Haskell Wexler Movies

In this melodrama, set in German-occupied Italy during WW II, a Yankee spy is concealed in the attic of an underground contact's house. The contact's wife does not want him there as she is having an affair with the German Officer who is looking for him. He remains in the attic, hidden by the woman's son. Trouble ensues when the American is seen by the woman and her lover. He must escape across the slippery rain-soaked tile roof tops. The German troops are in hot pursuit. They are also after the woman who stands accused of sheltering the spy. Her lover, the German officer, realizing that he could lose it all for consorting with a local, shoots and kills the woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

It's the last night of summer 1962, and the teenagers of Modesto, California, want to have some fun before adult responsibilities close in. Among them are Steve (Ron Howard) and Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), college-bound with mixed feelings about leaving home; nerdy Terry "The Toad" (Charles Martin Smith), who scores a dream date with blonde Debbie (Candy Clark); and John (Paul Le Mat ), a 22-year-old drag racer who wonders how much longer he can stay champion and how he got stuck with 13-year-old Carol (Mackenzie Phillips) in his deuce coupe. As D. J. Wolfman Jack spins 41 vintage tunes on the radio throughout the night, Steve ponders a future with girlfriend Laurie (Cindy Williams), Curt chases a mystery blonde, Terry tries to act cool, and Paul prepares for a race against Bob Falfa (Harrison Ford), but nothing can stop the next day from coming, and with it the vastly different future ushered in by the 1960s. Fresh off The Godfather (1972), producer Francis Ford Coppola had the clout to get his friend George Lucas's project made, but only for $750,000 on a 28-day shooting schedule. Despite technical obstacles, and having to shoot at night, cinematographer Haskell Wexler gave the film the neon-lit aura that Lucas wanted, evoking the authentic look of a suburban strip to go with the authentic sound of rock-n-roll. Universal, which wanted to call the film Another Slow Night in Modesto, thought it was unreleasable. But Lucas' period detail, co-writers Willard Huyck's and Gloria Katz's realistic dialogue, and the film's nostalgia for the pre-Vietnam years apparently appealed to a 1973 audience embroiled in cultural chaos: American Graffiti became the third most popular movie of 1973 (after The Exorcist and The Sting), establishing the reputations of Lucas (whose next film would be Star Wars) and his young cast, and furthering the onset of soundtrack-driven, youth-oriented movies. Although the film helped spark 1970s nostalgia for the 1950s, nothing else would capture the flavor of the era with the same humorous candor and latent sense of foreboding. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Adapted by Robert Getchell from Woody Guthrie's autobiography, Hal Ashby's biopic portrays a few pivotal years in the life of the celebrated folk singer and social activist. In the Depression 1930s, Midwesterner Guthrie (David Carradine) plays music locally but cannot make enough as a sign painter to support his wife (Melinda Dillon) and children. With only his paintbrushes, Woody joins the migration westward from the Dust Bowl to supposedly greener California pastures via boxcar and hitchhiking. When penniless Woody is turned back from the California border, he sneaks into the state alone and meets Luther (Randy Quaid), who takes Woody to a farm where hundreds of workers scrounge for a few ill-paid harvesting jobs. When singer Ozark Bole (Ronny Cox) arrives both to entertain and to urge the workers to unionize, Woody joins Ozark in song, fleeing with him after thugs break up the assembly. He lands a job singing with Ozark on the radio, and the two become partners in union agitation. Unable to commit in his personal life as he finds his political voice, Woody brings his family west, but his wife can't tolerate Woody's wandering ways. Reluctant to sell out his ideals for a lucrative career, Woody hits the road again, bringing his songs of freedom and protest to a nationwide audience on his own terms. Opting for atmospheric story-telling over strident polemic, the filmmakers present Guthrie as a complex individual with contradictory virtues and faults. Despite critical praise and nominations for several Oscars, including Best Picture, Bound for Glory proved less than glorious at the box office. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Leftist filmmaker Ken Loach directs this grim drama about the plight of seemingly invisible office cleaners in contemporary L.A. who often earn as little as $6 a day without benefits. The film opens as Maya (Pilar Padilla), a young Mexican lass, is reuniting with her older sister Rosa (Elpidia Carrilio) in L.A. after a harrowing cross-border journey. Rosa sets her sister up first with a job as a barmaid, which Maya soon quits after getting repeatedly groped -- and then as a janitor. When her boss demands one month's salary as "commission," Maya happens upon Sam Shapiro (Adrien Brody), a muckraking lawyer and union agitator. This film, which was screened in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, is remarkable for its prescience -- it was shown a month after a massive janitor's strike ground L.A.'s business community to a halt. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

