Gary Johnson Movies
- 1975
- R
This lively action-adventure, is set in the near future where the population of New York has been decimated by a terrible plague. The city is terrorized by violent street-gangs running amok. The tale centers on one leader who insists on keeping vast stores of potential valuables and a helpful wanderer who single-handedly takes on the gangs to help a scientist and his pregnant wife. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1974
- R
Freebie (James Caan) and the Bean (Alan Arkin) are a pair of San Francisco cops. Red Meyers (Jack Kruschen) is the mobster whom Freebie and the Bean would like to see behind bars -- or, failing that, six feet under. Nothing stands in the way of the cops' pursuit of Meyers, meaning that private property is given quite a going-over in this picture. The film's most memorable scene finds Freebie and the Bean crashing their car into a poor schnook's living room. TV favorites Loretta Swit and Valerie Harper play the only female roles worth mentioning. The racist and sexist humor in Freebie and the Bean may not go over as well today as it did in the politically incorrect early '70s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Arkin, James Caan, (more)
While Peter Watkins' films of the 1960s reflected the political turmoil and tumult of that decade, 1971's Punishment Park offered a disturbing look at the backlash against leftist activism which emerged in the wake of such events as the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and the shootings at Kent State University. Set at some unspecified point in the near future, Punishment Park was inspired by a provision of the 1950 McCarran Internal Security Act, which gives the President of the United States the right to suspend the traditional judicial system in favor of tribunals to deal with people believed to be "a risk to internal security" in the event of what the Chief Executive deems a national emergency. As the McCarran Act also enabled political prisoners to be held in concentration camps rather than conventional penal facilities, Punishment Park follows a group of left-wing dissidents (Black Power activists, antiwar protesters, and a politically oriented folksinger, among others) as they're given a perfunctory hearing by a panel of military officers and ordinary citizens. They are then offered a choice: they can either serve long stays in prison (seven years is the shortest sentence mentioned), or spend 72 hours in Punishment Park, a section of the Southern California desert. The prisoners are to travel 53 miles on foot in three days, with only minimal provisions of water or food under 110-degree heat, while they are followed by National Guard troops who are permitted to shoot if provoked. If they can complete the hike in the allotted time, they'll be allowed to go free, though it soon becomes obvious that despite the fact the odds have been stacked against them, the prisoners are being dealt an unfair hand along the trail. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Alelyanes, Carmen Argenziano, (more)
