OVP: The Wind and the Lion (1975)

Film: The Wind and the Lion (1975)

Stars: Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith, John Huston

Director: John Milius

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Sound, Score)

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 Sean Connery: click here to learn more about Mr. Connery (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

To most filmgoers, certainly in the 1970's, Sean Connery was essentially James Bond.  While other actors at that point (Roger Moore, George Lazenby, even David Niven) had played the part, Connery was Bond...and he wasn't super happy about it.  Connery is not the last of the actors this year we'll profile who struggled with being taken seriously as a thespian having enormous success in the realm of action movies, but he might be the most perturbed of the bunch.  Connery is a good actor, one who even during the height of Bond was working with important directors like Alfred Hitchcock & Sidney Lumet, but all the public saw him as was 007.  Literally-Michael Caine (Connery's longtime friend) would tell an anecdote about how upset Connery would get when someone would call him James Bond rather than his real name in the streets.  So it's not surprising that after Diamonds are Forever, a massive hit for United Artists in the early 1970's, that Connery largely eschewed the role, and in 1975 made two films involving Huston (one as his costar, the other as director-star) that would stand up as attempts for Connery to be taken more seriously as an actor.  One of these, The Man Who Would Be King, would become a classic, while the other would be quickly forgotten.

(Spoilers Ahead) We're choosing The Wind and the Lion and not The Man Who Would Be King because I always choose "new to me" movies for this series, and not only have I seen The Man Who Would Be King, but I also genuinely love it, so I couldn't go in unbiased if I tried (if you haven't seen it, add it to the Watchlist).  The Wind and the Lion is a weird amalgamation of historical drama and at least (to a degree) a romantic film, based in part on a true event involving President Teddy Roosevelt.  The film follows the kidnapping of Eden Pedecaris (Bergen), a wealthy woman stying with diplomats in Morocco by Mulai Ahmed Er Raisuli (Connery), as a way to start a Civil War in his country, one that will result in the Sultan leading Morocco to be publicly shamed.  They bond in a bit of Stockholm Syndrome as Eden comes to understand Raisuli's plight, though this is told with long swaths of the film going back to DC where President Roosevelt (Keith) is in the middle of his 1904 presidential bid, and attempting to use the kidnapping as a way to win over voters to win the election.

The Wind and the Lion is a weird movie, made stranger by the fact that it's based in part on a true story (though in real life Bergen's character was a man, almost certainly changed to a woman to help aid the romantic angle, as this was in the era where a giant epic needed to have a beautiful woman for the lead to fall in love with).  Connery is actually playing a real person, one who (like Connery) would live long after the events of this film.  The problem is that the film feels cartoonish in the many cutaways to the White House.  The movie might've been able to skate by without much chemistry between Bergen & Connery (Bergen is an odd actress, in that I don't generally like her in straight dramatic roles, but she's so compelling as a classy comedic role & she's so insanely gorgeous that I always hope I will find the drama that works for me), but these diversions distract too much, and make it feel silly, even if I adored the Jerry Goldsmith score.

And Connery does work in this role, and it's not a coincidence that the actor would excel for many years in epics and David Lean-style films for the remainder of his career (even if Connery would sadly never work with Lean directly).  He plays the part with a sort of majesty, an inherent otherworldliness that he would bring to roles like The Man Who Would Be King and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, two of his finest roles that I've seen.  It's also probably why he would eventually be offered the part (and then turn it down) as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings (given the deal that Connery got, had he taken the part it might've made him the highest-paid actor in cinema history (based on the rumors that have leaked about his offer and the percentage of the profits, he may well have made upwards of half a billion dollars from the part over the course of the series).

