Burt Reynolds

2018 Farewells – in front of the camera

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Peggy Cummins, who died at age 92, was an English actress known for that most American of roles, a pretty gal who gets a sexual thrill out of gun violence.  That was in 1950’s Gun Crazy, a low budget B movie that has become a film noir cult classic.

In dismissing the movie, one contemporary critic wrote, “Looking as fragile as a Dresden doll, Miss Cummins bites into her assignment like a shark.”  If you watch the famous 3-minute shot of the bank heist from the back seat of the getaway car, wait for the moment John Dall asks Cummins to look back for pursuers – when she turns to look, she presses up against him and her face reveals an excitement that is both sexual and predatory.  By all accounts a delightful person, Peggy attended a Film Noir Foundation event in San Francisco in 2013. And she could eat a hamburger, too.

 

Dorothy Malone and Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP

Actress Dorothy Malone has died at age 93. She began making films in 1943 with a series of small parts, of which the most indelible came in 1948’s The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart. Malone plays a bookstore clerk who takes a liking to Bogie’s Sam Spade and initiates a quickie. As has been noted by many, it’s one of the sexiest moments in cinema and all she takes off is her glasses.

 

Stéphane Audran in LE BOUCHER

Actress Stéphane Audran was best known for best known for the surreal Buñuel masterpiece The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and the art house hit Babette’s Feast (scroll down from link).  But her best performance may have come in her husband Claude Charbol’s 1970 serial killer classic Le Boucher; she plays a teacher in a small village who is courted by the local butcher who may be the serial killer.  Audran brought a singular austere beauty and dignity to her roles.

 

Susan Anspach in FIVE EASY PIECES

Actress Susan Anspach starred in some of the most audacious films of the 1970s, most notably Five Easy Pieces.

 

Actor David Ogden Stiers will always be remembered as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III in TV’s M*A*S*H* . Stiers’ voice was often heard in the movies, such as when he narrated THX 1138 and voiced Cogsworth the clock in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

 

The actress Margot Kidder starred in the extremely popular Superman franchise and The Amityville Horror. More impressively to me, she rebounded to amass over fifty screen credits after her very public breakdown from bipolar disorder.

 

The actress Barbara Harris is best remembered for the memorable finale of Robert Altman’s masterpiece Nashville, where her seemingly loser character Albuquerque takes advantage of her one big break. She also got the most out of what is usually a thankless role, the scorned wife, in The Seduction of Joe Tynan. In Freaky Friday, she was the mom involuntairly switchng bodies with her teen daughter Jodi Foster. And she shone in Peggy Sue Got Married, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Who Is Harry Kellerman yada yada – remember, comedy is hard.

 

Scott Wilson with Ashley Judd in COME EARLY MORNING

Character actor Scott Wilson’s 81 screen credits spanned from Robert Blake’s partner in 1967’s In Cold Blood to the role of Sam Braun, the casino owner dad of Katharine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) in CSI. My favorite Scott Wilson role was as Ashley Judd’s father in the alcoholism drama Come Early Morning.

 

Burt Reynolds in DELIVERANCE

I’m gonna miss Burt Reynolds – both for being a movie icon and for being one of the greatest guests ever on Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He solidified that icon status in Deliverance, brandishing a bow-and-arrow and clad in a sleeveless neoprene vest – there has never been a more studly image in the history of cinema.

The key to Burt Reynolds’ appeal is that unique combination of virility and charm, his stunning physicality leavened by his not taking himself too seriously. I’m ridiculously handsome, and isn’t that just ridiculous?

To celebrate Burt’s rollicking Smokey and the Bandit era, I recommend The Bandit, a documentary about Burt’s collaboration with stuntman/director/roommate Hal Needham. You can stream The Bandit from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

In his last film, this year’s The Last Movie Star, an aged action movie star (Burt Reynolds playing someone very similar to Burt Reynolds) examines his life choices. It’s very funny and sentimental (in a good way), and you can stream it on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

See you later, Burt

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Burt Reynolds in DELIVERANCE

I’m gonna miss Burt Reynolds – both for being a movie icon and for being one of the greatest guests ever on Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He solidified that icon status in Deliverance, brandishing a bow-and-arrow and clad in a sleeveless neoprene vest – there has never been a more studly image in the history of cinema.

The key to Burt Reynolds’ appeal is that unique combination of virility and charm, his stunning physicality leavened by his not taking himself too seriously. I’m ridiculously handsome, and isn’t that just ridiculous?

