Semiquincentennial Movie Project #5: The Stepford Wives

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

Week #(X): Connecticut-

 

 

The state of Connecticut was established on January 9, 1788. 

Details about Connecticut:

State bird: American robin

State flower: mountain laurel

State tree: white oak

Connecticut is the only state to have an officially designated state composer: Charles Ives. Although every state does have a state song, and some acknowledge the state song composers, none have a "state composer" designation.

Do you get annoyed with that 60 or 70 MPH speed limit? Blame Connecticut as it was the first state to establish a speed limit. Although be glad it progressed over the years. Originally the rural road limit was only 15 MPH... And while on the subject of cars, the first permanent license plate originated here.

Connecticut is the home of the origin of such things as the sewing machine and the Frisbee.

Famous names who claim Connecticut as their birthplace: Katherine Hepburn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael Bolton, P. T. Barnum and our 43rd U.S. President, George W. Bush. 

 

 The Stepford Wives (1975): 

"Something strange is happening in the town of Stepford..." 

You know what the perfect wife would be? Someone who is docile, agreeable, a homebody, doesn't spend too much of hubby's money, in essence, that age-old male chauvinist idea of the perfect woman, whose only purpose is to stay "barefoot and pregnant". And it seems that the men of Stepford, Connecticut, are more lucky than the rest of the world in finding these ideal wives.

The Stepford Wives started out life as a novel by Ira Levin. Levin is the author who gave us Rosemary's Baby, A Kiss Before Dying, Sliver and The Boys from Brazil, all of which were made into great, or at least fairly good movies.  (Some may disagree whether Sliver was any good at all, but I like it...) Levin wrote 7 novels in his career and 6 of them were made into movies. That's 86% of his novel output that is on celluloid. (Eat your heart out, Stephen King). I just wish someone would tackle This Perfect Day, the only one that hasn't been made, and #2 on my list of favorites of his work.

The cache of talent involved doesn't stop with the author, however. The screenplay is credited to William Goldman (The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,  All the President's Men and Misery, among others.) Of course, director Bryan Forbes rewrote a lot of it, but Goldman's touch is still there. The cast included Katherine Ross in the headliner role of Joana Eberhart, with her husband played by Peter Masterson. (And here's an interesting tidbit. The part of one of their daughters, Kim, was played by Peter Masterson's real daughter, Mary Stuart Masterson, in her film debut.)

Tina Louise (Ginger on Gilligan's Island) and Franklin Cover (Tom Willis on The Jeffersons) were also among the supporting actors in the film. There could have been other big names involved. Diane Keaton, for instance, was approached to be the lead, but turned it down because her analyst didn't like it. (it may be overstated, but I think about at least 50% or more of Hollywood was in some sort of psycho-therapy in the 70's...)  Jean Seberg and Tuesday Weld were also considered.

The movie starts as Joanna Eberhart (Katherine Ross) and her husband, Walter (Peter Masterson) and their two daughters, Kim (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Amy (Ronny Sullivan) prepare to depart from New York City on their way to their new home in Stepford, Connecticut.  The trip is approached with varying degrees of attitude. Walter is enthusiastic about it (at one point he even gushes that "you don't even have to lock your doors in Stepford"). The kids are oblivious, since it's just another day, and probably just thinking about the new friends they'll make.

 

On the other hand, Joanna seems to be having a little apprehension. After all, moving to a small suburb from the hubbub of the big city affects her in more ways than one. For one thing, she is an artist (photographer), and the move will take her away from the artistic word in, say, Greenwich Village, or wherever she happens to do business.

To make things even more disconcerting for her, she finds that most of the women in Stepford are the exact opposite of her: they are more interested in being dedicated housewives, keeping clean kitchens and making exquisite meals, rather than being open to the feminist ideals that Joanna adheres to. And strange things happen; like when Carol Van Sant (Nanette Newman) takes a blow to the head in a traffic accident and Keeps repeating the same thing over and over again.

 

To make matter worse, there is a thriving social club in town, but it is strictly "men only", which is an affront to the radical feminist Joanna. One of things that stands out early in the picture is that Walter seems to be overly eager to cave in to his wife (to use a derogatory term; [expletive deleted]-whipped).

