The Going Gets Rough

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.

Criminals, investigations, and Chuck Norris.

HARPER (1966)

Author Ross Macdonald wrote eighteen novels and a handful of short stories about a private detective character named Lew Archer – but when producer Elliot Kastner and screenwriter William Goldman decided to bring an adaptation of the first Archer novel, The Moving Target (published in 1949), to the screen because they wanted to make a movie “with balls,” they couldn’t use the Archer name because Kastner didn’t purchase the film adaptation rights to the whole book series, he only optioned The Moving Target, and the Archer name didn’t come with a one movie deal. (Much like the rule Donald E. Westlake had in place for film adaptations of his Parker novels.) So, the character’s name was changed to Lew Harper for the movie – and he was brought to life by Paul Newman, who delivered a really cool and often amusing performance.

One reaction I’ve seen to Harper is, “I doubt even the actors knew what the hell was going on in this film.” The way the mystery plays out can be a bit difficult to follow at times, but it all holds together pretty well in the end. But even if it doesn’t make sense all of the time, director Jack Smight was able to bring it to the screen in such a groovy, stylish way, it still makes for a captivating viewing experience. The coolest vibes that could be captured in the ‘60s are strong in this film, and you get to ride those vibes alongside the immensely cool Paul Newman.

Harper’s old friend Albert Graves (Arthur Hill) is an attorney who works for the wealthy Ralph Sampson. When Sampson goes missing, Albert brings Harper in to try to find him – and Sampson’s wife Elaine (Lauren Bacall) hopes he’ll be able to find the man before he squanders his fortune on something stupid. Over the course of his investigation, Harper will interact with Sampson’s private pilot Allan Taggert (Robert Wagner), washed-up former starlet Fay Estabrook (Shelley Winters), lounge singer Betty Fraley (Julie Harris), his ex Susan (Janet Leigh), bogus holy man Claude (Strother Martin), and Sampson’s daughter Miranda (Pamela Tiffin) – who Albert has the hots for, even though he’s old enough to be her father, but she’s more interested in Harper, who’s not interested in her. Harper crosses paths with others as the story goes on, and some of his interactions leave him having to try to dodge fists. Or bullets.

Harper tells an interesting story with some good moments of action and a nice sense of humor – and when you go back and watch this movie after seeing the works of Shane Black (whose credits include Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Nice Guys, etc.), it’s clear to see how much these old school detective stories influenced his work.

Sometimes I didn’t know what the hell was going on in Harper, but I always enjoyed watching it.

THE THIEF WHO CAME TO DINNER (1973)

In the early 1970s, Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin were behind some of the biggest shows on TV: All in the Family, Sanford and Son, and Maude, which were the number one, two, and four shows in the United States. (They had nothing to do with the number three show, Hawaii Five-O.) While they were enjoying that success on the small screen, they also decided to make something for the big screen: an adaptation of the Terrence Lore Smith novel The Thief Who Came to Dinner. This movie did not come anywhere near to being as popular as their TV work, but it’s still worth checking out.

Apparently marketed as a comedy even though the actually funny moments are few and far between, The Thief Who Came to Dinner is more of a crime caper. Ryan O'Neal, who would go on to say that this project wasn’t something he should have bothered to work on, stars as Webster McGee, a divorced computer programmer who decides to ditch his job and pursue a career as a criminal. He becomes a burglar and jewel thief in the Houston, Texas area, connecting with Deams (Ned Beatty) and “Dynamite” Hector (Gregory Sierra), men who are able to sell the items he steals – and, when he finds some compromising information in the home of wealthy businessman Gene Henderling (Charles Cioffi), he also gets into the blackmail business, getting Henderling to invite him to a swanky party so he can rub elbows with other rich people he’ll be able to rob.

While carrying out his criminal career and taunting the police with chess pieces he leaves behind in robbed homes, Webster crosses paths with Laura Keaton (Jacqueline Bisset), who moves in high society circles while staying in a home she’s not able to sell or keep up. Laura is quite accepting of Webster’s line of work – but someone who’s not is Texas Mutual Insurance investigator Dave Reilly (Warren Oates).

Dave strongly suspects that Webster is the burglar but isn’t able to dig up any proof – and the interactions between these two characters, who could to like each other despite being on opposite sides of the law, that are the primary source of humor in the film. Anytime Oates is around, the movie has a more fun tone to it. Dave even brings in a chess expert, Austin Pendleton as Zukovsky, to challenge “the Chess Burglar” – a situation that proves to be quite irritating to Zukovsky, because Webster has programmed a computer to help him plot his chess moves.

Directed by Bud Yorkin (who said, “I don't think it's the greatest picture in the world but it is very entertaining,”) from a screenplay by Walter Hill (who said Warren Oates was better than the movie around him), The Thief Who Came to Dinner is interesting, but gives the feeling that it should have been a lot better and more amusing than it turned out to be.

MISSING (2023)

Filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov is convinced that the future of cinema lies in “screenlife” projects; movies that are presented entirely through the screens of devices being used by the lead characters. I’m not particularly fond of this approach to filmmaking, although I have seen some screenlife movies that I enjoyed more than I expected to – movies like Unfriended and Host. Now, you can add another one to the list, because I checked out the screenlife movie Missing and found it to be an interesting thrillers that took some unexpected twists and turns.

Directed by Will Merrick and Nick Johnson, who also wrote the screenplay from a story by Sev Ohanian and Aneesh Chaganty (Bekmambetov was a producer on the film), Missing stars Storm Reid as Los Angeles-based teenager June Allen, whose mother Grace (Nia Long) catches a flight with her boyfriend Kevin Lin (Ken Leung) at the beginning of the film, heading for a romantic vacation in Colombia. While Grace is away, June wipes out almost all of the money her mom left for her by setting up and hosting parties in their home. After a major rager, June wakes up late on the day she’s supposed to meet her mom at the airport. She goes over to the airport... and the trouble begins when Grace and Kevin never show up. They didn’t catch their flight home. They didn’t even check out of their hotel; their suitcases were left behind.

June and Grace haven’t had a great relationship in recent years, but the kid is still, understandably, deeply concerned when it seems like her mom has disappeared off the face of the earth. She contacts the authorities, but also decides to use the internet to do some investigating of her own – and the entire movie plays out through the imagery on June’s phone screen and computer monitor, with Reid getting a good amount of screen time because her character is always making video calls and is visible through her webcam more often than you might expect.

I was caught up in this scenario from the beginning – and as someone who frequently travels internationally, the idea of someone not showing up at the airport when they should and being out of reach is one of the most troubling situations imaginable. I’d rather watch traditionally-shot movies than things presented in the screenlife (or found footage) way, but the story of Missing was engaging enough that I had no problem sitting through it. In fact, I was anxious to see what was going to happen next the whole time.

I go into screenlife movies with my arms crossed, but Missing won me over.

THE OCTAGON (1980)

When martial artist Chuck Norris was starting out as an action movie star, his career followed a trajectory that none of his fellow action heroes could match: his movies got progressively better for at least a four movie streak. His first starring role came in Breaker! Breaker!, which was followed by the even better Good Guys Wear Black, which was followed by the even better A Force of One. His fourth movie was The Octagon – and it was his best movie yet!

Norris stars in this one as Scott James, a retired karate champion who is intrigued when he meets a dancer who incorporates martial arts moves into her routine. He accompanies to her home – where her family has been massacred by ninjas and he’s unable to stop them from adding her to the body count. Scott is left determined to get to the bottom of this ninja situation – and through his connections with the likes of mercenary McCarn (an under-used Lee Van Cleef), who heads up an anti-terrorist operation; the wealthy Justine Wentworth (Karen Carlson), who is hiring assassins to take out terrorist leaders and hoped to be able to seduce Scott into performing an assassination for her (leading to the best line in the movie*); and Aura (Carol Bagdasarian), who walked away from her “evil ninja” training, Scott is able to find out that there’s a base hidden away in Central or South America where terrorists and assassins are trained in the way of the ninja.

* Scott’s line: “That’s an insult to both of us. That makes me stupid and you a whore.”

As it turns out, Scott has a personal connection to this set-up, as the training camp is run by his foster brother turned nemesis Seikura (Tadashi Yamashita). So, in an awesome climactic sequences, Scott locates and infiltrates the training camp, fighting his way through a small army of ninjas so he can confront Seikura.

Directed by Eric Karson from a script crafted by Leigh Chapman and Paul Aaron, The Octagon has its less-interesting stretches and an odd element where Scott’s thoughts are heard as echoing whispers, something that happened a bit too often for my liking, but it winds up being a very entertaining and satisfying action movie. In fact, it delivered exactly what I was hoping for when I put on an ‘80s action movie involving ninjas.

It’s pretty cool to go through an actor’s filmography and discover that you enjoy each movie they made more than the previous one. I know my favorite Chuck Norris movies are Silent Rage and Lone Wolf McQuade, but I haven’t seen the movie between The Octagon and Silent Rage (An Eye for an Eye) or the one between Silent Rage and Lone Wolf McQuade (Forced Vengeance). If I like An Eye for an Eye and Forced Vengeance on the level of The Octagon or Silent Rage, that will be quite an impressive streak of rising quality. Let’s see how it goes...