I was sad to hear about the passing today of Ryan O' Neal. A megastar of the 1970's, O'Neal worked with some of the finest directors of his era, including Stanley Kubrick and Peter Bogdonavich.
These are my favorite O'Neal films, starting with for me, his finest hour on screen back in 1972.
What's Up Doc?
One of the funnest movies of the seventies and an all time personal film favorite, 1972's comedy classic WHAT'S UP DOC is 90 minutes of clever hilarity.
Ryan O'Neal stars as Howard Bannister, a musicologist with a suitcase full of rocks and zero personality.
Upon arrival in San Francisco with his overbearing fiancee Eunice (Madeline Kahn in a brilliant film debut), Howard soon discovers his case is an identical match for three others filled with diamonds, secret documents and cash.
Director Peter Bogdanovich (Paper Moon, The Last Picture Show) mines comic gold out of a flawless cast and a very funny screenplay by the legendary Buck Henry. Henry wrote such film classics as "The Graduate" and created the TV Show "Get Smart" with Mel Brooks. This is one of his best scripts, matching clever wordplay to rival Monty Python with classic physical comedy.
Barbra Streisand serves as the hilarious center of the plot as Judy Maxwell, a one-woman wrecking crew in the life of Howard. Barbra has never been more likeable in a film and shows terrific comic timing.
In a great cast, Kenneth Mars stands out as Howard's competitor Hugh Simon, with an unmanageable head of hair and bizarre accent. He is flawless at delivering lines like "I don't know who he his but she is definitely not herself!"
Liam Dunn has a great ten minute scene as a frustrated judge and John Hillerman almost steals the movie as a hotel manager, but its Kahn who truly walks away with every scene she's in. She went right from this to Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles and never looked back.
Look fast for John Byner and a very young Randy Quaid as fellow guests at the Larabee Foundation banquet. ("Waiter, what wine are you serving to table one?)
Featuring one of the best car chases ever filmed and nearly non-stop mayhem, What's Up Doc delivers a plaid overnight case full of laughs. As a matter of fact, FOUR cases full. A brilliant, laugh-out-loud A+ that easily grabs a spot in the top half of my all-time Top 100 films.
Paper Moon
Just one year after Director Peter Bogdanovich unleashed the hilarious comedy "What's Up Doc" on moviegoers, he and Ryan O'Neal teamed up again for the huge hit PAPER MOON.
Ryan O'Neal is Moses Pray, a depression era con man moving city to city in the small, poor towns in Missouri and Kansas.
As the film opens, Mose arrives late for the funeral of a young local dancer. He meets the dancer's 9 year old daughter Addie Loggins.
The locals ask Mose to drive Addie to her only known relatives in Missouri and he agrees to take her, mostly just to serve another con.
Addie is played in an Academy Award winning performance by Tatum O'Neal. Usually when you say, "that child actor was really good", its a backhanded compliment thinking "at least that young kid was good enough to not ruin the movie".
Not here.
Tatum is great in every scene, creating a full blooded, real character from her very first moments. Imagine Shirley Temple. Now imagine the opposite of Shirley and you have Tatum as Addie.
She smokes, she scowls, she manipulates and she emerges as a much better con than Mose ever dreamed of being.
By the time Addie starts selling bibles for three times as much money as Mose ever asked for them traveling door-to-door, a dust bowl con duo is born.
Madeline Kahn follows up her debut in "Doc" with her turn as Trixie Delight, a sideshow burlesque dancer with eyes on Mose and his box full of cash.
Trixie goes on the road with Mose and Addie, bringing along her young maid Imogene, played to perfection by teenager PJ Johnson.
When Addie grows increasingly jealous of Trixie's hold on Mose, Addie and Imogene craft an elaborate and hilarious set up to get Trixie out of the picture.
The sequence could have played for full comedy like the hallway confusion of "Victor/Victoria" or the plaid suitcase switches in "What's Up Doc" but Bogdanovich plays it much more cleverly, mixing real emotion into the scene to create a perfect payoff.
John Hillerman plays both a bootlegger AND a sheriff, the photography by Laszlo Kovacs (Shampoo, New York New York) is Ansel Adams perfect and Bogdanovich bathes everything in black and white glory just as he did in his 1972 hit "The Last Picture Show".
Just as it did in that film, the B&W seems to fit the depression era, small town setting perfectly.
The screenplay by Alvin Sargent (Ordinary People, What About Bob?) is loaded with laughs, most of which are flawlessly delivered by young Tatum.
My favorite exchange between Mose and Addie:
Mose: I got scruples too, you know. You know what that is? Scruples?
Addie Loggins: No, I don't know what it is, but if you got 'em, it's a sure bet they belong to somebody else!
Ryan and Tatum are great together and their interactions never feel forced. Tatum has serious chops.
Fun, suspenseful and a modern classic. PAPER MOON shines it's way to an A.
The Thief Who Came To Dinner
Fresh off writing the screenplay for the 1972 McQueen/McGraw hit “The Getaway”, Walter Hill crafted another clever 1973 caper, THE THIEF WHO CAME TO DINNER.