 

But he gradually gets his own backbone upright by joining this men's club, albeit to the objections of Joanna.  Joanna meets a neighbor, Bobbie (Paula Prentiss), who is like her a free-spirited feminist, and the two decide to start their own "women's club". But while Joanna and Bobbie, and another woman in town, Charmaine (Tina Louise), are receptive to the concept, the rest of the women fit into that dedicated housewife category. 

 

Bobbie

Charmaine

 

In fact, at their first meeting, although the feminist sector open up about their feelings on the male-dominated society in Stepford, the housewives delve into what the best product is to keep food from sticking to the pan when baking. (It all comes off like a TV commercial...)

 

Joanna and Bobbie start to get suspicious when Charmaine suddenly turns into one those dedicated housewives. Initially Bobbie thinks there must be something in the water and takes samples to a science lab, but they find it's nothing but ordinary tap water. And then, somewhere along the way, Bobbie also turns into one of those dedicated housewives. Joanna decides she's had enough, and if Walter won't pack up and leave Stepford, then she will take the kids and leave herself. 

 

The roadblock to that occurs when Walter, for some reason, has sent the kids off, so he can have a quiet weekend with Joanna. Since the "quiet weekend with the husband" occurred prior to her friends becoming the "alien" personalities, she gets her hackles up and decides to delve into this mysterious "men's club" meeting house.

 

I'll leave just enough for you to be curious about the ending, although it's a good bet that most of you already know, even if you never have watched the movie. The term "Stepford wife" has insinuated itself into the lexicon far enough that just the basic idea may be in your mind already. 

The film was released in February of 1975. The only real competition for it appears to be Shampoo, a Warren Beatty film that ended up being  the third highest grossing film of the year, making $49 million dollars. The Stepford Wives, although not a "dud", only managed to pull in $4 million dollars. Critical response was generally mediocre. It currently holds a rating of only 55% on Rotten Tomatoes. One critic even stated that the screenplay from the source material was "tedious and padded".

One of the more interesting aspects of it's reception was with the feminist sector of the population. I personally thought that the film had a fairly strong feminist tinge to it, but then, I am a male, and a single male at that, so what do I know? Wikipedia, quoting an article from Entertainment Weekly, says that at one showing to an audience of feminists, it was met with "hisses, groans and guffaws." Betty Friedan, a respected leader of the feminist movement, called it "a rip-off of the women's movement." However, some feminist authors did come to it's defense, and director Bryan Forbes objected to the criticism by claiming that if the message of the movie was anything it's anti-men.

The movie spawned three made-for-TV sequels and, in 2004, a remake starring Nicole Kidman in the Katherine Ross role. Haven't seen that, but I am given to understand it was beneath the original, and only barely made back it's production costs in the theater. 

In my opinion, the 1975 version gets a lot of bad press. I think that Katherine Ross carries the film well, and some of those "transformed" Stepford women give me the creeps, which says a lot about how well they became the docile, subservient women the men of Stepford created. There are also some decent parallels to the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in that sometimes the changes in the "victims" can be so insidious and yet subtle that you just don't realize until it's too late. It doesn't seem to be a coincidence, to me at any rate, that both movies take place in bucolic suburbs rather than in the big city. (Of course, the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers did occur in a big city, and as I said in my review of that movie, it's up to you to decide which is a more scary scenario.

The one issue that I had with the movie is that it seems to ignore the children. One wonders how the children responded to the change in Mommy's personality. After all, besides Joanna, I'm sure there must have been some of the others who had had kids prior to their change. What did they think of the new attitude of Mommy?

The Stepford Wives was a much better movie than the remake with Nicole Kidman, that much is certain. Watching Ross and her gradual realization dawn that something is not quite kosher in Stepford is well worth the price of admission. 

Well, that's it for this time folks. Drive safely.

Quiggy

  

A Way, Way Too Early Announcement!

 

 

June 6 is the Official Drive-In Movie Day. I decided to go full hog with this beloved day this year.

Keep an eye out for more formal announcements and promotions over the next few months, but there will be an opportunity for you to participate. Be thinking about fond memories of your past at the drive-in, or your favorite movies you saw at a drive-in, or even just movies that have scenes that take place at a drive-in. Bloggers who choose to participate also will have an incentive...

