Carol Kane Movies

Though the title smacks of World War II, Is This Trip Really Necessary is actually a 1971-vintage drug flick. The "trip" of the title is induced by LSD, consumed by a couple of nubile film actresses at the behest of realism-obsessed director John Carradine. Hero Peter Duryea attempts to rescue the girls, but both are doomed to horrible deaths in a lovingly detailed torture-chamber set. Eighteen-year-old Carol Kane (here billed as Carole) was evidently offered no acting advice whatsoever by her veteran co-stars Carradine, Duryea, and Marvin Miller. This film was also inflicted on the public as Trip to Terror and Blood of the Iron Maiden. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Frank D. Gilroy's adaptation of Paula Fox's novel Desperate Characters stars Shirley MacLaine as Sophie, a freelance book translator who leads a comfortable life in Brooklyn with her lawyer husband Otto (Kenneth Mars). Because of their crumbling marriage and the threatening presence of urban dangers like crime and vandalism, the couple are living a paranoid, scared existence. The film chronicles their emotional and psychological state through a series of interactions with each other and like-minded friends. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Two Navy "lifers" and one military innocent briefly attempt to thumb their nose at Authority in Hal Ashby's The Last Detail (1973). "Badass" Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young) are assigned to escort young sailor Meadows (Randy Quaid, who beat out John Travolta for the part) from their Virginia base to a New England military prison, where Meadows will serve an eight-year sentence for attempting to swipe the commander's wife's polio donation can. Buddusky thinks that the sentence is a waste of Meadows' formative years, and he convinces a skeptical Mulhall to show the hapless Meadows a good time by partying on their per diem for the rest of the detail's allotted week. As they head north, the comically posturing Buddusky leads Meadows through the masculinizing rituals of getting drunk, getting in a fight, and getting laid; and he teaches Meadows to stand up for himself so well that Meadows tries to escape. Despite his self-proclaimed "badass" rep, however, Buddusky is, as Mulhall tells him, "a lifer like me," and the two ultimately have a job that they were ordered to do. Taking full advantage of the new ratings system, writer Robert Towne adapted the Darryl Ponicsan novel with an ear for how Navy men really talk. Objecting to the wall-to-wall obscenities, Columbia put off releasing the movie, but, after Nicholson won the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival, finally opened it for Oscar consideration in December 1973 before a full release several months later. Even with nominations for Nicholson, Quaid, and Towne, and rave reviews despite the notorious cussing, The Last Detail failed to find an audience. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Among the first releases in the new wave of independent films of the 1970s, writer/director Joan Micklin Silver's portrait of turn-of-the-century New York is also important for its unflinching portrait of women's issues. Russian Jewish immigrant Gitl (Carol Kane) joins her husband Jake (Steven Keats) in New York after he has gone ahead to establish himself. Jake has quickly assimilated many American customs, much to the dismay of Gitl, who clings to her Old World ways. Gitl's discovery of how Jake was able to finance her trip to America leads to more tension, and Gitl is soon on her own with few resources on which to draw. Although the film performed modestly at the box office, it was a sign of changing times when Kane's quietly assured performance was nominated for an Academy award, a rare recognition by Hollywood of a film made outside the studio system. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

Woody Allen's romantic comedy of the Me Decade follows the up and down relationship of two mismatched New York neurotics. Jewish comedy writer Alvy Singer (Allen) ponders the modern quest for love and his past romance with tightly-wound WASP singer Annie Hall (Diane Keaton, née Diane Hall). The twice-divorced Alvy knows that it's not easy to find a mate when the options include pretentious New York intellectuals and lifestyle-obsessed Rolling Stone writers, but la-di-dah-ing Annie seems different. Along the rocky road of their coupling, Allen/Alvy weigh in on such topics as endless therapy, movies vs. TV, the absurdity of dating rituals, anti-Semitism, drugs, and, in one of the best set pieces, repressed Midwestern WASP insanity vs. crazy Brooklyn Jewish boisterousness. Annie wants to move to Los Angeles to find that fame that finally does in the relationship -- but not before Alvy gets in a few digs at vacuous, mantra-fixated California. Originally entitled Anhedonia (the inability to enjoy oneself), Annie Hall blended the slapstick and fantasy from such earlier Allen films as Sleeper (1973) and Bananas (1971) with the more autobiographical musings of his stand-up and written comedy, using an array of such movie techniques as talking heads, splitscreens, and subtitles. Within these gleeful formal experiments and sight gags, Allen and co-writer Marshall Brickman skewered 1970s solipsism, reversing the happy marriage of opposites found in classic screwball comedies. Hailed as Allen's most mature and personal film, Annie Hall beat out Star Wars for Best Picture and also won Oscars for Allen as director and writer and for Keaton as Best Actress; audiences enthusiastically responded to Allen's take on contemporary love and turned Keaton's rumpled menswear into a fashion trend. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Rudolph Valentino, born in Italy in 1895 as Alfonzo Raffaele Pierre Philibert Guglielmi, emigrated to the U.S. and became for a time the reigning male romantic lead of the silent-film era. He died in 1926, having led a short, troubled and tempestuous life which included several stints in prison. The crowds surrounding his coffin before and during his funeral were among the largest ever seen in the U.S. In this film, Ken Russell has used events from the famous actor's life as the basis for an extended meditation on the nature of stardom, and especially on what it means to be a sex idol. Beginning and ending with the funeral of Valentino (Rudolf Nureyev), the story chronicles his rise to Hollywood stardom from life as an Italian emigrant dishwasher and show-dancer. Often embroiled in controversies about his manliness (or perceived lack of ), in the film he dies as a result of internal injuries suffered in a boxing match he fought in to defend his honor. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A true classic of the "ensemble sitcom" genre, Taxi ran for five years on two different networks, accumulating dozens of industry awards (including several Emmys) and a comparatively small but intensely vocal corps of loyal and loving viewers along the way. Most of the action took place in the garage of New York City's Sunshine Cab Company, a fiefdom ruled from his "cage" by tyrannical, short-tempered taxi dispatcher Louie DePalma (Danny DeVito, who also directed a handful of episodes). The unofficial spiritual leader and father confessors of the cabbies was Alex Rieger (Judd Hirsch), the only Sunshine driver who worked full-time and was not pursuing an outside career. The others included Elaine Nardo (Marilu Henner), whose great dream in life was to be a wealthy and influential patroness of the arts; Bobby Wheeler (Jeff Conaway, who left the series after season three), an aspiring actor; Tony Banta (Tony Danza), a would-be boxing champ; Ageing hippie "Reverend" Jim Ignatowski (Christopher Lloyd, who joined the series during its Second Season), a burned-out relic of the activist 1960s who ultimately (and amazingly) became the garage's wealthiest employee after inheriting a fortune from his father; and, during Season One only, John Burns (Randall Carver), a feckless college student. Also on the Sunshine staff was Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman), a sweet-tempered immigrant from an indeterminate European country with an indecipherable language. During the series' fourth season, Latka married his countrywoman and sweetheart Simka Dahblitz (Carol Kane), who, beginning in season five, was listed among the regulars. (Another recurring character, assistant dispatcher Jeff was played on a sporadic basis by J. Allen Thomas, aka Jeff Thomas).

