News

The New York Underground invaded the mainstream with Robert Downey Sr.’s completely irreverent Madison Avenue satire, in which a token black executive takes over an Ad agency, renames it ‘Truth and Soul’ and goes on a mad reign of creative terror. Arnold Johnson, Stan Gottlieb, Allen Garfield, and Antonio Fargas star in a farce that some critics found intolerably crude — but an independent distributor gave it a national release. 1969 was the year that the Production Code took a tumble — and Downey’s picture proved that freedom of expression was alive and well in the U.S. of A..

Putney Swope

Region Free Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1969 / B&w + Color / 1:37 Academy / 85 min. / Street Date July 25, 2022 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Arnold Johnson, Stan Gottlieb, Allen Garfield, Archie Russell, Ching Yeh, Norman Schreiber, Wendy Appel, Antonio Fargas, Laura Greene, Allan Arbus, Pepi Hermine, Larry Wolf, Ronnie Dyson, Shelley Plimpton, Marlene Clark,...

Kurt Vonnegut’s quirky sci-fi novels didn’t always adapt well to film, but George Roy Hill’s 1972 effort is a faithful winner. The filmmaking craft used to ‘unstick’ Billy Pilgrim in time is nothing short of brilliant, highlighting the camera talent of Miroslav Ondricek and the editing skill of Dede Allen. The book even has a built-in sex angle that the film doesn’t shy away from — providing our first encounter with Valerie Perrine as a starlet kidnapped by aliens curious about human mating habits. The somber, sometimes spiritually-defeatist tone of the show represents the book well; it ought to be better known.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 104 min. / Street Date December 3, 2019 / Available from Arrow Academy

Starring: Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman, Eugene Roche, Sharon Gans, Valerie Perrine, Holly Near, Perry King, Kevin Conway, Friedrich von Ledebur, Sorrell Booke, Roberts Blossom, John Dehner, Stan Gottlieb, Karl-Otto Alberty, Henry Bumstead,...

Norman Lear’s Cold Turkey is preferred by 4 out of 5 doctors, and the other doctor is a fool that doesn’t smoke cigarettes. Lear’s triple-threat writing, producing and directing effort is by no means a lazy comedy, with its twenty featured actors dashing around like asylum inmates for ninety minutes. It’s not the show to help one kick the habit, that’s for sure — even though it makes smoking look appropriately disgusting.

Cold Turkey

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date May 29, 2018 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring: Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart, Pippa Scott, Tom Poston, Edward Everett Horton, Bob Elliott, Ray Goulding, Vincent Gardenia, Barnard Hughes, Graham Jarvis, Jean Stapleton, Barbara Cason, Judith Lowry, Sudie Bond, Helen Page Camp, Paul Benedict, Simon Scott, Raymond Kark, Peggy Rea, Woodrow Parfrey, M. Emmet Walsh, Gloria LeRoy, Walter Sande, Harvey Jason, Ted Knight, Stan Gottlieb.

Cinematography:...

Turner Classic Movies (North America) is keeping their Friday night Sean Connery tributes on a hot streak. Tonight, for example, the network screens back-to-back showings of the James Bond flicks You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever, followed by a rare telecast of Sidney Lumet's 1971 thriller The Anderson Tapes which casts Connery as a master thief who devises an outlandish plan to "rob the guts" out of a New York luxury apartment building over Labor Day weekend. The film was Connery's first notable hit outside of the Bond canon, enjoying favorable reviews and substantial box-office. Not only is the Great Scot in top form, but the film benefits from a spectacular supporting cast including Dyan Cannon (stripping to her bra for a memorable bedroom scene), Ralph Meeker, comedian Alan King (excellent as mob boss), Christopher Walken (in his first feature film), Stan Gottlieb as a geriatric con man,...