I have three sets of door prizes I will be giving away to people who choose to participate in the fun. I have them on order, so I can't post pictures yet, but each door prize will consist of a drive-in themed sticker and a postcard, names to be thrown into a hat if more than 3 participate.

And, thanks to Rachel at Hamlette's Soliloquy for creating the above banner.

Until next announcement, drive safely, folks.

Quiggy 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #4: Gator

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

 

Week #(X): Georgia -

 

The state of Georgia was established on January 2, 1788.

Details about Georgia:

State bird: brown thrasher

State flower: Cherokee rose    

State tree: live oak

Additional historical trivia:

Georgia is the home of the vaunted peanut, and our  39th U.S. President, Jimmy Carter, was a peanut farmer in the state prior to his political career.

The stove top waffle iron, the cotton gin and even Coca Cola, are all products that first saw the light of day in the state. 

Georgia is one of only three states that proudly displays the motto "In God We Trust" on it,

Some famous people from Georgia: Jimmy Cater (of course), Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson, Jeff Foxworthy and Ray Charles all were born in the state.   

 

 

Gator (1976): 

Gator is actually a sequel to White Lightning, the 1973 film that introduced the character of "Gator" McKlusky. That film features Gator as a moonshine still operator who goes undercover to help trap other moonshiners. But Gator is no flunky for the government. His real goal is to get revenge on a crooked sheriff who killed his younger brother.

 

After the end of White Lightning, Gator was essentially a free man,  and went back to his old lifestyle. Meanwhile at the capitol building, the governor of the state, played by Mike Douglas, is ranting about how he looks in the press because of that one degenerate county in the state. What county? Why Dunston County, home of Gator.

But the governor has a man that may be able to help, Irving Greenfield (Jack Weston). Greenfield is touted as one of the top agents in the Federal government. Greenfield has a plan. 

 

The key to solving the dilemma with Greenfield is to somehow nullify the influence of the county bigwig (and top crime boss) "Bama" McCall (Jerry Reed). What Greenfield proposes is getting the help of a recent parolee, our friend "Gator", to help bring in McCall.

 

Of course, catching Gator is going to be half the battle. Because he knows the swamps better than just about anybody, and can run through that stuff like a cottonmouth in the brush. But eventually the Greenfield crew do run down Gator. Since Gator is almost assuredly running moonshine again and a third conviction would send him away for a loooong time, Greenfield thinks he's got Gator by the cajones. 

 

But Gator is not quite ready to throw in with the Feds. That is, until Greenfield threatens to send Gator's dad Ned (John Steadman) to jail for moonshining, and putting his daughter, Susie (Lori Futch) into foster care. See, Greenfield already has them, even if not under arrest, and if Gator refuses to help bring Bama McCall in, he's going to be one lonely man with all hi family out of the picture. (As usual, these Feds play dirty...)

 

So Greenfield takes Gator to Dunston County, where it turns out that he and Bama were old buddies. Bama is willing to let Gator come in on his operations. See, Bama is a wheeler dealer in town, running all kinds of shady operations. Be forewarned! Jerry Reed is Bama, and if your only connection to Jerry Reed is a good 'ol boy who is harmless, like Cledus in the Smokey and the Bandit films, or J. D. Reed in the TV series Concrete Cowboys, you are NOT gonna like Bama... He's a lowlife of the first order. 

Bama has all kinds of crime in his milieu, like extortion, corruption, selling drugs. Gator is not entirely OK with this, but he is willing to go along with for a while. But then he discovers the really bad vice that Bama is into... prostitution.  And not prostitution with what would be at least normal, if not acceptable. See, Bama's big prostitution ring consists of underage girls. This really disgusts Gator and he tells Bama he wants out.

 

But Bama is not the kind of guy to just turn his back and ignore a backslider in his operation. He has two muscle boys, Smiley (Burton Gilliam) and Bones (William Engesser) to help him change Gator's nind, by hook or crook. 

 

Gator now wants to help Greenfield bring Bama down, and hooks up with a reporter, Aggie Maybank (Lauren Hutton) and a little off her rocker former city employee, Emmeline (Alice Ghostley) to break into City Hall and get files that will put Bama and some of his political cohorts away for a long time.