Debuting September 12, 1978, on ABC, Taxi opened to solid if not spectacular ratings, but its viewership dwindled as the network arbitrarily shifted its time slot (from Tuesday, to Wednesday, to Thursday) over the next four years. Although ABC intended to pull the plug on the program at the end of season four, popular demand from viewers and the industry alike kept the property alive -- albeit on a different network, NBC. Unfortunately, this move did not significantly improve the overall ratings, and as a result, Taxi ended its 114-episode run on July 27, 1983. (There had been an eleventh-hour attempt to revive the series on the cable service HBO, but this came to naught.) Since that time, the series has enjoyed a successful and profitable afterlife in local syndication and on basic cable. ~ All Movie Guide

A British writer goes to live in a Spanish village while he looks into the mysterious life of a 19th century wanderer who was allegedly slain by La Sabina, a mythical lady dragon. The writer becomes lovers with an American visitor and then falls in love with an enigmatic beauty from town. Things get really confusing when the writer's good friend arrives with his wife. When the writer's all-out campaign to seduce the local woman fails, tragedy ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear, from of the large crew of loveably fuzzy characters created by puppetmaster Jim Henson, have embarked on a quest for stardom. They take a trip to Hollywood, riding in or on a wide variety of vehicles along the way. They begin their journey on a bicycle pedalled by Kermit, but friends accumulate along the way, and they change vehicles to accomodate them. They have the additional challenge of fending off the entreaties of the heartless Doc Hopper (Charles Durning), who wants Kermit to make some advertisements promoting fried frog legs. Kermit must also cope with his amorous feelings for Miss Piggy, and hers for him. This appealing children's adventure movie has numerous scenes which do homage to classic films, and features a huge cast of Hollywood greats, from Edgar Bergen to Orson Welles, in cameo roles. A great box-office success, this movie paved the way for a number of sequels. One of the film's many songs, The Rainbow Connection, was nominated for an Oscar. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this eerie, atmospheric tale, a young woman is on a train when she sees some people she thinks she knows from her childhood. On arriving home, her husband tells her that a certain countess has died. At that point, the film cuts to a scene of the countess singing in a mausoleum while the visual image of the graveyard's many tombstones passes before one's eyes. Back home, the husband -- also a "father-figure" -- is looking over his collection of wooden angels. Some time elapses, and he surreptitiously sees a thief come down through the chimney, steal some things, and then leave. To combat any recurrence, he builds an iron, escape-proof cage around the fireplace, and then goes away on a trip. When he comes back, he finds the thief dead in the cage. Thus far, the camera has only shown the husband in profile or from the back. Then there is another story about a young girl, with a spiteful, nasty mother, who is trying to cope with her own attraction to a man. When she grows up, she either commits suicide or manages to leave the past behind her. Is this little girl the same married woman on the train at the beginning of the film? In the final, dramatic scenes, the viewers see the husband full-face for the first time, as he confronts his wife. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Carol Kane makes her first series appearance as Simka Dahblitz, a woman from the same unpronounceable foreign country as Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman). The growing affection between Latka and Simka reaches an impasses when he discovers that she is a member of a socially inferior class: that is, she is one of the Mountain Persons. Will true love prevail over class consciousness, or will the shamefaced Latka lose Simka to another man? Listen to the "foreign language" bandied about by Andy Kaufman and Carol Kane; it is a tongue of their own invention, extensively improvised during rehearsals for this episode. ~ All Movie Guide

This complex and puzzling French drama walks the fine wavering line between the fictional and the very real as it tells the tale of a strangely erotic event in the life of a little girl and the musings of a schizophrenic woman. Also involved is an enigmatic spouse who prepares a surprise for a burglar. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide