspirations to something serious. She heads to New York where she attracts the attention of left-leaning theaters and stars in Clifford Odets’s “Golden Boy” on Broadway.

The one constant in Farmer’s life is Seattle friend and lover Harry York (Sam Shepard) who supports her through thick and thin. A combination of mother and Frances’s alcohol and drug abuse and burgeoning mental illness make her unemployable. Eventually they send her to asylums where she is subjected to brutal conditions and treatment.

Lange is truly remarkable in this role and richly deserved her Oscar nomination as did Kim Stanley.  I always find Sheherd appealing.  Otherwise, this would be just lurid.  The film was based on a book which the author later admitted was highly fictional.  I believe the only movie I have seen with Farmer in it was Come and Get It (1936).  She was excellent.

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn
Directed by Nicholas Meyer
Written by Jack B. Sowards based on a TV series created by Gene Roddenberry
1982/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

Spock: [closing monologue] Space: the final frontier. These are the continuing voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Ricardo Montalban’s villain is the best part of this science-fiction adventure.

James T. Kirk (William Shatner) has been promoted to Admiral of the Starfleet. He comes back to inspect his old stomping grounds on the starship Enterprise. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is now captain and all the characters in the TV series appear once more.

Two hundred years ago Kirk marooned his rival Khan (Montalban) on a dead planet without resources. Khan managed to survive with a small crew and is obsessed with revenge. He is also interested in a life-generating device known as Genesis which has been developed by Kirk’s former lover Carol on Regula 1. Most of the film is devoted to a cat and mouse chase between Kirk and Kahn. A cat and mouse chase with plenty of explosives.

I have a complicated relationship with Star Trek.  During my childhood my younger brother had series reruns on rotation 24/7.  This irritated the hell out of me particularly because we had assigned days for choosing what to watch and it seemed I was always home during my brothers’ turns and away during mine.

Anyway, this is a well-done film but nothing I would choose to watch again.  On the other hand, Montalban is a total kick in the pants.  I watched the director’s cut.  The special effects are old-school but effective.  Kirstie Alley made her feature-film debut here as a Vulcan trainee.

Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip
Directed by Joe Layton
Written by Richard Pryor
1982/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental

Richard Pryor: One time, it looked like I had an appendage on my hand – was a pipe. Cause this pipe used to tell me when to go to bed. The pipe would say, “Time to get up. Time for some smoke, Rich. Come on now. We’re not going to do anything today. Fuck all of your appointments. Me and you just going to hang out in this room together.” And I’d get mad and frustrated. People didn’t understand me and the pipe would say, “Come in the room with me. I’ve got you covered. I know how you feel, Rich. I understand. Just light me up, hold me for a couple of days, and we’ll talk it over.”

This concert film has to capture one of the best standup comedy routines ever.

Richard Pryor’s material includes:  experience filming at a penitentiary; his trip to Africa; relationship advice; race relations;  an appearance by his character Mudbone with some folk wisdom; “Mafia nightclub”and finally his self-immolation while free-basing cocaine in 1980.

I saw this on original release. I loved it then and I still love it. It has not aged one bit. The topics may not sound hilarious but his descriptions certainly are. And unlike many such routines, it is all personal and relatable. Anybody who doesn’t enjoy profanity should definitely give this a miss. Highly recommended to all others.