 

Don't get the idea that this is a typical Reynolds comedy. There is some serious stuff going on here, and more than one person is going to die. Think of it as something like Lethal Weapon. There is a bunch of comedy sprinkled throughout, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty, the serious side is going to come to the fore.

But one of the more humorous parts of the movie (at least for me, are the scenes where Bones, who is apparently Bama's chauffeur, in addition to one of his bully boys, has to drive Bama around in a converted red  Plymouth Gran Fury. Note: this is not the only car they used, just one of them. Anyway, the exaggeration of how big Bones is is highlighted by the fact that he has to stick his head out through the sun roof. (I'm fairly sure he was probably sitting on a box or something in the car scenes... Surely the actor wasn't THAT big...)

  

This was Burt Reynolds' first feature film as a director. According to what I read, Reynolds originally turned the role saying "it's a terrible script." But then they offered him the opportunity to direct and suddenly it was "a great script"... (The things Hollywood will do to get their way...) I couldn't find any information on a budget, and it didn't exactly break box office records. It only grossed $11 million. 

The critics weren't exactly kind to the movie either. On Rotten Tomatoes, the aggregator of what is the critic viewpoint, it stands at only 14%. Charles Champlin, a reviewer for the Los Angeles Time, not only managed to denigrate the movie, but also the kind of crowd that liked Reynolds movies: "Gator looks exactly what it is, a commercial concoction assembled for an undemanding mass market." (Phhht, Chuck...)

Ranker, one of my favorite go-tos for public opinion of films, however, ranks it #7 all-time as one of Reynolds' best movies, beaten out only by the first Smokey and the Bandit, The Longest Yard, Deliverance, Hooper, The Cannonball Run and White Lightning (in that order). My opinion is Gator is a movie that will appeal to those who love Reynolds screen charm and also for those action movies that blend a little humor into the mix. I especially liked seeing Bama get his comeuppance, even if I didn't particularly care to see Jerry Reed playing a thoroughly unscrupulous bad guy.

Well, that's it for this time. See you for the next entry, featuring the state of Connecticut.

Quiggy

 

  

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #3: Friday the 13th

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

Week # 3:New Jersey:

 

The state of New Jersey was established on December 18, 1787. 

Details about New Jersey:

State bird: Eastern goldfinch

State flower: Purple violet

State tree: Red oak

The most important thing to remember about New Jersey is this is the place where it all started for people like me (fans of the drive-in theater). If not for a guy in New Jersey, this blog might have ended up being called The Good Ship Lollipop Theater. 

New Jersey has the distinction of being the "diner capital of the world" due to the fact that there are more diners in the state than any other state in the union. Good news for guys like Guy Fieri, host of Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

New Jersey is the birthplace of many iconic figures in music and films. Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi were born in New Jersey, as well as Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep and Michael Douglas. And that's just for a start.. For further interest.

Among other things that New Jersey has a claim to fame is the fact that both New York NFL teams play their home games in New Jersey. Several other sports teams, both major and minor leagues, in other fields that are ostensibly New York teams also play home games in New Jersey.

First a note and an apology: I had originally scheduled The Toxic Avenger to appear as the entry for New Jersey. But, since I had never actually watched it, I was just going with it because of my perceived reputation of the movie. I didn't know it started out the way it did. 10 minutes in I started to regret my decision, and after another 5 minutes I'd had enough. It starts out way too over the line in bad taste. And this opinion from the same blogger who brought you both Midnight Cowboy  AND Myra Breckenridge, A Clockwork Orange, and even Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh... Maybe I'm just getting old.

Friday the 13th (1980): 

(Another note: Once again, as usual, I try to keep images of the gorier scenes  at a minimum to avoid turning off the more prudish readers.)

Dateline: 1958. At Camp Crystal Lake all the children are asleep. The camp counselors are having a sing-a-long, along with the requisite activities you would expect from a group of older adolescents, including two of them who sneak away from the rest of the group to engage in an extracurricular project in which clothing is not required. While engaged in this somewhat illicit act, the pair are stalked by an unseen interloper, who proceeds to kill them both.

