Le Mans (1971)

Film: Le Mans (1971)

Stars: Steve McQueen, Siegfried Rauch, Elga Andersen

Director: Lee H. Katzin

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Steve McQueen: click here to learn more about Mr. McQueen (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

There are a long history of actors who largely got bored with being movie stars, and spent huge swaths of their careers basically just doing movie stardom as a side hustle.  Marlon Brando, Jean Seberg, Jane Fonda, & Sean Penn all clearly wished they could be full-time activists, rather than movie stars themselves.  Orson Welles spent his peak stardom years running across the country doing magic shows with Rita Hayworth & Marlene Dietrich.  Hedy Lamarr may have had the oddest side hustle, essentially inventing GPS.  For Steve McQueen, the coolest of movie stars, that side hustle was race-car driving, the coolest of sports.  McQueen frequently competed in car & motorcycle racing tournaments, and would incorporate his love of stunt driving into his films like Bullitt and The Great Escape.  No film, though, encapsulated his love of it quite like Le Mans, an expensive fictionalization of the famed French endurance car race that has been fictionalized in recent films like Ford v. Ferrari and Gran Turismo.

(Spoilers Ahead) Le Mans is a weird film to summarize, in part because it's not really a movie with a traditional narrative.  The film is about Michael Delaney (McQueen), who is about to race the 24 hours of Le Mans when he sees the widow Lisa (Andersen) of a driver that died in the previous year's tournament, and has flashbacks to the crash of his former competitor, whose death Lisa holds him responsible for.  This is one of several storylines that are told in an almost cross-plot anthology-style bit of storytelling, with everyone underlining the intoxicating nature of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and how it is seen as one of the pinnacles of athletics, and how important it is for their sponsor (Porsche) to get a 1-2 finish that will make the company look like the fastest car in the world.

The movie is weird, though, because for long stretches of it nothing happens.  This is, I'm going to be honest, also my reaction to car-racing in general (I am not the audience for this picture), but I was struck throughout it that it was meant to be melancholy and almost Malick-esque before Malick was even a thing.  We get extended sequences with wordless dialogue, and not just looking at cars passing each other on a track...it's also random stares between Andersen & McQueen, which might be cribbed from a French New Wave picture if you're being generous, but in reality feels more so like they didn't know how to put a story in here, and the whole goal of the film is to watch Steve McQueen sexily driving around cars the average audience member couldn't even buy if they sold their house.

That being said, on a technical level this film works really well.  The editing, sound work, cinematography, and especially the stunt driving are top notch.  When you have the film in the throes of competition, especially toward the end, it really draws you in and you can almost get why people will literally watch a car drive for 24 hours on their television each year.  But those documentary-style touches (including footage from actual Le Mans races), are more interesting in a technical capacity, and only hold your attention for so long.

OVP: Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?

Film: Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971)

Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Dom DeLuise, Barbara Harris, Jack Warden

Director: Ulu Grosbard

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Barbara Harris)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Barbara Harris-click here to learn more about Ms. Harris (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

By the time Barbara Harris had made her film debut in 1965's A Thousand Clowns, she was already a pretty big name, at least in the industry.  Harris had founded the now-legendary Chicago improvisational Second City by this time, getting a Tony nomination for her work.  Just before A Thousand Clowns would be released, she opened in the (then critically-mixed) Richard Rodgers musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, which earned her a second Tony nomination.  While A Thousand Clowns won Harris a Golden Globe nomination, it didn't turn into major film stardom, though with Harris (who took frequent self-imposed breaks from acting) it was always hard to tell how much of that was the actress & how much of that was Hollywood.  She returned to the stage, finally winning a Tony for what would be considered her most significant stage work in The Apple Tree, but while she appeared in films (including Neil Simon's Plaza Suite), she wouldn't be back into awards conversations until 1971, when she won her sole Oscar nomination for the bonkers-monikered Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me (the longest titled film ever cited for an acting Oscar).