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: The Sand Pebbles (1966)

Film: The Sand Pebbles (1966)
Stars: Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, Candice Bergen, Marayat Andriane, Mako
Director: Robert Wise
Oscar History: 8 nominations (Best Picture, Actor-Steve McQueen, Supporting Actor-Mako, Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Score, Sound)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

This week we've covered four screen legends for the Best Actor field (John Travolta, Mickey Rooney, Spencer Tracy, & Cary Grant), but today as we wind down our Best Actor tribute, we're going to pick a fifth legend, but one with two distinctions from this group.  The first is that despite a pretty robust film career before his early death, Steve McQueen only scored one Oscar nomination.  McQueen had other films that might have popped with Oscar if they'd been a bit more smitten with him (Love with a Proper Stranger, The Reivers, Papillon), but this was the only time Oscar went with the cinematic rebel, and they did it in (second distinction from this week's movies) a Best Picture nominee.  The Sand Pebbles is probably best-remembered in terms of Oscar for its Best Picture nomination, and that it is the rare film to win eight citations from AMPAS and not win a single one in the year where A Man for All Seasons and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? were scooping up most of the trophies.  However, we'll try to frame it at least slightly from the Best Actor front today to go with our theme.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Sand Pebbles is a long movie, a proper three-hour epic, and thus we've got a plot to slice through, but I'll try to boil it down.  Essentially we have Jake Holman (McQueen) who is a rebellious maintenance officer in the United States Navy.  He is assigned to the USS San Pablo, nicknamed the "Sand Pebble" and thus the men on the ship are called the "Sand Pebbles."  The boat is  stationed in China in the 1920's, and they hire Chinese men as laborers on the ship to run the ship and do most of the manual work.  This doesn't fly with Holman, who takes over the engine room and instantly causes friction with the other men aboard the ship as a result, with the exception of Frenchy (Attenborough).  This continues as one of the Chinese men who had run the ship prior to Holman is killed in an accident due to Holman wanting to implement better maintenance onboard, and Holman has to hire an additional Chinese laborer Po-Han (Mako), whom he befriends, but their association costs Po-Han his life.  We continue to see increased tension between the Chinese and the Americans as the National Revolutionary Army begins to gain power, and in the end, it's obvious that the Americans are in over-their-head, as one-by-one pretty much every major Sand Pebble is killed as a result of the increasing tension with the Chinese.

There's a lot more to the plot than that, but I don't want to spend this whole article recapping rather than reviewing.  Let's start out with the acting, particularly McQueen's.  McQueen had an effortless cool onscreen in all of his roles (also, he was sexy as hell), which translates here, but in terms of heavy-lifting for his character, it kind of gets lost.  McQueen is watchable, but is a weird counter to the rest of the cast, ranging from the "ACTING!" being done by Richard Attenborough to the distinguished work of Richard Crenna's lieutenant (for my money, best in the cast) to Candice Bergen's "I'm going to under-emote as much as possible which you hopefully won't notice because I am so beautiful" role as the girlfriend (Bergen's role, in particular feels like exactly the kind that Oscar notices for some reason with pretty young actresses even when they don't really do much onscreen, and I'm kind of floored she wasn't nominated as a result).  As a result, McQueen's performance feels too strained, doesn't get enough background, and is out-of-kilter with the rest of the movie.

The movie itself is grand, and I'm a sucker for such things (I love a long movie if it gets a big enough payoff, which this movie does in the final moments), but it never really justifies its length.  The love story between McQueen & Bergen has zilch chemistry (I swear, I like Bergen as a rule, but this movie does nothing with her tenacity), and Attenborough seems to be more in love with his girlfriend's (Maily, a virgin who is wading into prostitution) situation than with herself.  The movie is good, but it never goes for great, and when you get a cast & crew that looks like this, great is what you should be expecting.

The other six nominations need their due before we close.  Mako's turn as Supporting Actor is instantly sympathetic, and one of the rare circumstances where an Asian actor was nominated by Oscar, but it's a misdirect as he has very little to do other than be sympathetic & someone to show a shift in McQueen's character.  His work here is unusual as Attenborough & Crenna both have bigger parts (Attenborough even won the Golden Globe), so it's cool such a small role won an Oscar nod, but it's pretty one-note even if it's physically demanding.  Mako's biggest scene in the movie is an intense boxing match that lasts a while, and while it's riveting/exhausting, it's also lensed in an unusual way that felt disjointed, which I can't decide to blame on either the editor (who could have trimmed half an hour from this movie & made everything sharper) or the cinematographer (who otherwise does brilliant work in the waters, especially as the San Pueblo attempts to fjord enemy lines late in the movie).  The Sound is strong, and does great things with quiet (rare for a war picture), especially the thrilling final showdown between McQueen and the NRA soldiers, and the Art Direction was fine, though occasionally feels too "filmy" (the bar/brothel looks so much like a blank movie set you half expect the men to start singing on the tables).  The best nomination, though, was the Score-which is breathtaking.  Jerry Goldsmith (one of my favorites) gives the film a haunting romance with his horns & strings that, quite frankly, the story never earns, but it's radiant stuff.

Book Club (2018)

Film: Book Club (2018)
Stars: Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Richard Dreyfuss, Andy Garcia, Don Johnson
Director: Bill Holderman
Oscar History: It's not that kind of movie.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

4 Oscars, 6 Emmys, and 12 Golden Globes.  If we go to the nominations, it's 13, 16, and 39, respectively.  The women of Book Club have created so many film and television memories through the years, honestly, they could have filmed their actual book club and I would have shown up to watch it.  This seems to be the attitude of most of the people I follow on Twitter, who were thrilled to be attending Book Club even if it didn't actually look any good.  The fact that it got made at all is interesting, and proof, perhaps, of Hollywood having missed the boat a bit when it comes to counter-programming.  Book Club is a genuine hit at this point, and proves that you don't have to have an English accent to storm the box office against blockbuster giants (these four women's British contemporaries like Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, and Maggie Smith regularly get to lead their own summer comedies).  That said, this is a film review, and it's important for me not to just ask "is this fun?" but also "is this good?"

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around four lifelong friends: Diane (Keaton), Vivian (Fonda), Sharon (Bergen), and Carol (Steenburgen) who get together every single month to read a book, and because Hollywood demands we have to have a hook in order for four beautiful older women to talk about sex & relationships, the book club pick is Fifty Shades of Grey.  Thankfully this isn't a huge part of the film itself (only Steenburgen seems to indulge a bit in EL James erotica, and that's less central to her subplot than the trailers would suggest), as it would feel a bit ageist to have a bunch of worldly women focus entirely on being shocked by S&M, but it is indicative of the pretty uninspired thinking that screenwriters Bill Holderman and Erin Simms bring to this movie.  For it has to be said-Book Club, for all of the promise of its legendary stars, is not very good.

The film's central problem lies in it being too predictable, and feeling a bit too much like an original movie you'd catch on cable (in many ways it reminded me of Wild Oats from a few years back, which premiered on Lifetime).  There's nothing unique or special happening here.  Candice Bergen is the only person doing something original here, and the only character whose story I wanted to learn more about as the film progressed.  Bergen breathes life into her character, a stately judge who is trying to start dating again, and finds at least some under-explored facets of aging; watching her ex-husband introduce "the love of his life" is a cruel scene, particularly when you consider that he's not meeting some harlot, but instead a genuinely nice younger woman.  There's also the frayed dynamic between her son, who is clearly more like his dad than his mother, and herself, and the way that Bergen tips her hand that she needed to be a more absent mother in order to have her successful career, and the resentment that builds from such a decision.  That's great stuff, and while heavy for a comedy, Bergen makes it work.  The rest of the cast, though, doesn't have that luxury and doesn't expand their characters beyond two dimensions.

Fonda, for example, is phoning in her role as a sexy nymph who let a man get away-she could do this in her sleep.  Keaton's performance as a mother rediscovering love is the same role she's been playing for twenty years.  It would have been genuinely interesting if they had messed around with these parts, for example, and not had them play their own public persona (imagine Fonda as the neurotic mother or Keaton as the lusty single gal), but that's not really what people are buying tickets for; like the Dench/Smith films, they want to see the star they know-and-love, and they don't want them to stretch too much.  As a result, this is a film that feels instantly disposable, which is a damned shame as these actors are too talented to discard.