Dateline: Present day (1980).  A girl, Annie (Robbie Morgan) comes hiking into town looking for Camp Crystal Lake. She stops at a diner to ask directions and receives not a friendly welcome but some strange looks. She manages to hitch a ride with a trucker, Enos (Rex Everhart), who volunteers to take her up the road. Along the way a crazy townie warns her that she won't be coming back from "Camp Blood" because it's got a death curse. Enos fills her in on more details as he helps her along her way, including the two kids who were killed in 1958, a boy who drowned in 1957 and a bunch of fires. He encourages her to quit now, and not go on, but Annie is not afraid of these "cornball" rumors.

 

On their own way to Crystal Lake are three others; Jack (Kevin Bacon), Ned (Mark Nelson) and  Marcie (Jeannine Taylor). They arrive at the camp where Steve (Peter Brouwer) and Annie (Adrienne King) have already been at work trying to whip the camp into shape for their new campers. Bill (Harry Crosby, son, by the way, of Bing) and Brenda (Laurie Bertram) have also previously arrived and been helping out.

 

Meanwhile, back on the road, Annie is still hitchhiking to the camp. She gets picked up a mysterious figure (whom we don't see) who gives her a ride. Annie realizes that something is amiss when the driver goes by the entrance to the camp and jumps ship (jeep). But she is caught by the driver and slashed. We only see the hands of the figure, not the face. But those hands are definitely male hands... (remember that.) 

 

Steve takes off in his jeep to take care of some business, leaving the five helpers behind to finish their duties. While various shenanigans are going on back at the camp, a motorcycle cop shows up at the camp. He doesn't like these youngsters much, absolutely certain that there are some illicit drugs in the mix, but he warns them about that townie from the beginning of the film, Ralph (Walt Gorney), who has a tendency to believe his own delusions about the camp being cursed. Sure enough, after the officer leaves, Ralph sows up  spouting his doom and gloom. But he seems harmless enough, even if he is a little wacko.

 

It turns out that his doom and gloom speech, that they're all "doomed" is not that far from wrong.  First Ned sees a mysterious stranger enter one of the cabins and goes to investigate. Then Jack and Marcie decide to play a little of the old game "hide the salami". And Alice and Bill and Brenda decide to play a new version of Monopoly called "Strip Monopoly". Yep, you guessed it, the teenagers, being typically 1980's irrepressible and sexually uninhibited teenagers, are getting down and funky.

 

Back at the cabin, Jack and Marcie are making out, unaware that a recently slashed Ned is lying in the bunk above them.  Marcie leaves Jack to go to the outhouse, and guess what... the interloper who dispatched Ned has not left the cabin. Jack is dispatched in short order and the killer goes to the outhouse to look for Marcie, who is also removed from the land of the living.

If you're keeping track, only three people, not including the slasher, are left at the camp. Steve, for his part seems to have decided to stay out for the night. Back at the game, Brenda realizes she may have left the windows open in her cabin, so she exits the game. When she gets back to the cabin she decides just to stay in.     But she hears the cry of a boy calling for help, so like any good citizen she goes back out into the rain. And is taken out by our killer on the archery range.

Alice hears a scream, and she and Bill go to investigate. They find a bloody axe in Brenda's bed, but no Brenda. Their search for Jack and Marcie also proves fruitless.  The generator goes out and Bill goes to check on it leaving Alice alone. A short time later, Bill is also removed from the land of the living. (You notice, by this time, that the only one of the counselors still alive is the one who hasn't been fooling around? What are the filmmakers trying to say? Premarital sex will get you killed?) 

Steve, who has just been getting a bite to eat at the diner in town heads back to the camp. His jeep stalls (I think it's out of gas, Steve), but fortunately a police car comes along (with a far friendlier cop this time), and gives him a lift. Unfortunately before they can get to the gate to the camp the police car is called in on an emergency, leaving Steve to hike the rest of the way. As he approaches the gate, he meets the killer, who dispatches him. But it turns out Steve recognizes his assailant.

 

O.K. It gets a little hairy from here on out. As the sole survivor of this onslaught, Alice begins to panic and barricade the door to the cabin. But when she sees a jeep pull up she thinks it's Steve and rushes out to greet him in grateful thankfulness that there is someone coming to the rescue. It's not Steve however, but Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) who claims to be an old friend of the owners. Still, she is a welcome sight to Alice who knows there is some deranged lunatic on the loose in the camp.

 

Spoiler alert! In case you are one of the very few who have never seen the ending, you better stop now. Just in case you don't know what the name of the star killer of this series of films is in the first place.