(Spoilers Ahead) The story of Harry Kellerman is not about Barbara Harris, and in fact it's not really about Harry Kellerman, but instead about Georgie Solloway (Hoffman), a successful rock composer going through a moment-of-crisis because a man named Harry Kellerman keeps calling his lovers (past & present) and confessing lies about him.  He struggles to understand who Harry is, and through both moments of quiet introspection and conversations with his therapist (Warden), which frequently turn into elaborate fantasy sequences with Warden taking on different accents & personas, he rehashes his life.  We see the women that Georgie has loved, but because of his inability to commit or take responsibility, has lost as a result.  One of these women, Allison (Harris) is a woman that he's recently met at an audition, and whom he feels a connection for but you also get the sense that he will once again blow it.  In the last sequence, which it's difficult to tell at this point if it's reality or what is actually happening, it's revealed that Georgie is in fact Harry Kellerman, and has been calling these women to confess the worst parts of himself...right before he crashes into a mountain side.

This crash is part of the most interesting part of Harry Kellerman, as it's one of many moments in the film that Georgie kills himself, or watches others kill themselves.  As a result, it's hard to tell if he does, in fact, kill himself over the close of the film by crashing his plane into the Manhattan skyline, or if this is yet another indulgent fantasy of Georgie's.  This would be more interesting if it felt like it was part of a cogent storyline, but the problem with Harry Kellerman is that it's a total mess.  Even if you grant some leeway for the 1970's & the experimental nature of this type of filmmaking, Harry makes no sense.  There is no grounding in reality, and the film isn't strong enough on its merits to simply be a series of vignettes.  Hoffman, a fine actor & good at playing a narcissist, doesn't give us enough humanity for Georgie, who comes off as a jackass (honestly-Harry Kellerman is saying these terrible things about you because you're a terrible person), and there's not enough catharsis in the final moments to change that opinion.

That being said, if you can make it through 80 minutes of dreck, Harris is very good in this movie and while I'm shocked that the Academy noticed such a performance (Maureen Stapleton in Plaza Suite, which also starred Harris, or Eileen Brennan in The Last Picture Show would've been more traditional nominations), it's nice that they did considering she'd never be cited again.  Her Allison gets two big scenes in the movie, and Harris nails them both, giving us far beyond what's on the page (a struggling woman, attempting to understand her life).  There's a speech where she talks about the trouble of being 34 ("not old, but never again young") that literally any person in their thirties has thought countless times before.  Harris stands out, which is what she tended to do in her brief career, and is a lantern in a dreadful storm throughout Harry Kellerman, a movie not remotely as interesting as its title.

Big Jake (1971)

Film: Big Jake (1971)

Stars: John Wayne, Richard Boone, Maureen O'Hara, Patrick Wayne, Christopher Mitchum, Bobby Vinton

Director: George Sherman

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Maureen O'Hara-click here to learn more about Ms. O'Hara (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Maureen O'Hara's career is too big to properly go across one month, and in hindsight, I should've realized that.  An actress where I'd seen most of her major films before this (which makes it harder to ground you in her career if you don't have the context of How Green Was My Valley or The Quiet Man), she might have been a better fit for a full summer or at least a month with five Saturday's (which May is, so I'm hoping you're enamored with our star, as she's with us for a while) as I think we kind of skipped over some of her leading lady work in the 40's.  It's possible that O'Hara is one of the rare actors we'll go back to in the future if the theme fits, as there's lots of room to bring back more of her pictures.  But for now, we're going to end her career in the early 1970's, when O'Hara retired from the industry (though not forever-more on that in a second).  O'Hara after her heyday in the 1940's & 50's attempted a number of second careers.  She tried a musical career (with limited success) and a theater career (with no success).  She found more success in the 1960's working in family-friendly films, most notably The Parent Trap, and she saw her career shift from the beautiful Irish maiden into a hip 1960's mother.  By 1971, though, she was tired of Hollywood, and it seems thought (at least for a time) the best way for her to exit the screen was opposite one of her most frequent leading men, John Wayne, in Big Jake.

(Spoilers Ahead) Set in the early 20th Century, Big Jake initially starts on Martha McCandles (O'Hara), a wealthy ranch owner working with her sons.  When the Fain Gang, led by John Fain (Boone) ransack the ranch, killing many of their employees & kidnapping Martha's grandson little Jacob (Ethan Wayne). Martha is told she must pay $1 million in ransom to get the boy back, and she asks her estranged husband Jake (John Wayne) "aka Big Jake"  to bring the ransom to the other men, accompanied by two of his sons James (Patrick Wayne) and Michael (Mitchum), both of whom have a fractured relationship with their father.  As the men hit the road, they start to bond, and it's revealed that Big Jack & Martha had no intention of paying the ransom (even though they could afford it), as they instead decided to kill the kidnappers/murderers who pillaged their farm.  The men eventually kill the kidnappers, with Big Jake meeting his grandson for the first time, and the McCandles family reunited, now ready to live together again.

The film doesn't break any new ground with the western format.  Wayne has played this part a hundred times (considering how many movies he'd made in his career, that might not even be an exaggeration), and O'Hara wasn't far behind him.  So your tolerance for this type of film relies on how much you're willing to overlook in Wayne's toxic masculinity universe (there is none of the nuance that he'd bring to The Searchers or Liberty Valance here), but I liked it.  I generally like Wayne's persona onscreen, even if it could get cartoonish, and he brings a rough charm to this role, and it's fun to see him play off of his real-life sons Patrick & Ethan.  O'Hara is only in this movie for a bit (she gets "and Maureen O'Hara" billing, which is always a crapshoot in terms of actual screen time), but she does well with the limited role.  At this point, she seems to understand the history that she brings just by standing onscreen or appearing opposite John Wayne in a movie, and she leans into it rather than trying to discourage it, letting the moviegoers fill in the blanks through past onscreen collaborations between the two...the script doesn't have to do all the work at this point.

O'Hara would retire from film after Big Jake.  Her offscreen commentary is frequently a bit prudish by modern standards (and bordering on the vain when it comes to describing her own work), as she thought Hollywood only made "dirty pictures" during this era.  Weirdly, though, O'Hara had a second act, and it was opposite someone you would have never guessed considering her leading men numbered icons Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, & Charles Laughton: Canadian comedian John Candy.  O'Hara loved playing his mother (she remarked he was one of her favorite leading men), and she got better reviews than the film did (I've never seen it, but I'm kind of surprised she didn't get more Oscar buzz in a similar fashion to Don Ameche, Jack Palance, & Lauren Bacall at the time, as it feels like that kind of role...anyone who has seen it weigh in in the comments).  O'Hara would eventually get her long-coveted Oscar, an Honorary trophy from the Academy in 2014; she would die less than a year later at the age of 95.

OVP: The Go-Between (1971)

Film: The Go-Between (1971)

Stars: Julie Christie, Edward Fox, Alaln Bates, Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave, Dominic Guard

Director: Joseph Losey

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Margaret Leighton)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

One of the weirder aspects of streaming services is that they have a ticking clock on some of their movies. Each month, because I'm crazy organized about such things, I peruse the list of films that are leaving the Netflix, Hulu, & Criterion platforms, and diligently check if any of them are ones I can't see somewhere else (and if so, I watch them, regardless of how random they might seem).  This last month that was the case with The Go-Between, a relatively forgotten film from 1971 that was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.  Based on a novel by LP Hartley, the movie is a tale of forbidden romance in turn of the century rural England.

(Spoilers Ahead) The story centers around Leo (Guard as a child, Redgrave as an adult) a young boy who is spending the summer at the country estate of his wealthier friend Marcus.  Marcus has the measles for most of that summer (which is fine by Leo as Marcus' favorite hobby is bullying Leo), and so Leo gets to befriend the adults, specifically Marcus' sister Marian (Christie) & a tenant farmer next door named Ted Burgess (Bates).  While Marian is expected to be engaged to the proper Viscount Trimingham (Fox), she is having a passionate, illicit affair with Ted, and Leo realizes this after reading one of the letters the two carry back-and-forth with each other.  The movie comes to a head when Marian's mother Lady Maudsley (Leighton) figures out what is happening by breaking Leo, and stops the affair, which ends with Ted killing himself & a forlorn Marian marrying Trimingham, though she doesn't love him in the same way.

This is exactly the sort of movie that I adore.  I am such a big fan of a slow build romance, one with clear stakes & ones where not everyone is going to come out of the movie unscathed (including our seemingly oblivious narrator).  In fact, upon writing that paragraph about the plot, I was almost convinced that I had misjudged this movie during my viewing of it, it so piqued my interest.  However, The Go-Between is not special, and it does not execute on its fine story well.  The movie is ridiculously slow-paced, to the point of nauseam (how many times can you watch Leo drop off a letter?), and the romance doesn't really work since Christie & Bates are basically supporting players in their own movie (you don't get invested in them because the filmmakers insist on keeping the movie entirely from Leo's perspective).  As a result the tragic ending, with an aging Marian trying to convince an older Leo that she did, in fact, love Ted (and basically stating to him that at least one of her children was the product of her relationship with Ted), doesn't fall through as you haven't properly invested in these characters.  A good idea, badly launched.

The movie's acting is all-over-the-board.  I thought that Guard was beyond insufferable (child acting in the 1970's might have been when the practice hit its nadir), and Christie/Bates (both game performers in a normal circumstance) underplay their parts and don't even try to insert some sex appeal into these roles.  Leighton was the Oscar nominee of the bunch, and there's a part of me that gets why she was cited.  After nearly two snail-paced hours, she comes out like a lioness, ready to pounce on the dullness we've been through, but there's no build.  She's clearly an aristocrat who has seen all, knows all, but she doesn't play her character like that in the early scenes...there's nothing and then everything.  She's not bad, but she doesn't instruct the audience to wait for her dragon lady.  As a result, this nomination feels less like it's for a great work or a scene-stealer, and more a burst-of-relief that someone is finally ending the monotony.

OVP: Carnal Knowledge (1971)

Film: Carnal Knowledge (1971)

Stars: Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret, Candice Bergen, Rita Moreno, Carol Kane

Director: Mike Nichols

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Ann-Margret)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Ann-Margret-click here to learn more about Ms. Ann-Margret (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We're going to jump seven years into the future in our series for two reasons.  One, we have a lot to cover (Ann-Margret has been an enduring star for many decades), and two, Ann-Margret's career post Viva Las Vegas was kind of a bust.  Similar to some of the other stars we've talked about this year (like Jayne Mansfield), after just a few years as the center-of-the-world, the public began to crave a new star on their screens, and Ann-Margret could only be the "new star" for so long.  She had bad instincts during this time period (she turned down Cat Ballou, which went to Jane Fonda & opened up new doors in her career, and according to legend also turned down the part of Liesl in The Sound of Music, though I can't tell if this is just urban myth or is based in reality like the Cat Ballou decline, which actually happened), and her movies frequently had her being overshadowed by her male leads.  Instead, she struck up a Vegas nightclub act during this time frame (a successful one), and went on USO tours.  That is, until Mike Nichols gave her a role that would change her life.

(Spoilers Ahead) Carnal Knowledge is not about Ann-Margret's Bobbie, not really.  It's instead centered around the lives of two pals, Sandy (Garfunkel) and Jonathan (Nicholson), and their 25-year friendship.  Both men, virgins at the onset of the film, have completely different views on women; Jonathan considers them to be "ballbusters," something there for him to enjoy & control, while Sandy deifies them, treating them as life-changing.  

The movie is divided into three chapters.  In the first, they both fall in love with the same girl, Susan (Bergen), who attends their college.  Susan thinks Sandy is a nice guy, but is attracted to the excitement of Jonathan, and sleeps with him first.  As the relationship moves, though, Jonathan becomes angry that Susan doesn't give him the contentment that she gives Sandy.  As a result, they break up (Susan & Sandy marry), and we flash forward to the future, where Jonathan begins pursuing Bobbie, a gorgeous women whom he finds desirable, but eventually too complicated (because she is undergoing depression, and is desperate for him to love her in a traditional way, which Jonathan is not capable of because he views women as objects-of-desire).  Bobbie attempts suicide as a result of the depression, which we find in the final chapter led to Jonathan marrying and then divorcing her.  In this chapter, Sandy has found love with a new young woman named Jennifer (Kane), but has outgrown Jonathan-they have a falling out (not before Jonathan accidentally, wordlessly acknowledges that he & Susan had a relationship during a sadistic slideshow of his past sex partners), and we then see that Sandy truly leaves Jonathan behind, still financially successful but truly incapable of love.  The final scene is a pre-scripted monologue he has with a prostitute (Moreno) who talks about a man's power over her, as this is now the only way that Jonathan (who has increasingly suffered from impotence problems) can achieve an erection.

There are parts of Carnal Knowledge that simply wouldn't work today, and not just because of the deep core of misogyny that runs through it.  The film is an obvious commentary about the Sexual Revolution, and in this case two men trying to make sense of it in completely different ways, and that wouldn't make sense today.  Honestly-it's difficult for me to understand what of this film is dated & what of it is meant as a critique of these two men as a modern audience member.  In some respects I think it does this rather well-it's unflinching, nasty, & not forgiving of its main characters, particularly Nicholson's Jonathan.

But it also dismisses the women at its core.  The problematic people in this film are the men, and any audience member now would be able to tell that.  Jonathan's emotional abuse of Susan & Bobbie is rigid & hate-filled, but not much worse is Sandy begging these women to define him, to be the missing piece he isn't offering them (and to constantly blame them rather than himself when they don't).  Their friendship is unhealthy & they bring out the worst in each other, but that doesn't mean that the director's treatment of the women is much better.  Most of the women as written are nothing parts (Kane's Jennifer doesn't even speak), and with the exception of Moreno in a 5-minute long cameo at the end (where her reciting a script for money shows that she, ultimately, is in control), there's no focus on these women as anything other than through the eyes of the two male leads.

That isn't for lack of trying, though, on the part of Ann-Margret.  As written, Bobbie is a throwaway role; she's simply a gorgeous woman who wants to get married to this guy that she loves, and who is incapable of loving her.  But Bobbie is the crux of the film-she needs to both show us someone that we think is a throwaway one-night-stand, and then have it dawn on the audience (but not Jonathan) that Bobbie is perfect for Jonathan, and that if he can't make it work with her, it spells his doom.  

It's a tricky part, not least of which is that most of that isn't on the paper, and that might've been why Nichols struggled for months to cast it (supposedly everyone from Ellen Burstyn to Raquel Welch to Dyan Cannon to, in a twist, Jane Fonda, pursued the part but didn't land it), but in Ann-Margret he cast it flawlessly.  Ann-Margret is not the actress that Jane Fonda or Ellen Burstyn are, but she knew a good thing when it landed in her lap, and she understood Bobbie.  The way she plays her is marvelous-she shows Bobbie as a girl who had likely been worshipped by men her whole life, but is now on the cusp of thirty, and doesn't understand that while men still pursue her, they aren't willing to give her everything she desired (namely, a traditional family life).  Ann-Margret, still a knockout, but several years removed from her peak time in the spotlight, finds a way to impart that persona into Bobbie, playing her as someone who understands that her time-in-the-sun is over & she might've missed her window for happiness if it doesn't work with Jonathan.  There's a sexism in that reading, but it's the one that Nichols gives us, and I think Ann-Margret plays it well.

