The Great Depression, Bogdanovich Style

The Film: Paper Moon (The Director's Company, 1973). Directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Written by Alvin Sargent. Starring Ryan O'Neal, Tatum O'Neal, Madeline Kahn, John Hillerman, P.J. Johnson. Running time: 102 minutes.

My first viewing: Whoah Lord, I don't know. Back in the 1970s sometime. I've seen the film so many times, I've lost track. Seems like the first time I saw it, I must've been seven or eight. It came on television often in Southern California. Hell, for all I know, I might've seen it in the theaters.

The 4-1-1: Paper Moon is one of those films that's like an old friend. I watched it over and over again, much like The Wizard of Oz (1939). Firing it up in the DVD player today, I feel the same sense of comfort I experienced when I viewed it decades ago. For some reason, during the 1970s, filmmakers made magnificent movies set in the Great Depression (recall Chinatown, Bound for Glory, Boxcar Bertha, Sounder, the list goes on and on). Paper Moon is yet another wonderful Great Depression movie from the seventies. It's a movie about a con man and a little girl who may - or may not - be father and daughter. The sparks between the O'Neals (papa Ryan and sweetly Tomboyish little Tatum) is nothing short of awe inspiring. What a delight it is to watch the two of them engaged in verbal boxing matches. It still works beautifully today, 37 years later. Madeline Kahn is a damn hoot as the floozie Trixie Delight, who spends her time trying to get her hooks deeper and deeper into Moses Pray (Ryan O'Neal). Young Addie Pray (Tatum) conspires along with Trixie's African American servant Imogene (P. J. Johnson) to drive a wedge between Trixie and Moses. Watch out for scene stealer Burton Gilliam as the foolish desk clerk Floyd, who is one of Addie's many pawns in the film. Gilliam is one of those character actors who is everywhere. You'll recognize him when you see him. He has a smile that can stop a train dead in its tracks. And John Hillerman, who played snooty Higgins in Magnum P.I. during the 1980s, turns up as twin brothers. Like Gilliam, Hillerman is one of those character actors who found an awful lot of work in the 1970s. Although he's from Texas, he has one of those great Orson Welles-esque deep baritone voices. He's in top form here, especially in his role as the sheriff. This was, of course, right before he landed the part as the deliciously slimy Russ Yelburton in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974).

The Real Star of the Film: Without question, the main reason to see this film is the astonishing cinematography by László Kovács. His stark, high-contrast black-and-white shots of Kansas and Missouri absolutely boggle the mind and recreate the grandeur of Dorothea Lange's Great Depression photographs. Thanks to him, Paper Moon bears a much closer resemblance to America in the 1930s than any films actually made at the time.

Bottom Line: Peter Bogdanovich was on fire when he directed Paper Moon. Look at his filmography: Targets (1968), The Last Picture Show (1971), What's Up Doc? (1972) and Paper Moon (1973). All superb films. Alas, after Paper Moon, he began making films like Daisy Miller and Nickelodeon. Nothing that Bogdanovich has made since Paper Moon comes close to touching the film. Thankfully, in recent years, he has been writing some wonderful film criticism and he remains one of the finest film historians in the United States today. Nobody understands the language of cinema more than Peter Bogdanovich. Without question, Paper Moon was - along with The Last Picture Show - his finest moment. Grade: A-.

The best road movie from the 1970s...

The Film: Two-Lane Blacktop (Universal Pictures, 1971). Directed by Monte Hellman. Screenplay by Rudy Wurlitzer and Will Corry. Starring James Taylor, Warren Oates, Laurie Bird, Dennis Wilson. Running time: 102 minutes.

When I first saw it: Oh God. Years ago. 

A Few Words About It: When I first saw director Monte (Ride the Whirlwind) Hellman's Two Lane Blacktop, I wanted to become James Taylor. Not the James Taylor who sang folksy soft rock in the Seventies. No, I wanted to be the James Taylor in this movie -- billed as "The Driver" -- who was totally badass (incidentally, he's the same James Taylor as the singer, but just way, way cooler). What's the plot? Hmm. There isn't much of a plot here. Two guys race around the country in their souped-up 1955 Chevy 150 (which was also an important performer in the film). The characters don't even have names, Taylor stars as "The Driver"; the great character actor Warren Oates of Wild Bunch fame played "GTO", so named for his car; Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys played "The Mechanic"; and Laurie Bird is The Girl. Taylor and Wilson agree to race Oates to Washington, D.C. and the winner gets the pink slips to both of the cars. The movie wanders aimlessly. At various points in the movie, The Girl sleeps with The Driver, The Mechanic and GTO. I won't tell you what happens to The Girl (or any of the other characters -- you really have to see the movie!); let's just say, The Girl has commitment issues. Two-Lane is a countercultural road movie masterpiece. It has all the ingredients of a classic Seventies movie: Overlapping and meandering dialogue; characters who are anti-heroes and can be pretty damn narcissistic sometimes; wide shots that abruptly zoom in; great hot rods, including old-school muscle cars, and a terrific 1970s' soundtrack. I saw the movie years ago on television and then it was abruptly yanked out of circulation (apparently, due to copyright issues having to do with the music used in the film). Two-Lane Blacktop has, thankfully, resurfaced. The film just played on Turner Movie Classics the other day. After watching it, yours truly decided I definitely have to purchase it on DVD. Apparently, the Criterion Collection released the film on DVD at the end of 2007. It is well worth having in your collection, as it remains a great existentialist road movie. It is better, IMHO, than Easy Rider. Sadly, there was a Two-Lane Blacktop curse of sorts. Except for James Taylor, all of the other performers died too young. Laurie Bird, who went on to become Art Garfunkel's girlfriend for a time (and took the photograph of Garfunkel on the cover of his 1978 Watermark album) committed suicide in 1979 when she wasn't quite 26. Dennis Wilson drowned in Marina Del Rey, California, in 1983 (at age 39). Warren Oates had a heart attack in 1982 at age 53. Too bad none of them lived to see Two-Lane Blacktop go on to become a cult movie. 

Why I dug it: I have a thing for road movies and TV shows. Route 66, starring George Maharis and Martin Milner as two buddies crisscrossing the country in a Corvette, is one of my favorite TV shows. I'm also a huge fan of The Fugitive, where David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble wanders from town to town across America. My love of road stories started with Two-Lane Blacktop. 

Parting Shot: A fine car movie, an even better road picture, Two Lane-Backdrop deserves its cult status. It has that gritty, naturalistic feel that so many films in the late 1960s and 1970s had. Watching it on TMC the other day brought back a flood of memories. The film gives us a glimpse of America in a very different time -- in the early 1970s -- before Watergate and defeat in Vietnam. Some people might view it as a countercultural relic, and it does seem dated at times. But it remains an edgy glimpse of a bygone era. Grade: B+. 

A film I savored with my father...

The Film: The Sting (Universal, 1973). Directed by George Roy Hill. Screenplay by David S. Ward. Starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning, Ray Walston, Eileen Brennan. Running time: 129 minutes. 

When I first saw it: First in 1973 (at the ripe old age of 5), then about 10 years later for the second time. 

A few words about it: The Sting takes more twists and turns than Lombard Street in San Francisco. It is not a movie for kids. Not that there's anything gruesome or graphic about it. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre it ain't. But it's a movie about con men and their art. And these con men are damn good at what they do. It's also a movie about good, old-fashioned, All-American payback. Revenge. It's about Johnny Hooker's (Robert Redford) effort to avenge the death of his beloved friend, Luther (played by James Earl Jones's father, Robert Earl Jones -- the two men look different but sound identical). Luther is murdered by gangsters working for underworld kingpin Doyle Lonnegan (brilliantly played by Robert Shaw, a tremendously gifted actor who died much too young of a heart attack in Ireland in 1978 at age 51). Hooker enlists in the aid of his fellow con man Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman), a burned-out, old-school scam artist who believes in going big when he schemes. Hooker and Gondorff plan a massive and intricate plot to con Lonnegan. In order for it to work, everything has to come together just so.... The real tension in the film comes in when you wonder whether this Mount Everest of con jobs is actually going to work. I won't give away any spoilers. Like the con job it depicts, the film is seamless. It's beautifully made, with a screenplay by David S. Ward that speaks the language of the 1930s with authenticity. Director George Roy Hill (who teamed Redford and Newman together for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid four years earlier) is in top form. Too bad Hill would never direct another masterpiece to equal The Sting or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (although fans of Hill's 1977 hockey comedy-drama Slap Shot --and there are plenty of 'em here in Canada -- might beg to differ). Backing the powerful trio of Redford, Newman and Shaw are great character actors Charles Durning, Eileen Brennan and Ray Walston and Harold Gould, who all seem like they've been plucked out of a fast-talking, Depression-era movie. 

Why I dug it: The Sting is one of the first films I actually recall seeing in the movie theater. I didn't understand it at age 5. It was far too intricate. A decade later, I saw it with my father. We watched it on VHS. He would stop it every few minutes and explain the con job to me and make sure I was following it. It was a wonderful bonding experience between the two of us. I'll never forget it. 

Parting Shot: The Sting still packs a punch. It's not a perfect film. The Scott Joplin music seems curiously out of place in it. Ragtime was out of fashion in the 1930s. The story is complicated -- not the sort of film you can start and stop, start and stop. It isn't always a delightful romp. But it's a film with heart and soul. And nothing can quite beat having your father dissect it for you. Grade: A- (but an "A" for sentimentality).