Mrs. Voorhees reveals that it was her son who was the drowning victim from 20 years ago at the camp. Her son drowned, she feels, because the camp counselors had abandoned their charges to engage in illicit sex instead. Which explains why the killer frowns upon irresponsible sex-obsessed teenagers. And, of course, it is none other than Mrs. Voorhees herself who is exacting revenge for the death or her son, Jason Voorhees.

A huge flight and fight ensues between Alice and Mrs. Voorhees. Of course, the winner of this battle is not Mrs. Voorhees. But there still may be some danger for Alice coming from another source... How did you think they managed to get 10 (so far) sequels (and one reboot) with Jason as the prime evil villain...?

On a budget of only about $500,000, the first movie in the franchise was essentially a blockbuster, pulling in almost $60 million. In the first two weeks of it's release it was #1 at the box office. And as noted in the previous paragraph, Jason became enough of a draw that the character's very name drew enough box office to keep it afloat as a franchise for over 20 years worth of sequels. Of all of the movies put out by Paramount in 1980, only Airplane! grossed more box office money than this one.

As could be expected from that quarter, the critics gave this movie a resounding negative review: "Silly, boring youth-geared horror movie",  "blatant exploitation of the lowest order" and "a shamelessly bad film" are just a hint of the vitriol that the reviewers spewed on it. According to the wikipedia article on the movie, Siskel and Ebert, in their TV movie review, devoted an entire episode to disparaging this and other slasher flicks. 

Obviously the lowbrow audience the movie was intended for reacted to it better than those of the highbrow movie critic board. As far as slasher flicks go it is not really all that great. Personally I think Freddy vs. Jason, the film that paired the Nightmare on Elm Street villain, Freddy Krueger against Friday the 13th's Jason Voorhees, was a much better film. But in terms of the slasher film overall, this one would pale by comparison to what was probably the king of slasher films, John Carpenter's Halloween. As much as I liked Freddy vs. Jason, I would dearly love to see Jason go head to head with Michael Myers.

Well, campers, until next week, take my advice and keep the kids at home from summer camp.

Quiggy

  

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #2: The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

 Week #2: Pennsylvania :

 

 

The state of Pennsylvania was the second of the original colonies to be established as a state in the United States. It became a state on December 12, 1787.

Details about Pennsylvania:

State bird: Ruffled grouse

State flower: Mountain laurel

State tree: Hemlock

 The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979):

 

 

It's fitting that the Pennsylvania entry in this project centers around basketball. The basketball movie and Pennsylvania almost go hand in hand. Just look at the list of basketball movies that centered in the state. Celtic Pride, That Championship Season, Full Court Miracle, The Mighty Macs. One of the films that sailed under the radar was a comedy about the fictional Pittsburgh Pythons, a team that apparently couldn't shoot it's way out of a match-up with a team of pre-schoolers.

Pittsburgh is a big sports town, of course. They are represented in the NFL by the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the MBA by the Pittsburgh Pirates and in the NHL by the Pittsburgh Penguins. It seems astounding, to me at any rate, that their is no professional NBA team in Pittsburgh. To be fair there have been a few attempts, but it seems that Pittsburgh is considered a small market city when it comes to basketball. Not to mention the huge competition with the perennial powerhouses in the NFL and the NHL. 

This movie features many basketball stars of the time (late '70's). In film roles playing members of the hapless Pythons were Julius "Dr. J." Erving, Meadowlark Lemon (of the Harlem Globetrotters fame) and Jerry Chambers, but also appearing as themselves on the various courts of the game were a plethora of basketball stars:  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (L.A. Lakers), Bob Lanier (Detroit Pistons), "Cornbread" Maxwell (Boston Celtics) and Kevin Porter (Detroit Pistons).

The Pittsburgh Pythons are the laughingstock of the NBA. Even the worst teams in the league at least garner some fans who brave the jeers of casual fans and band wagoners who only go to the games when the team is winning. The opening scene of the film shows a vast landscape of empty seats. Nobody, and I mean nobody seems to want to go to the games, and that includes a set of wheelchair bound geriatrics who seem to be serving some kind of punishment, because even they complain:  "I don't want to be here. I wanna go home!" 