There was a large disarmament demonstration in Manhattan near the UN headquarters on June 12, 1982 and that moment is probably the only interesting segment in this long, 82-minute documentary on a busload of ordinary demonstrators who take too long a ride from Los Angeles to New York for the event. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In Michael Moore's political satire, the U.S. president (Alan Alda) decides to wage a cold war against Canada in an attempt to reverse his slipping popularity, and, as a result, he drives a small group of incensed Canadians to take matters into their own hands. Alda is the first president in years not to lead his country into war, which naturally means that his approval rating is dangerously low. The sure-fire way to boost his popularity is to start a war and demonstrate American superiority. Unfortunately, as his advisors point out, the U.S. has run out of enemies. That is, until Alda's National Security Advisor Stuart Smiley (Kevin Pollak) happens to catch a segment on the news about a brawl at a Canadian hockey game that began when local American sheriff Bud Boomer (John Candy) made a remark about Canadian beer. This incident gives Smiley the notion to make the public believe that Canada is their new enemy. Determined to demonstrate the mighty power of America to the Canadians, Boomer gets a group of equally angry fellow Americans together to cross the border and perform the most serious of all Canadian crimes -- littering. However, the invasion is foiled and Boomer's numerous blunders threaten to turn a fabricated war into a real one. Written, directed, and produced by Michael Moore, Canadian Bacon takes lighthearted jabs at the differences between the U.S. and Canada, while also satirizing America's obsession with its military strength. The film features John Candy in his last complete screen performance. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Colors stars Robert Duvall and Sean Penn as partners on the LAPD's gang crime division. Duvall had hoped to spend more time with his family, but he's pulled back into active service because of a step-up in gang activity. He makes no secret of his contempt for his novice partner Penn, but eventually comes to rely on the younger man as a valuable street contact. The central crisis is the battle for supremacy between the "Crips" and the "Bloods", with every effort to call a truce stymied by the gang members themselves and by undue police intervention. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, the long-awaited follow-up to his 1973 debut Badlands, confirmed his reputation as a visual poet and narrative iconoclast with a story of love and murder told through the jaded voice of a child and expressive images of nature. In 1916, Chicago steelworker Bill (Richard Gere, stepping in for John Travolta) flees to Texas with his little sister Linda (Linda Manz) and girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams) after fatally erupting at his boss. Along with other itinerant laborers, they work the harvest at a wealthy, ailing farmer's ranch, but the farmer (playwright Sam Shepard) falls in love with Abby, and, believing her to be Bill's sister, asks the three to stay on at his elysian spread. Seeing it as his one real chance to escape perpetual poverty, Bill urges Abby to marry the sick man. Marriage, however, has more restorative powers, and the farmer has more magnetism, than Bill had planned. "Nobody's perfect," Linda impassively observes in one of her many voiceovers, after their brief paradise is erased by plagues of locusts, fire, and lethal jealousy. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

The winner of the 1967 Oscar for Best Picture (as well as four other Oscars), In the Heat of the Night is set in a small Mississippi town where an unusual murder has been committed. Rod Steiger plays sheriff Bill Gillespie, a good lawman despite his racial prejudices. When Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), a well-dressed northern African-American, comes to town, Gillespie instinctively puts him under arrest as a murder suspect. Tibbs reveals himself to be a Philadelphia police detective; after he and Gillespie come to a grudging understanding of one another, Tibbs offers to help in Gillespie's investigation. As the case progresses, both Gillespie and Tibbs betray a tendency to jump to culture-dictated conclusions. Still, the case is solved thanks to the informal teamwork of the two law officers. Based on the novel by John Ball, In the Heat of the Night inspired two sequels, both starring Poiter as Virgil Tibbs. In 1987, a TV series version of In the Heat of the Night appeared, with Carroll O'Connor as Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Tibbs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This documentary was made during the most intense period of fighting in the Vietnam War. U.S. participation in that conflict lasted from 1956 (approximately) until 1975. Here Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden travel to North Vietnam in order to show the North Vietnamese as actual human beings with legitimate needs and concerns. Their suffering from American and allied bombing attacks is clearly shown, along with interviews with Le Duc Tho (a Viet Cong peace negotiator) and others. Fonda was extremely active in the antiwar movement, and organized concerts and films supporting antiwar activities; this documentary was only a small part of her efforts in that period. This film, and the trip which made it possible, earned her the derisive epithet "Hanoi Jane." ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide