Grady Sutton Movies

Rock 'n' Roll High School is a prime example of a 1970s movie phenomenon: a cult film that was deliberately designed to be a cult film. High-schooler Riff Randell's (P.J. Soles) efforts to meet the Ramones are continually thwarted by rock & roll-hating principal Evelyn Togar (Mary Woronov). Ms. Togar is the zealous sort who conducts experiments on laboratory rats to prove the adverse effect of rock music on innocent teenagers. Riff knows that she'll have to be twice as clever and devious as Togar to get her daily supply of Ramones -- and thereby hangs our tale. A secondary plot involves the efforts of pimply student Eaglebauer (Clint Howard) to arrange a date with the very particular Riff. A deliciously anarchistic climax caps this never-a-dull-moment spoof of 1950s rock & roll musicals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gore Vidal's best-selling satiric novel gets an inarguably unique screen treatment in this off-center psycho-sexual farce. Fussy film buff Myron Breckinridge (Rex Reed) goes to Europe and gets a sex-change operation from a slovenly chain-smoking doctor (John Carradine) and returns to the United States as the glamorous and willful Myra Breckinridge (Raquel Welch). Myra appears at the door of former cowboy star-turned-acting school entrepreneur Buck Loner (John Huston), who also happened to be Myron's uncle; Myra insists she's Myron's widow and demands her fair share of Loner's inheritance to her late husband. Loner, suspicious of the appearance of Myron's bride, tries to find a way out of giving her any of his money, while giving Myra a job in his acting school to keep her busy. Myra's new career allows her to make the acquaintance of Leticia Van Allen (Mae West), an aging sexpot and talent agent who represents "leading men only." Through Leticia, Myra meets alpha-male aspiring star Rusty Godowsky (Roger Herren) and his naïve girlfriend Mary Ann Pringle (Farrah Fawcett); as part of her own bid to ferment sexual anarchy, Myra attempts to introduce Mary Ann to the pleasures of lesbianism, while forcibly expanding Rusty's sexual boundaries. In the midst of the action, director Michael Sarne uses clips from dozens of vintage Hollywood films of the 1930s and '40s as a comic counterpoint to the story. Both Gore Vidal and Rex Reed expressed their dissatisfaction with Myra Breckinridge after the film hit theaters, though Vidal has also claimed not have seen the finished product; the film has gone on to develop a devoted cult following, despite the fact the film's only authorized video release has been out of print since the late '70s. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Frank Sinatra stars in this bawdy western satire as Dingus Magee, a would-be outlaw who robs Hoke Birdsill (George Kennedy) while Hoke is en route to Yerkey's Hole, New Mexico. Hoke reports the theft to Belle Knops (Anne Jackson), the mayor of Yerkey's Hole and proprietor of the town's biggest business, a brothel favored by the enlisted men at the nearby Army fort. Belle appoints Hoke as the new deputy, and he tracks down Magee as he's enjoying a roll in the bushes with Anna (Michele Carey), a very friendly Indian maid. Hoke brings in Magee, but Anna then helps him escape; Belle uses Magee's unscheduled release to convince the commanding officers at the Army base that an Indian uprising is imminent, and that their planned relocation to Little Big Horn (where they hope to arrive before Gen. Custer and his troops) might be a bit premature (not to mention bad for her business). Soon Hoke is after Magee for robbing a stage and stealing the strongbox (which, of course, he can't open), the Indians are after Magee for running off with Anna, a sexually repressed schoolmarm named Prudence (Lois Nettleton) is after Magee after he awakens the woman within her, and John Wesley Hardin (Jack Elam) is after Magee, well, just because. "Catch-22" author Joseph Heller co-wrote the screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