To celebrate Burt’s rollicking Smokey and the Bandit era, I recommend The Bandit, a documentary about Burt’s collaboration with stuntman/director/roommate Hal Needham. You can stream The Bandit from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

In his last film, this year’s The Last Movie Star, an aged action movie star (Burt Reynolds playing someone very similar to Burt Reynolds) examines his life choices.  It’s very funny and sentimental (in a good way), and you can stream it on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

THE LAST MOVIE STAR: reflections on a famous life

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Burt Reynolds and Ariel Winter in THE LAST MOVIE STAR

In The Last Movie Star, an aged action movie star (Burt Reynolds playing someone very similar to Burt Reynolds) examines his life choices.  It’s very funny and sentimental (in a good way).

Burt plays a thinly disguised version of himself – a retired movie star named Vic Edwards, who had played halfback at Tennessee instead of Burt’s Florida State.  The movie opens with opens with  a clip of the 70s Burt from the Smokey and the Bandit era.  But then there’s a stark cut to Burt today, looking every one of his eighty-two years.  Vic is in a depressing veterinary waiting room, about to get bad news about his pet.  We see that Vic lives a lonely existence, padding about his Beverly Hills home devoid of human recognition or contact.

Vic finds himself invited to be honored at a Nashville film festival.  Flattered and excited, he flies off to find that, instead of a ego-boosting tribute, the festival unleashes one indignity after another.  Humiliated and enraged, he  goes on a rogue road trip to his hometown of Knoxville, where he gets the chance to reflect on his life and make an important amend.

His road trip partner is his film festival driver, a nightmare of Millennial self-absorption, drama and bad attitude played by Ariel Winter (Alex Dunphy in Modern Family).   Winters’ character adds an Odd Couple thread to the comedy, and Winter brings down the house with a monologue on her history with psychotropic medication.

Director Adam Rifkin cleverly inserts the 82-year-old Burt into his own movies to interact with the 36-year-old Burt.  We see Burt as one of the greatest guests ever on Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  And we see him in Deliverance, brandishing a bow-and-arrow and clad in a sleeveless neoprene vest – there has never been a more studly image in the history of cinema.

The key to Burt Reynolds’ appeal is that unique combination of virility, and charm, his stunning physicality leavened by his not taking himself too seriously.  I’m ridiculously handsome, and isn’t that just ridiculous?

If you’re going to be sentimental, then be unashamedly sentimental.  Rifkin takes this to heart, which makes The Last Movie Star so emotionally satisfying as well as so damn funny.

I saw The Last Movie Star at Cinequest, where it was warmly received by the festival audience.  The Last Movie Star was released theatrically for about a minute-and-a-half (and on only ONE screen in the Bay Area).    Fortunately, now you can stream it on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

THE BANDIT: a buddy movie about a buddy movie

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Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham in THE BANDIT. Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.

Writer-director Jesse Moss describes The Bandit as “a buddy movie about a buddy movie”, and he’s right. The buddies are mega-star Burt Reynolds and his stuntman/friend/roommate Hal Needham, who directed the enormously successful Smokey and the Bandit franchise.

Needham, one of only two stuntmen with an Oscar, is arguably cinema’s greatest stunt performer and stunt coordinator. Reynolds did many of his own stunts, and we we see some hard, hard falls in The Bandit. But Burt did nothing to nothing to match Needham, whose FIRST career stunt was jumping off an airplane wing to tackle a rider off his horse. We see many instances where Needham became a LITERAL car crash test dummy.

One of The Bandit’s highlights is the Needham stunt that broke his back – jumping a car off a dock and onto a barge – and slamming into the barge a little short.

There’s rich source material here from Burt’s garage (Reynolds calls it “King Tut’s Tomb for documentarinans”), which stored tapes back to 1956.

For added color, Needham and Reynolds were epic partiers, who embraced and exemplified the Mad Men era. Needham was a vivid character and lived a helluva life. I strongly recommend Terry Gross’ Fresh Air interview with Needham.

Hal’s widow told Bay Area filmmaker Jesse Moss that Needham hated documentaries because they were boring, so Moss aimed to make a documentary that Hal would enjoy. Indeed, The Bandit opens with the sly Reynolds, in maroon leisure suit with flared pant legs, mocking his own image outrageously. And, it’s a hoot throughout.

(Moss’ first movie was at San Francisco’s Castro Theater in 1979, when his dad took him a double feature of Erroll Morris’ Gates of Heaven and Hardware Wars, a documentarian born!)

I saw The Bandit at its premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM). It played on TV channel CMT, and now can be streamed on Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.