This is the year that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas collaborated on
Raiders of the Lost Ark – their remake of Harold Hankins Hopper‘s 1954 feature Secret of the Incas. Spielberg added some original ideas, but recognise the guy on the left? It is, of course, Charlton Heston in the 1954 adventure about the search for a mythical gold relic, involving decoding the location using the missing piece of an ancient three dimensional model of the site and a staff that deflects sunlight onto the right spot.
Aside from Raiders, 1981 witnessed the demise of the legendary BBC sci fi series Blake’s 7, in which a bunch of ne’er-do-well freedom fighters charge around the galaxy in a giant stolen spaceship. It was a standing joke in TV circles how regular requests for the series to be revived went on for years after its closure, and also that it was so cheaply made that in the original series they couldn’t even afford the apostrophe, entitling it ‘Blakes 7‘.
I remember watching the shows female lead – Lee Strasberg pupil Jacqueline Pearce – once saying she’d never actually bothered to watch a single episode. Clive James called it ‘classically awful’, with sets that sway backwards and forwards, props that had the appearance of leftovers from a car boot sale, senseless storylines and mediocre acting. So, why is it so revered?
Wow! Look at all the pointy bits!
Two immediate points come to mind, the fab intro music and a really cool-looking spaceship that rivaled the USS Enterprise. The first few episodes were the most coherent and enjoyable, with the prison-escapee gang getting to grips with their accidentally acquired spaceship. Everyone seemed to have a self-serving angle, even the various talking computers that turn up, which made a pleasant change from the clean-cut cast of Trek and Who. The series ran for four seasons, ending with the crew meeting their fate without having made any real impression on their opponents.
In my teens I loved it. I can’t recall a single storyline – there may never been one to grasp hold of – but it was a piece of ludicrously camp fantasy which took one far away from the humdrum of everyday life.
1981 was also the year of Chariots of Fire and Wolfgang Peterson’s masterly Das Boot, but beyond that it is a little more difficult to uncover quality productions amongst the post-70s schlock. Had a go with Paul Newman’s police saga, Fort Apache the Bronx – but it is not Newman at his matured best, and also the historical epic Lion of the Desert, but found it a dull affair in spite of the star-studded cast (Quinn, Reed, Richardson).
Reviewed below are Outland (a film billed as ‘High Noon in space’), Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, and a James Caan feature, Thief.
OUTLAND (USA)
Director: Peter Hyams.
Cast: Sean Connery, Francis Sternhagen, Peter Boyle, Kika Markham.
Plot: Sean Connery plays a space marshal on the trail of someone supplying dangerous narcotics to workers on a space station.
Review: I’d seen this once before in childhood and remember it as an enjoyable production. After a lengthy period of scene setting and character building, it quickly become a space ‘who dunnit’, and within half an hour it’s obvious who indeed did it and why. One know there’s bound to be a final showdown, so, given the early plot giveaway, does the remaining 1½ hours contain enough entertainment to make it worth sitting through?
That look which says – I’m Sean Connery and I’m going to get you!
Sean Connery takes his role seriously, giving a thoroughly committed performance, as do the rest of the cast. This is one of those films that paints everyone and everything, even the heroes, as being of rather a seedy nature, so it’s hard to care much of the time. It was interesting to see Peter Boyle (died 2006, ‘dad’ in Everybody Loves Raymond) as one of the bad guys, showing what a versatile actor he was. He has struck me before as being an impressive performer when given the opportunity.
I must have been young enough to be impressed by anything set in space when I first saw this, as on its second viewing it wasn’t so entertaining, but with just enough in Connery’s reliable macho routine and Francis Sternhagen as an honest but washed-out space station doctor to make it watchable to the end.
Score: 3/10.
THIEF (USA)
Director: Michael Mann.
Cast: James Caan, Tuesday Weld, James Belushi, Robert Prosky, John Santucci.
Plot: A career criminal wants to retire to enjoy his illegally gotton gains, but others he gets involved with upset his plans.
The idyllic life, but it all has to be paid for – Tuesday Weld and James Caan in Thief.
Review: In this movie James Caan is an unrepentant diamond thief – a sort of cross between The Pink Panther and one of The Sopranos. He wants to end his criminal career to settle down with his girlfriend and illegally adopted baby. For reasons not entirely clear given his desire to kick the habit, he agrees to one last big job at the behest of a local crime lord. One committment leads to another, and his carefully laid plans start falling apart.
Tuesday Weld’s subtle and restrained reactions to Caan’s forceful delivery are some of the best moments of the film.
Caan’s New York twang is almost unintelligible at times. But this is a minor quibble. The story is easy enough to follow and the performances sound. It’s ultimately a familiar tale of a not so bad guy trying to turn his life around, only to find problems arise when the inevitable baggage of a criminal career start catching up with him.
The characters are painted very black-and-white, and it’s Caan who is the good guy and everyone else is bad in one way or another, girlfriend excepted – he’s typically type-cast as a tough-talking type, but does manage to show a little more depth to his abilities here and there. Tuesday Weld was someone new to me, and I look forward to finding her in other movies – the world-weary-yet-eternally-hopeful look in her eyes leaves a lasting impression. The storyline is well managed and keeps one guessing until the final scenes, when Caan takes drastic steps in line with his ultimately nihilistic mindset to protect all he has worked for.
Score: 5/10.
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (USA)
Director: Steven Spielberg.
Cast: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Denholm Eliot, Wolf Kahler,
Plot: Harrison Ford pursues a team of Nazi’s bent of acquiring the lost Ark of the Covenant.
Review: So, how on earth does one review Raiders? I’m not going to waste words. If you’ve never seen it, it’s fun(ish) and was a massive leap in cinematic adventure story telling when it came out. What can one complain about? The story imaginative, the stunts and chase scenes inventive and well-worked into the plot, the characterisations enjoyable.
Frank Marshall and Karen Allen filming ‘the plane fight’ scene.
A hypothesis proposed in an episode of The Big Bang Theory is that Harrison Ford‘s character actually has no impact on the events of the film – he doesn’t stop the Nazis finding what they’re looking for, simply acting as an observer, at the most just slowing them down a bit. Thinking about it, he actually leads the Nazi’s to Marion and the medallion in the first place and inadvertently helps them along at other times in the film. I might just have to watch it one more time.
Capt. Fred Sorenson.
A bit of trivia: The pilot in the Nazi plane during the ‘plane fight’ is Frank Marshall, Hollywood producer and prolific bit part actor. He married Kathleen Kennedy six years later, the pair having worked together on this film where Kennedy was one of Spielberg’s many assistants. Both remain close business associates of Spielberg. The other pilot in the film (the one with the pet snake) is Capt. Fred Sorenson, this being his only credited acting part. He was a pilot in real life, retiring in 2014, and who helped evacuate Spielberg’s film crew from Kauai during the filming of Jurassic Park when a hurricane hit during production.
Score: 5/10.
So, the best film of 1981 is … that’s a surprise, a draw between Thief and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I’m going to give it to …
THIEF (5/10)
James Caan explains his grand scheme to get away from it all to Tuesday Weld in Thief.
… because as entertaining as Raiders is, even after watching it umpteen times, it’s typically Spielbergian, with the actors personalities submerged beneath Spielberg’s brilliant but overwhelming direction. Thief had individual touches, with the actors able to bring themselves into their roles and improvise – such as when Caan is supposed to light a cigarette in ‘the diner scene‘. The lighter fails to work, but Caan and Weld stay in character and the scene flows beautifully. Caan considers this scene one of his favourite pieces of work.
The next The Best Film of . . . will be the year 1930.
THE BEST FILM OF ... 