One of the few 1960s satires of the hippie culture that doesn't appear to be concocted by grumpy old men, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas stars Peter Sellers as Harold Fine, a staid, fortysomething Jewish attorney. Engaged to the equally straitlaced Joyce (Joyce Van Patten), Harold wistfully dreams of having a more exciting lifestyle. Through a fluke, Harold is obliged to drive a station wagon emblazoned with "psychedelic" imagery; it is with this vehicle that he picks up his flower-child brother Herbie (David Arkin), and Herbie's groovy chick Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young). Rather enjoying the company of people outside of his establishment orbit, Harold visits Nancy at her pad, where she plies him with "hash brownies" -- concoctions laced with marijuana. His inhibitions released by the spiked pastries, Harold kicks over the traces, grows his hair to shoulder length, and embarks upon an affair with Nancy. But when the effects of the brownies wear off, Harold suddenly feels like the rather foolish middle-aged man that he is. The beauty of I Love You, Alice B. Toklas is that it patronizes neither the hippies nor the Establishment characters; both groups are shown as human beings rather than agit-prop stereotypes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

All hell breaks loose in a Texas town when an escaped convict heads home in Arthur Penn's Southern gothic melodrama. Appointed by local kingpin Val Rogers (E. G. Marshall), benevolent Sheriff Calder (Marlon Brando) manages to keep the peace in Tarl, but the situation starts to fester one Saturday when news filters in that wild child Bubber Reeves (Robert Redford) has jumped prison. Bubber's impending arrival arouses hostility among Tarl's citizens, such as Edwin Stewart (Robert Duvall), who believes that Bubber will come after him to settle an old score, and Damon Puller (Richard Bradford), who, between grope sessions with Edwin's wife Emily (Janice Rule), uses Bubber as an excuse to terrorize black residents. As the atmosphere heats up, Calder wants to keep Bubber alive, and he convinces Bubber's wife Anna (Jane Fonda) and her lover, Val's son Jake (James Fox), to find Bubber and coax him into surrender. Val's fear that Bubber will kill his son, however, sparks a long confrontation that leaves rational law and order pummeled into the ground by the town's ignorant cruelty. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Dan Duryea plays a Western bounty hunter, expert in his job, but ill at ease with his conscience. He is shunned by the "good" townsfolk until they need him to track down and kill a criminal; the gratitude doesn't last long, and it's back to outcast status for Duryea. At one juncture, the embittered bounty hunter delivers a condemnation against the "hypocrites" who hire him -- but nonetheless takes one more job. Ultimately, Duryea meets his end at the hands of a younger man (Peter Duryea, Dan's son), who becomes a bounty hunter himself, starting the cycle all over again. Produced very economically by B-Western specialist Alex Gordon, The Bounty Killer is distinguished by Dan Duryea's superb performance and by the presence in the supporting cast of several cowboy film veterans -- including Hollywood's very first Westerner, Billy Anderson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

At one time the longest-running Broadway musical, My Fair Lady was adapted by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe from the George Bernard Shaw comedy Pygmalion. Outside Covent Garden on a rainy evening in 1912, dishevelled cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) meets linguistic expert Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison). After delivering a musical tirade against "verbal class distinction," Higgins tells his companion Colonel Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) that, within six months, he could transform Eliza into a proper lady, simply by teaching her proper English. The next morning, face and hands freshly scrubbed, Eliza presents herself on Higgins' doorstep, offering to pay him to teach her to be a lady. "It's almost irresistable," clucks Higgins. "She's so deliciously low. So horribly dirty." He turns his mission into a sporting proposition, making a bet with Pickering that he can accomplish his six-month miracle to turn Eliza into a lady. This is one of the all-time great movie musicals, featuring classic songs and the legendary performances of Harrison, repeating his stage role after Cary Grant wisely turned down the movie job, and Stanley Holloway as Eliza's dustman father. Julie Andrews originated the role of Eliza on Broadway but producer Jack Warner felt that Andrews, at the time unknown beyond Broadway, wasn't bankable; Hepburn's singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Natalie Wood in West Side Story (1961). Andrews instead made Mary Poppins, for which she was given the Best Actress Oscar, beating out Hepburn. The movie, however, won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Harrison, and five other Oscars, and it remains one of the all-time best movie musicals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

