Six Weeks (1982)

SIX WEEKS (1982) *
My wife awoke in the middle of the night, it took her quite some time falling back asleep, and so naturally she joined me for about the last 30 minutes or so of Six Weeks. She asked me some basic journalistic questions like ‘What’s the little girl dying from?’ ‘I believe it’s leukemia.’ ‘No, it can’t be. It’s got to be something else. I don’t think she’d just suddenly die like that.’

At some point during our discussion, I said that actually this poor little girl has got the dread movie disease where the invariably dead-by-the-end-of-the-movie character becomes ever more beautiful and noble until her big death scene. Yes, the late film critic Roger Ebert named this affliction ‘Ali MacGraw Disease’ after the star of Love Story, the film based on the best-selling novel that one might say started it all way back in 1970.

Movies derived in way or another from Love Story invariably pour it on awful darn thick with the sentiment, until the movie in question becomes a real maudlin exercise. Six Weeks pulls out the stops more than most in this dubious category and that’s why I was utterly amazed that it did not feature a hot-air balloon scene like fellow maudlin tearjerkers Bobby Deerfield, Yes Giorgio, and Just the Way You Are. That’s about the only restraint practiced by Six Weeks.

Casting 101 pairs Dudley Moore (1935-2002) and Mary Tyler Moore (1936-2017), fresh off critical and commercial hot commodities Arthur and Ordinary People, respectively. Yes, wow, how far out, both actors have the same last name and they’re apparently not related. They don’t even have the same national origin. Anyway, like Walter Matthau and Jill Clayburgh in the turkey bomb First Monday in October, Moore and Moore do not share the slightest bit chemistry either, that’s for darn sure. Dudley plays a California politician who’s running for Congress, Mary’s a wealthy cosmetics heiress with the precocious 12-year-old daughter already discussed in the opening paragraph. Dudley’s hopelessly lost in an early scene, very late to a political fundraiser where he’s the featured speaker, and the 12-year-old gives him directions and a whole lot more. She wants Dudley to win his election and Moore² to hook up and become the ultimate happy family for her life’s remaining duration.

Katherine Healy plays the dying little girl and she’s a bit, what’s the word, insufferable. She’s one of those movie children with an unlimited supply of wannabe sharp dialogue and snappy comebacks. She’s dying, remember, and that makes her dialogue even worse and her fantasies ever more powerful. Yes, that’s right, she’s got six weeks left and she’s going to live out as many of her fantasies as possible within the production budget of a 107-minute feel good extravaganza.

Moore² and the little girl hit the bright lights of New York City because what better place to live out fantasies on the big screen and little Niki skates at The Rink at Rockefeller Center, takes on the lead in The Nutcracker, and rounds up Moore² for a smug little cutesy pie wedding ceremony that almost extracted wholesale vomit from the pit of my stomach. Not exactly in that order, though, because the wedding ceremony happens before the grandstanding grand finale ballet number. Niki performed her ballet number on center stage, I looked at my wrist like there’s a watch attached to it and said to my wife, ‘It’s about time for the little girl to die.’ Sure enough, that’s what happened in the very next scene.

I left out the part (until now, anyway) about Dudley’s family, his dutiful wife and teenage son. That’s OK, because they’re not that important and don’t stand in the way of the main body of the plot. Speaking of the plot, Six Weeks pushes and pulls so many emotional levers that it becomes one of the most shameful tearjerkers ever made. They finally resorted to yanking them emotions with pliers. Thankfully, I still resisted and this review signals my protest on aesthetic and emotional grounds.

Schlock (1973)

SCHLOCK

SCHLOCK (1973) ***

Schlock (/SHläk/): cheap or inferior goods or material; trash.

For quite some time as I watched it, I could not make heads or tails out of John Landis’ 1973 extremely low-budget feature film debut SCHLOCK.

I mean, I understood that it’s a good old-fashioned spoof of good old-fashioned monster movies, sure, from the moment I read a plot synopsis and that its title speaks louder than a thousand words, you bet, but it kept veering between tones. Our title character (played by none other than Landis himself) seemed menacing and imposing one moment and then funny the very next. He’s the missing link and “The Banana Monster” and the poster promises “A love stronger than KING KONG.”

There was one sequence though in particular that changed my tune about SCHLOCK.

Schlock (blanking on his full name right now) watches DINOSAURUS! from 1960 and THE BLOB from 1958 in a movie theater, both classics directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth and produced by SCHLOCK producer Jack H. Harris. We see choice scenes from both films, like a dinosaur fight and that classic moment in THE BLOB when its title character attacks first the projectionist and then the patrons to rudely interrupt the showing of DAUGHTER OF HORROR (renamed from DEMENTIA). Showing THE BLOB also provided Landis an opportunity to work Steven, er, Steve McQueen into his little $60,000 movie.

Not only that, but Schlock learns about vending machines and cleans out a candy counter. Bet he loved them jujubes with his sharp teeth. I love what Schlock does when this incredibly tall man sits in the seat one row in front of him. If only life could be that way. Then again, proper authorities cannot handle Schlock.