Loaded with suspense, humor, and clever plot twists, it will put a non-stop smile on your face.
Ryan O’Neal stars as Webster, a bored computer engineer who leaves his humdrum job to take up a career as a jewel thief. Like TV’s Dexter, he only steals from corrupt & wealthy people, calling himself an honest thief.
The film gets even better when he confides in failing socialite Laura Keaton, perfectly played by Jacqueline Bisset in all her 1970’s glory. Mining Keaton’s contacts, Webster soon has a large list of targets. He adopts the mantra of the Chess Burglar, leaving behind a note and a chess piece in place of diamonds.
The great Warren Oates is at his best as Dave Reilly, an insurance investigator positive that Webster is the Chess Burglar. Oates and O’Neal navigate an enjoyable game of cat and mouse for the second half of the film, staying one step ahead of each other all the way to a perfect ending.
Director Bud Yorkin, a veteran of Norman Lear’s classic TV comedies, keeps everything loose and fast, peppering the supporting cast with first class actors like Jill Clayburgh (Starting Over), Ned Beatty (Deliverance) and the hilarious Austin Pendleton (What’s Up Doc?) as an exasperated chess expert confounded by Webster’s moves.
Henry Mancini provides a perfect film score, and Philip Lathrop (The Pink Panther) shoots the entire movie like some strange blend of an Altman movie and a Bond thriller. It works.
A throwback to an era where character development was given equal weight to action scenes (the direct opposite of any Michael Bay film), THE THIEF WHO CAME TO DINNER is a blast. Bisset, O’Neal and Oates deliver a solid A.
Wild Rovers
Long unseen and an outlier in Blake Edwards long career as a director, 1971's WILD ROVERS is a funny, old fashioned western with dramatic undertones.
William Holden (Sunset Boulevard, Network) delivers star power as Ross Bodine, a lifelong Montana cowboy working as a rustler for the Buckman ranch. Karl Malden (Patton) is Walter Buckman, the owner of the spread. His son Paul (Joe Don Baker) is hard working and committed, while his other son John (Tom Skerritt of "Alien" and "Contact") is a hair trigger, wildcard around town.
Bodine's best friend at the ranch is a much younger cowboy, Frank Post (Ryan O'Neal). They're an odd pair but a funny one, with Bodine seeing a lot of his younger self in Frank's goofy ways.
This is one of Ryan O'Neal's better roles, letting him show off the easy wit of his performance in "What's Up Doc?" while offering some dramatic moments as well.
The drama comes later in the story, after Bodine and Frank decide to shake things up and rob the bank in town.
The robbery is nothing like you'd expect going in. It's a clever approach, but when the town is so small everyone knows your name, how exactly are you going to pull that off?
Combine that with the fact that Bodine just doesn't quite have the DNA to be a thief and you've got some solid laughs.
Writer/Director Edwards knows laughs. As the creator of all the Pink Panther films, along with some modern classics like "10" and "Victor/Victoria" he's at home crafting plenty of humor and physical comedy on the big screen.
But like Butch and Sundance before them, the folks on their trail after the robbery seem very committed to tracking them down.
The entire film is very laid back, not in a huge hurry to saddle up and perfectly enjoyable in a very 70's fashion.
Jerry Goldsmith composed a great score that blends the action and the romance of the old west. Combined with the great Arizona photography by long time Edwards collaborator Philip Lathrop (The Americanization of Emily, Earthquake) the atmosphere is set for an enjoyable, old-school western.
Anytime a film opens with a scene of Malden, Skerritt and Baker as secondary players, you have my attention.
WILD ROVERS saddles up a B.
Available on Warner Archive and on Apple TV (where we enjoyed it) in full original roadshow version with Goldsmith's pre-film Overture, Intermission and Exit Music fully intact.
O'Neal's biggest hit was his film debut in 1970 in a little film that rocketed him to the top of the box office, called
Love Story
Time has not exactly been kind to one of the biggest hits of 1970, LOVE STORY. Made for $2M and grossing over $106M at the box office, it was a huge blockbuster. A very young Ryan O'Neal is a rich, preppy college student who falls in love with Ali MacGraw, a harsh, foul mouthed librarian from a working class family. Ryan O'Neal is really good in the film and that's especially amazing considering the complete block of wood that he had to play off of in Ali. WOW, she is really bad here. I have met TSA agents with more emotional range than she displays over 95 minutes. In the first two minutes of the movie, Ryan tells you Ali is going to die and it's all downhill from there. Look for a very young Tommy Lee Jones as one of Ryan's roommates.
A classic music score from Frances Lai and some good support from Ray Milland as O'Neal's estranged father, but this is pretty predictable stuff, weighed down by the anchor of MacGraw's performance. Love may mean never having to say your sorry, but I think she owes SOMEBODY an apology for that performance! C-
RIP Ryan. What an amazing career over the past 60 years!
My favorite line from Paper Moon was Miss Trixie Deligh’s; “How ‘bout it Honey? Just for a little while, let ‘ol Trixie sit up front with her big tits.”
Madeline Kahn was a national treasure!