Dirty Old New York aka Fun City, Part V

This is the conclusion of the Dirty Old New York Subway / aka Fun City series that I started working on nearly two years ago.  I think I've got the obsession--at least in this format--out of my system.

Barbara Streisand ventures out to Fun City in Irvin Kershner's Up the Sandbox.

The video begins with a Rocky-style recap of the previous segments, with new footage inserted to represent some of the motifs explored in the earlier videos.  The effectiveness of this recap is dependent on viewers having seen and remembered Parts I - IV.

In this latest edition, viewers will note my continued pre-occupation with now-obsolete, antiquated, and/or analog technologies--tube televisions (and static), vinyl records and turntables, 3/4" video cassettes, top loading VCRs, etc.

There is some nudity in Part V so it may be NSFW depending on where you work.

Master playlist from Subway thru Fun City I, II, III, IV, & V: 

A Fine Madness

Aaron Loves Angela

Across 110th Street

After Hours

All That Jazz

American Pop

An Unmarried Woman

The Angel Levine

Arthur

Author! Author!

Bad Timing

Badge 373

Bananas

Basket Case

Beat Street

Blank Generation

Bloodbrothers

Born to Win

The Boys in the Band

The Brother From Another Planet

Bye Bye Braverman

Bye Bye Monkey
C.H.U.D.

Contract on Cherry Street

Coogan’s Bluff

Coonskin

Cops and Robbers

Cotton Comes to Harlem

Crazy Joe

Cruising

David Holzman’s Diary

Death Wish

Defiance

Desperate Characters

Devil’s Express

Dog Day Afternoon

The Dogs of War

Downtown ‘81

Dressed to Kill

The Driller Killer

Dutchman

The Education of Sonny Carson

Emanuelle Around the World

Emanuelle in America

Exorcist II: The Heretic

The Exorcist

The Exterminator

Eyes of Laura Mars

Eyewitness

Fame

The Fan

Fatso

Fear City

Fingers

The First Deadly Sin

Fort Apache The Bronx

The French Connection

Fritz the Cat

From Corleone to Brooklyn

The Gambler

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight

Girlfriends

Gloria

God Told Me To

Going in Style

The Goodbye Girl

Greetings

Hair

Hanky Panky

Harry and Tonto

Heavy Metal

Heavy Traffic

Hell Up in Harlem

Heroes

Hey Good Lookin’

Hi Mom!

The Hot Rock

The Hunger

Husbands

I, the Jury

The Incident

Jeremy

Joe

John and Mary

King Kong

The King of Comedy

King of the Gypsies

Kiss Me Goodbye

Klute

Kramer vs. Kramer

The Landlord

The Last Detail

The Last Horror Film

Law and Disorder

Liquid Sky

Little Murders

Loving

Loving

Maniac

Marathon Man

Massage Parlor Murders

Mean Streets

Midnight Cowboy

Ms. 45

Network

New Order's "Confusion" video

New York Ripper

Night Shift

Nighthawks

Nightmare

The Odd Couple

One Trick Pony

Oriental Blue

The Panic in Needle Park

The Possession of Joel Delaney

Prince of the City

Putney Swope

Q: The Winged Serpent

Report to the Commissioner

Rich Kids

Rosemary’s Baby

Saturday Night Fever

Scarface

The Sentinel

Serpico

The Seven-Ups

Shaft

Shamus

Sisters

Smithereens

So Fine

Splash

Staying Alive

The Stone Killer

The Super Cops

Superbitch

Superfly

Superman

Superman II

The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3

Taking Off

Taxi Driver

The Telephone Book

They All Laughed

Three Days of the Condor

Three the Hard Way

Times Square

To Find a Man

Tootsie

Trash

Up the Down Staircase

Up the Sandbox

Variety

Vigilante

The Wanderers

The Warriors

Where's Poppa

Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?

Who’s That Knocking at My Door? 

Wild Style

Willie and Phil

Windows

Winter Kills

Wolfen

You’re a Big Boy Now

Zombie

Road Movie (1974, Joseph Strick)

Joseph Strick's Road Movie turns 40 this year, but you're less likely to hear about that than you are some of the others from the Class of '74 such as Chinatown or The Godfather Part II.  But, make no mistake about it: Strick's film is an American New Wave classic, albeit of the "lost" variety.  This is another of those scaled to actual life-size, downbeat, down and dirty, impolite, depressing, sad, and "sad funny" pictures--with a gut punch of an ending--that you've come to expect from the early to mid-'70s.  It's that era that continues to be a gift that keeps on giving, this time offering up Road Movie to me, seemingly out of the blue, to be discovered all these years later.  It's amazing to me that I didn't know about this film until about a month ago.  I've long been fascinated with truckers and their milieu, and, as such, I've tried to see most films set in that environment.  If you read this blog with any regularity, then you know that I'm obsessively drawn to the small, little-remembered films from the late '60s to the early '80s.  

Road Movie was one of the few films produced and distributed by New York-based Grove Press, much better known for its groundbreaking history in book publishing, including Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer in 1961, later adapted by Joseph Strick for his 1970 film version.

Strick's film apparently lasted only a week at the Plaza Theatre on 58th and Madison.  Canby was also taken with Baff's performance and the Columbia University critic also had mostly good things to say about the film, particularly in comparison to Zardoz, which it was up against that week.

Yet, even given all that, I was completely unaware of Road Movie until I saw Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?  What's the connection?  It's a "who": Regina Baff.  "Who?"  I didn't know who she was, either, until I saw her in the earlier film opposite Dustin Hoffman.  I thought her scenes were probably the best in a deeply flawed film, better than those of the Oscar-nominated Barbara Harris.  When I looked her up, I found a short filmography that pretty much ended over thirty years ago.  She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1974, but left acting for a career in psychology in the 1980s.  Which is just as well because if '70s cinema was, in large part, about unconventional-looking people--i.e. "character people," i.e. Regina Baff--becoming leading players and stars, the '80s...wasn't.  So, Regina Baff vanished from the public life of a movie actress, but not before she left an indelible mark as Janice, a truck stop prostitute, who makes a mess of the lives of the two independent truckers--Robert Drivas and Barry Bostwick--who pick her up at the start of the film.  

Bostwick and Drivas, as the independents who will come to regret adding an extra passenger at the Arena Diner in South Kearny.  Drivas' primary impact was on the stage, but film audiences will remember him from Cool Hand Luke and The Illustrated Man.  He died of AIDS-related illnesses in 1986.  Bostwick originated the role of Danny Zuko in Grease on Broadway in 1972, made The Rocky Horror Picture Show a year after Road Movie, made dozens of tv appearances, and starred in Megaforce.

Peace.

Director Strick spent time as a long haul trucker as a young man and this unique experience gives the film an authenticity and authority that it surely would not have had, had he been a complete outsider. Still, even with that on his resume, Strick took the then-progressive step of hiring a young female writer, Judith Rascoe, to write the script; she was teaching writing at Yale and had no film credits at the time.  Perhaps I make too much of it, but in the heavily masculine world of trucking, and given the trucker film's history as fodder for "exploitation" or grindhouse pictures, a woman writing the screenplay for such a film seems an unconventional and commendable thing.  No doubt, Rascoe provided a needed counterbalance and perspective to a scenario that could otherwise become, or be accused of being, misogynistic.  

Truck stop hooker Janice makes her entrance.  I recognized this spot from my many times driving on Routes 1 & 9 in NJ over the years.  I don't think this diner's been open for business for a long time.   Diner staff look on, entertained by the workers showing their wares in the parking lot.

The opening sequence is pretty remarkable to me for its use of montage--lots of impressive footage of truckers doing what they do on the road--and appropriate use of song (by Joan Armatrading, I think), with bluesy, squealing horns standing in for the undoubtedly loud argument between Baff and the john who throws her out of his car at the start of the film.

Heart of gold or road poison?  Treat her right and she'll do right by you.  Break one of her arms and she'll break both of yours.  

Regina Baff.  A face you won't forget.  She is up to the challenge of playing all the complexities of this role: from "real tough chick" to sad, pitiable creature to vengeful maniac, and everything in between.  She's been on the road so long, she's got no more "neutral," only 1st gear and overdrive.

I don't want to say too much more about the film, so as to avoid spoilers, except that I admire its portrayal of the ugliness and decrepitude of middle American backroads and highways, while resisting the urge to make something beautiful out of this ugliness. It also can't be ignored that Road Movie came decades before the ruins photography movement really took hold, aka "ruin porn," the now-cliche movement to photograph urban and rural decay and blight.  I think of Road Movie as one of those films, books, or LPs that many subsequent filmmakers, writers, or musicians owe a debt to without realizing it.

Some proto-ruin porn.

The movie is surprisingly available on DVD and has been for well over a decade.  It's a non-anamorphic letterboxed presentation, which, unfortunately, does not fully do justice to longtime documentary d.p. Don Lenzer's appropriately gritty cinematography.  It is one of those "best available source" deals, in this case being an actual release print, complete with the expected scratches, dirt, and occasional missing frames or soundtrack hiccups.  The score is by veteran British composer Stanley Myers, whose music for Douglas Hickox's Sitting Target is one of my most prized and loved soundtrack LPs; his music is here is alternately bluesy, jazzy, haunting, and spare, performed by an impressive line-up of English session players.

Other memorable faces to look out for in Road Movie include Barton Heyman, David Bauer, Martin Kove (who later acted in another trucker classic: White Line Fever), and a very, very young Joe Pantoliano.

The film is a good companion piece to Trucker: A Portrait of the Last American Cowboy, published a year later.

Not unlike the effect used for the Rain People one-sheet.

So, if you're looking for the truly unsung, prototypical "'70s movie" (or, "road movie," take your pick) which almost nobody ever mentions or even knows...Road Movie is your man movie.

Trailer on the MOD DVD: Boulevard Nights (1979, Michael Pressman)

Michael Pressman's Boulevard Nights gets lost in the 1979 gang movie shuffle that also includes The Warriors, The Wanderers, Over the Edge, and Walk Proud, but it's an effective and sobering drama which is worthy of reconsideration.  It was initially lambasted by critics and special interest groups in the wake of violence in theaters where it and The Warriors screened.  The film was criticized for being a routine drama that resorted to Mexican-American stereotypes.  In the years since, it's become a cult film in the Latino community, particularly for its portrayal of lowrider culture, and while the narrative is not exactly fresh or all that surprising, the good performances, particularly lead Richard Yniguez, and period, cultural details make it better than it might sound on paper.  The relationship drama between Yniguez, his longtime girlfriend Marta DuBois, and his troubled younger brother Danny De La Paz, is predictable for the most part...the difference is, at least in 1979, we still hadn't seen too many, if any, versions of this story with Latinos in the lead roles.  

I'd have liked to see the filmmakers concentrate more on the relationship of Yniguez and DuBois, but I suspect that the studio and moneymen pushed the gang content and requisite revenge plot. Yniguez plays the part of a former gang member turned hard-working auto mechanic.  His girlfriend works an office job in a white collar environment and wants Yniguez to follow suit, but part of him still wants to be king of the Boulevard, showing off his souped-up wheels and taking part in lowrider car-hopping contests.  His younger brother is constantly in trouble and getting more deeply involved in the neighborhood gang, VGV.  It is a not so thinly veiled Latino variation on Saturday Night Fever, with the Boulevard, of course, taking the place of the 2001 Odyssey, and the car-hopping reminiscent of Manero's dance contests or the mechanical bull at Gilley's.  Yniguez and DuBois play well off each other and are an attractive couple and I was more interested in the possibilities of the drama surrounding their relationship, rather than Yniguez' futile efforts to get his younger brother out of the gang.  

Here's a good interview with Yniguez, who, unfortunately, did not get many opportunities outside of Latino-specific roles.  He can also be seen in the lead role in the 1976 telefilm, The Deadly Tower, also available from the WA.

The above trailer is quite effective, mixing evocative still frames with a propulsive Latin beat courtesy of maestro Lalo Schifrin, and good, dramatic voiceover from a Latin-American-accented v.o. artist. This trailer is available on the DVD-R from Warner Archive, which features a film-like, unrestored 16X9 transfer complete with original Saul Bass red and black WB logo.

The film was lensed by top-notch cinematographer John Bailey, who was fresh off of operating camera on Days of Heaven, and who would move onto a decidedly more upscale end of town with his next film, Paul Schrader's American Gigolo.  Check out Bailey's blog on the ASC website.

The "VGV" graffiti scrawled on this Warriors display in Gigolo is an inside joke seemingly perpetrated by d.p. John Bailey.  It is the graffiti tag of Danny De La Paz's gang in Boulevard Nights.