OVP: Shaft (1971)

Film: Shaft (1971)
Stars: Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John
Director: Gordon Parks
Oscar History: 2 nominations/1 win (Best Original Score, Best Original Song-"Theme from Shaft"*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We're continuing on our conversation about music at the Oscars with one of the strangest films ever to be nominated for an Oscar: Shaft.  A pretty big hit in 1971, Shaft is arguably the most famous & lasting of the era's "blaxploitation" films, which were the first that consistently put African-American actors in traditional hero roles.  Shaft spawned sequels, a reboot, and even a short-lived television series (all of which starred Richard Roundtree as the titular character), but weirdly I knew next-to-nothing about the film's plot headed into the movie, and really only could distinguish it through its iconic title song (we'll get there in a second, but first, let's discuss the movie itself).

(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses on John Shaft (Roundtree), a private detective who is being pursued by gangsters.  After an altercation, he realizes that the person who has ordered a hit on him is Bumpy Jonas (Gunn), the head of a crime syndicate whose daughter has been kidnapped.  Shaft tries to return Bumpy's kidnapped daughter to him, but frequently runs into problems with the kidnappers and Police Lt. Androzzi (Cioffi), with the latter kept in the dark so that Shaft can perform a form of vigilante justice.  In the end, Shaft saves Bumpy's daughter during an elaborate heist that leaves a giant building in tatters.  When Androzzi calls Shaft & tells him he needs to help clean up this mess, he tells him "you're gonna have to close it yourself" while laughing.

The film has more plot than that, but I'll be real-it's kind of repetitive.  Shaft is an iconic film because of what it represented in 1971 to have a Black man in a traditional hero role that might have otherwise gone to Burt Reynolds or Gene Hackman.  It's not, though, a particularly solid action film.  The movie's villains are cartoonishly evil, and its views on race are dated (and were even in 1971), with a "race war" hanging over the entire film as potential issue that will result from Shaft trying to save Bumpy's daughter.  The acting is bad & two-dimensional, and while Shaft himself is a badass, the film's views on women are regressive (though it's worth noting that the film randomly has an openly gay character, which while stereotypical, is still a sign of progress for any film in 1971).

The movie received two Oscar nominations-one for Best Score and one for Best Original Song.  The score's main lick (you're humming it now) is well-known, but it's repetitive & doesn't really add anything other than that one lick, so I don't think it's all the impressive within the confines of the film, even if it's undoubtedly iconic.  The title song, though, is cool.  Isaac Hayes auditioned for the film, but while he didn't get the lead, he did get a chance to write this song, and it made him an icon (and an Oscar-winner).  It's a funky, hummable beat, and totally captures the mood of the movie.  I just wish it was capturing the mood of a better film.

OVP: The Last Picture Show (1971)

Film: The Last Picture Show (1971)
Stars: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Oscar History: 8 nominations/2 wins (Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor-Jeff Bridges, Supporting Actor-Ben Johnson*, Supporting Actress-Cloris Leachman*, Supporting Actress-Ellen Burstyn, Cinematography, Adapted Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I will admit that American Graffiti is not a film that wears well in the old memory.  It's one of those movies I saw in my youth and might admittedly gain a new perspective on being older, but as a result of my apathy when The Last Picture Show started out, I was a little nervous as those opening scenes, with Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges both struggling to "get some" off of their girlfriends both recalled that George Lucas coming-of-age landmark.  However, as the film progressed I saw other things start to pop up, namely legitimate adults, and we got to see how the inconsequential started to overtake people's lives in a lonely, dusty town.  It's the sort of tale that feels authentic not only in its time, but in my experience to small towns and the way that slower-moving attitudes shift the way you run your life and expect things out of it, and it's a melancholy look at America's past, but also very uncomfortably at its present.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place in the 1950's, 1951/52 to be exact, in a desolate small town in Texas.  Here we see three young people: Sonny (Bottoms), Duane (Bridges), and Jacy (Shepherd) exploring the town, the latter two in a lusty but unconsummated relationship, while the former has just broken up with his girlfriend of a year for not having sex with him.  The film unfolds with Sonny as our lead protagonist, slipping throughout the town and exposing new layers of every character in the movie.  The film rarely leaves his or Jacy's purview, and a result we get only snippets of the remaining characters, but they are almost all powerful.  The film continues in this way, with very few things of meaning or consequence coming about, resulting in the few actions that do matter (Jacy and Duane breaking up, Ben Johnson's Sam the Lion dying, Sonny starting an affair with the older-and-married Ruth Popper, played by Cloris Leachman) really sink in for the audience.  It's a sharp metaphor of how there are only a few things over time that tend to sink in and make an impression in all walks of life, but particularly in a small town, where all activities and actions remain on a loop, perpetually the same.