At the point Schlock went movie watching, I learned to stop worrying and like (not love) SCHLOCK.

Landis’ love for SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY starts out early in his directorial career, by promoting it with “First, BIRTH OF A NATION! Then, GONE WITH THE WIND! 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY! LOVE STORY! SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY! And now … SCHLOCK!” A line spoken in 2001 turned into a running gag throughout most Landis films and even the music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

So many low-budget movies have a great back story.

Landis and crew, including makeup artist Rick Baker early in his career, made SCHLOCK during 12 days in the summer of 1971, but it was not released until 1973. Johnny Carson found out about the film and he booked Landis on “The Tonight Show.” With this spotlight opportunity, Landis showed clips from SCHLOCK, which helped the first-time director find a distributor in Jack H. Harris Enterprises. Harris put up $10,000 if Landis put 10 minutes of running time on SCHLOCK.

I enjoyed SCHLOCK every bit as much as the Joan Crawford classic TROG (1970) and the similarly low-budget KING KUNG FU (1976).

Of course, I did not forget, but I will see you next Wednesday.

The Terminator (1984)

DAY 29, THE TERMINATOR

THE TERMINATOR (1984) Four stars
James Cameron said that John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN inspired him to make THE TERMINATOR, and it’s easy to see that with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 and Michael Myers, both (virtually) unstoppable killing machines.

Apparently, while in Rome around the time of PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING, Cameron had a dream about a metallic torso equipped with kitchen knives in hand and dragging itself from an explosion, which almost sounds exactly like a scene late in THE TERMINATOR. This dream became the basis for the film.

Then again, late author Harlan Ellison (1934-2018) claimed that Cameron was inspired by Ellison’s 1964 Outer Limits episode “Soldier” (adapted from Ellison’s own short story) where a future soldier goes back in time to save a present-day woman from another future soldier. I believe Ellison (although he liked the movie) used that nasty ‘P’ word, plagiarism. Ellison received a financial settlement from Hemdale and Orion Pictures, and home video releases of THE TERMINATOR subsequently read “The Producers Acknowledge the Works of Harlan Ellison.”

THE TERMINATOR benefits greatly from the casting of the central roles: Schwarzenegger as the literal force of death and destruction, Michael Biehn as the feisty freedom fighter of the future brought back to the present Kyle Reese, and Linda Hamilton as the present-day young woman Sarah Connor who initially can’t quite believe that she’s in the middle of such a ridiculous plot until Reese (and the corpses) convince her. They fit the roles to a T.

Schwarzenegger has largely played heroic characters and in fact, he’s on the good side for the rest of THE TERMINATOR series. Playing the villain, though, he benefits greatly from speaking few lines (keep in mind his first movie, HERCULES IN NEW YORK, dubbed Schwarzenegger); granted, we have less of the great humor that permeates COMMANDO, PREDATOR, and TOTAL RECALL, but it’s still there with Schwarzenegger as villain with his infamous line “I’ll be back,” for example.

That good spirit and joy of performance still comes through for Schwarzenegger in THE TERMINATOR.

Schwarzenegger plays a more interesting variation on Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, because those roles in theory can be played by anybody. (Please don’t tell that to Ted White or Kane Hodder.)

Reese explains the situation to Sarah Connor, “That Terminator is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop … ever, until you are dead!”

Schwarzenegger originally read for the Kyle Reese role and Cameron wanted Lance Henriksen to be the Terminator. Wow, Henriksen as the Terminator just boggles the mind, although Cameron used Robert Patrick to great success as T-1000 in TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY. Kristianna Loken as T-X in TERMINATOR 3, well, let’s just say epic fail.
Biehn works better in the Reese role because of all the dialogue and in some ways, he’s like Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Sam Loomis in HALLOWEEN. He understands T-800, even though, of course, nobody believes him until it’s too late.

The Dr. Silberman character (Earl Boen) gets one great scene interrogating Reese and then playing the video back for the Paul Winfield and Henriksen police characters. Dr. Silberman just got out of the police station in the nick of time, and he returns for the sequel.

THE TERMINATOR works as horror movie, as science fiction, and as action, in a streamlined combination of some of the best aspects of HALLOWEEN, BLADE RUNNER, and THE ROAD WARRIOR.

On top of all that, we have a great love story and this element gives THE TERMINATOR the slight edge over JUDGMENT DAY.

Just that scene alone when Reese explains why he accepted the assignment to come back through time and save Sarah Connor, mother of a future resistance leader.

“John Connor gave me a picture of you once,” Reese said. “I didn’t know why at the time. It was very old … torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just a little sad. I used to always wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve. … I came across time for you, Sarah. I love you; I always have.”

When you go see a movie called THE TERMINATOR, bet you weren’t expecting a genuinely touching love story.

It’s the element of the unexpected that makes for the most rewarding experiences, movies or in general.