 

The Pythons have a problem, not only with being able to perform well on the court, but also with being able to interact with each other off the court. One of them, Lucian Tucker (Jerry Chambers), even openly tries to express his disgust with the team on court, demanding that he be traded forthwith vocally, even while in the process avoiding performing his duties on court. And he doesn't get along with his teammates, especially Moses Guthrie (Julius "Dr. J." Erving), whom he basically calls out as a over paid hindrance.

 

The coach for the time, Jock Delaney (Flip Wilson) is more than a little miffed with his team. You get the idea that he would do anything, if he could just get these malcontents to pull together as a team, but he just doesn't have the General mentality to get things back on track.

The only one who seems to have any faith in the team is a young kid, the ball boy, Tyrone (James Bond III). He tries to give Guthrie some encouragement, saying that Guthrie is just in a slump and he knows that Guthrie can turn it around. Guthrie tells Tyrone that he is a Pisces and he just needs to check his horoscope, which starts the wheels turning in Tyrone's mind.

 

He thinks astrology is the key to turning the Pythons around. So he goes to a local astrologer, Mona Mondieu (Stockard Channing) to get her advice. He tries to convince her to be the team astrologer. In so doing, he tells that the team are ALL Pisces. Of course, they aren't really ALL Pisces... at least, not yet. But fate has thrown it's hand into the fire because most of the team just walks. This sets up a need to get a team together, but fast.

 

They hold open tryouts for any and all basketball star wannabes. Which gets, among others, a local D.J., Jackhammer Washington ( Jesse Lawrence Ferguson) and a local preacher, Reverend Grady Jackson (Meadowlark Lemon) to come to the open tryouts. But there is one stipulation... all of the potential players HAVE to be born under the zodiac sign of Pisces.

 

The owner of the Pythons is a scatterbrain rich guy, H. S. Tilson (Jonathan Winters) is all gung ho about the idea, but his older brother Harvey (also played by Winters) is convinced his little brother is a nitwit.

 

But H. S. intends to follow through with this decidedly off kilter idea. Including the aforementioned Jackhammer and the Reverend, several other players are destined to try to make this idea work, including Setshot Bufford (Jack Kehoe), Driftwood Haney (Peter Isacksen), and Bullet Haines (Malek Abdul Mansour). Most of these guys wouldn't even get a second look by the scouts, but they have one advantage... they are all Pisces.

 

This astrological mumbo-jumbo must have something on the ball, because this group of malcontents go on a tear, moving from last place lunkheads to contenders.  They take on some power houses in the league and mop the floor with them. Of course, this being about a fictional team from Pittsburgh, the rest of the teams are only known by their cities: Boston, Detroit, New York, and of course Los Angeles. But if you are quick eyed (and are familiar with the players of the late 70's) you can't help not missing some big names.

The highlight of the movie has to be the end. The Pisces are playing a game 7 in the NBA finals against Los Angeles, whose team includes the big guy himself, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But a monkey wrench has been thrown into the mix as Harvey, owner H.S.'s unscrupulous brother, kidnaps Mona. In the end the Pisces end up having to rely on themselves, rather than their astrological mentor.  

 

With a budget of $4 million, the movie made a pretty decent profit, pulling in $8.3 million in ticket sales. It didn't get much fanfare from the critics. (It doesn't even have enough reviews to get a rating on the vaunted Tomato meter, although IMDb user ratings put it at just shy of 5 stars). Is this a great movie? My opinion is it's not entirely bad, although it seems quite predictable. Often during the film certain situations are telegraphed long in advance. For instance, you just had to KNOW that the combative Lucien Tucker, the one who kept demanding to be traded at the beginning of the film, would end up being on the team that the Pisces faced in the finals. Sure, that's a standard trope in sports movies, so it's not like you wouldn't have expected it in the first place.   

In the end, I really can't tell whether this movie is disparaging the idea of belief in astrology or if it is trying to advocate it's power. Just so you know, I don't really believe in all that mumbo-jumbo of the stars having some kind of pseudo magical influence on my life, But then again, I told a woman who did believe in all that hocus pocus stuff and, without having told her beforehand my birth date, she said "You must be a Sagittarius." I was born in early December, and that falls under the Sagittarius zodiac sign, so maybe there is something to this stuff after all...  (Naaaah!)  

That's it for this week.

Quiggy