The film received four Oscar nominations for acting, an incredible feat duplicated by very few films, and all of them were in supporting roles (the only time in AMPAS history where a film got four acting nominations and none of them were in the lead roles).  It's sort of a weird hodgepodge of nominated performances in it.  The most significant role of the bunch is Jeff Bridges, who is in most of the movie, and actually could have been marketed as a lead without too much trouble.  Bridges was incredibly young when this film was made (a mere 21), and does a great job of making Duane seem likable when his actions aren't.  There's a weird juxtaposition with Jacy, whom Cybill Shepherd makes almost unbearably cruel and vain, and Duane, who is in reality many of these things.  He knows he's handsome, he knows he got the best girl, and he acts like a child whenever he doesn't get his way.  Bridges could have been far more curt, but he has such an amiable demeanor you are caught off-guard when Duane is cruel to Sonny late in the film, even though he's always been like this.

The remaining actors are helped by three powerhouse scenes that carry them, since they are all supporting in the truest sense of the word.  Bridges lost his first Oscar bid to legendary Western star Ben Johnson, who at just under ten minutes, gives the shortest performance ever to win Best Supporting Actor.  The character gets one memorable soliloquy right before his untimely death, where he opines for the plains of his youth and the girl that got away (whom we later learn, in her big scene, is Ellen Burstyn's Lois), and he indeed sells the hell out of this scene, though one wonders if he wasn't a legendary character actor if he would have actually taken the trophy.  Less wondering can be said for Cloris Leachman, most famous now for her work on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and her erratic appearances on Dancing with the Stars, but she nails her short turn as the neglected wife of a gay gym teacher (I love how Bogdanovich got that across in one very quick scene while skirting around the censors of that time), having so many crying fits about her love affair with young Sonny and selling her breakdown scene toward the end of the film to the rafters.  Compared with Leachman Ellen Burstyn can't really compete, frequently staying surface-level and not giving much more than the appearance of someone who is still beautiful, and is knowing of her daughter's ways.  I am kind of surprised that she and Eileen Brennan (who have weirdly similar names-perhaps the Academy confused them?) didn't switch places in terms of nominations, as Brennan is better at doing more with less and is more memorable as a waitress whose life will always be behind a lunch counter.

The film is at its best when it gives something harsh and bitter, like Jacy's destruction of almost everything she touches (first Duane's life, then Sonny's), showing that actions have consequences, and few of them are great.  We see how Sam the Lion spends his life wishing he'd made a different decision with the love of his life, or the permanence of a bad decision in Ruth's marriage to a man who has no sexual interest in her.  The film becomes a bit dry when it focuses too much on the inner-workings of children and trying to grow up-it's far more fascinating when it shows how society and the world end up treating teenagers as adults far earlier than it should, watching as Duane, Jacy, and Sonny put permanent scars on their happiness and futures before they are mature enough to handle these circumstances.  This harshness is helped by the cinematography, which was also nominated (and thankfully put in black-and-white, which helps with the nostalgic pull), as the film is obsessed with eye-level camera work and that makes the few vast expanse scenes all the more impactful.

All-in-all, I have to say I was impressed though the masterpiece that I was expecting was maybe not quite there.  The movie is one of the strongest depictions of young life I have seen, but it would have been even better if it had found slightly more compelling leads and focused more on the permanent ennui of everyone in this town, just sort of being there and not really living.  It's a very strong film though, and I highly recommend seeing it if it's one of those classics that (like me) you have been putting off catching.