Rules Don't Apply (2016)

Film: Rules Don't Apply (2016)
Stars: Warren Beatty, Lily Collins, Alden Ehrenreich, Annette Bening, Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, Candice Bergen, Ed Harris
Director: Warren Beatty
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Heaven Can Wait.  Reds.  Dick Tracy.  Bullworth.  It's quite a collection of films that Warren Beatty-Director, has amassed.  Beatty is, by my count, the only actor to have been nominated for acting, directing, producing, and writing in the same year twice.  Even Clint Eastwood couldn't equal that, which is saying something as Clint hasn't taken annoyingly long breaks in his filmography (it's worth noting that this is his first directing bid in 18 years...also that 1998 was 18 years ago), and that it was his first time acting in fifteen (the enormous bomb Town & Country which stalled a number of careers at the time).  As a result, I couldn't miss this movie.  Reds remains one of the crowning achievements of the 1980's, and is one of my all-time favorite movies-I owe Warren Beatty indefinitely for it, not to mention multiple other roles that place him amongst my favorite actors.  The reviews were scary, but it couldn't be that bad, could it?

(Spoilers Ahead) Unfortunately, it was.  Rules Don't Apply may be one of the most-hyped movies of the year for me simply because Warren Beatty is finally billed in the credits again, but even if you'd maintained low expectations for the picture, it's unlikely this would have surpassed them.  The film is the story of Howard Hughes (Beatty) toward the end of his career, when he is still an icon in American print but his output, especially as a director, is pretty low.  He keeps a stable of women in luxurious houses around Los Angeles, being chauffeured by a series of drivers who rarely understand why they're driving around these women, and have limited contact with Mr. Hughes, one of which is Frank (Ehrenreich), who develops a crush on an aspiring actress Marla Mabrey (Collins), who in turn is also romantically involved (briefly) with Howard Hughes.  The love triangle is the center of the film, though it's sidetracked by bouts of crazy from Hughes, Marla's weird focus on her own chastity and religion, and a bevy of Beatty's longtime Hollywood friends coming out for what may well be his swan song (Candy Bergen making a rare film appearance, as well as Martin Sheen-it's a pity that Beatty couldn't get his best buddy Jack Nicholson in for one last hurrah-THAT would have been something to see).

The film's problems are all over the board, and probably too innumerable to list.  For starters, Beatty has no idea if this film is supposed to be funny or a drama, and it does not combine the two well (at all).  There are scenes that are hilarious on-paper (some of the older members of my audience chuckled), and then it's followed by a heartbreaking sequence that shows how tragic the love triangle is (no matter how it lands, almost no one is going to completely win here).  It would have been better had Beatty decided to do a straight drama or comedy (he can do either), but trying to be both doesn't work, and feels like a movie that's been in production too long.

The lead actors leave much to be desired.  Alden Ehrenreich is fascinating to look at, and was great in Hail, Caesar! earlier this year, but cannot sell this underwritten character at all.  I'm not sure which old star Beatty was picturing when he wrote this (Robert Redford, perhaps?), but man is it bland.  Ehrenreich is a talent if his naive cowboy is any indication, but here his best attribute is a fascinating, John Barrymore-like profile that is framed well onscreen.

His acting is not noteworthy at all, and he has no chemistry with leading-lady Lily Collins, who is by far the worst part of this movie.  Collins has no onscreen ability or charisma, and is hopelessly generic every time I've seen her in a movie.  Considering she was abysmal in Mirror Mirror, tanked The Mortal Instruments franchise, and has now proven she can't even find talent opposite someone like Warren Beatty, perhaps it's time to stop hiring her and forcing her onto unsuspecting audience members?  There are other actors who aren't very good in the film, but they can at least claim no one cares about them (Beatty seems only focused on his three leading characters and doesn't really want to do anything other than let the camera beam at his old pals in bit roles).  Lily Collins has no excuse-this is Razzy-worthy stuff.

Beatty at the center is fun to see onscreen, though even there I question whether or not it's an okay performance or simply seeing a thousand movie memories in his wide smile that makes me give him a pass.  It's likely that after two back-to-back (albeit separated by 15 years) flops Beatty might be done at the movies, certainly behind the screen, but one bad movie or a few doesn't ruin your career when you are also Clyde Barrow or John Reed or Dick Tracy.  But it does if you're simply Phil Collins' daughter, so Lily Collins-perhaps it's time to take an acting class or seven?