George Cukor directed this sanitized version of Irving Wallace's tawdry best-seller concerning a survey of the sexual habits of American women. Psychologist George C. Chapman (Andrew Duggan) arrives in a Los Angeles suburb with his assistant Paul Radford (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) in tow. They are looking for volunteers for their sex survey, and four women raise their hands: Sarah Garnell (Shelley Winters) is a middle-aged woman who is having an affair with young theater director Fred Linden (Ray Danton); Teresa Harnish (Glynis Johns) is a happily married woman who becomes attracted to brawny football player Ed Kraski (Ty Hardin); Naomi Shields (Claire Bloom) is an alcoholic nymphomaniac who takes up with an unsavory jazz musician; and Kathleen Barclay (Jane Fonda) is a young widow who thinks she is frigid -- that is, until Radford makes her his personal project. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The 1954 Martin-and-Lewis romp Living It Up is an amusing remake of the 1937 comedy classic Nothing Sacred. More specifically, it is the film version of the Broadway musical Hazel Flagg, which was based on Nothing Sacred. The heroine of the original undergoes a sex change to become feckless Homer Flagg (Jerry Lewis), who is led to believe that he's dying of radiation poisoning. Manhattan newspaperwoman Wally Cook (Janet Leigh), hoping to improve circulation of her paper, convinces her boss, Oliver Stone (Fred Clark), to fete Homer as a hero with an all-expenses-paid trip to the Big Apple. Meanwhile, Homer learns from local doctor Steve (Dean Martin) that he isn't dying at all. But Steve talks Homer into taking advantage of the celebrity treatment bestowed on him by Wally, and a good time is had by all -- until medical specialist Dr. Egelhofer (Sig Rumann) insists upon examining Homer. Highlights include a hilarious bit at Yankee Stadium, and an energetic jitterbug number featuring Jerry Lewis and Sheree North. The handful of songs retained from Hazel Flagg include "Every Street's a Boulevard in Old New York." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 1954 musical remake of A Star is Born could have been titled A Star is Reborn, in that it represented the triumphal return to the screen of Judy Garland after a four-year absence. The remake adheres closely to the plotline of the 1937 original: An alcoholic film star, on his last professional legs, gives a career boost to a unknown aspiring actress. The two marry, whereupon her fame and fortune rises while his spirals sharply downward. Unable to accept this, the male star crawls deeper into the bottle. The wife tearfully decides to give up her own career to care for her husband. To spare her this fate, the husband chivalrously commits suicide. His wife is inconsolable at first, but is urged to go "on with the show" in memory of her late husband. In the original, Janet Gaynor played Esther Blodgett, who with no training or contacts came to Hollywood hoping for stardom. The remake, scripted by Moss Hart, is a shade more realistic: Garland's Esther, though far removed from fame, is a working professional singer/dancer when first we meet her. Both Gaynor and Garland are transformed from "Esther Blodgett" to "Vicki Lester" after being screen-tested, though Gaynor goes on to star in fluffy costume dramas while Garland more logically headlines big-budget musicals. The 1937 Star is Born costarred Fredric March as Norman Maine, Esther/Vicki's sponsor-cum-spouse. March patterned his performance after the tragic John Barrymore, reining in his emotions in favor of pure technique; James Mason's interpretation is more original, more emotional, and far more effective (who can forget the scene where Norman sobbingly overhears Vicki planning to give up her career for his sake?) As the studio's long-suffering publicist, the 1937 version's Lionel Stander is more abrasive and unpleasant than the 1954 version's introspective, intellectual Jack Carson; on the other hand, Adolphe Menjou and Charles Bickford are fairly evenly matched in the role of the studio head. Several important omissions are made in the remake. The 1937 Star is Born included Esther's indomitable old grandma (May Robson), a helpful assistant director (Andy Devine) and a soft-hearted landlord (Edgar Kennedy); all three characters are missing from the 1954 version, though elements of each can be found in the "best friend/severest critic" character played by Tommy Noonan. Wisely, both versions end with the grieving Vicki Lester coming out of her shell at a public gathering, greeting the audience with a proud, defiant "Good evening, everybody. This is Mrs. Norman Maine". Though directors William Wellman (1937 version) and George Cukor (1954 version) handle this finale in their own distinctive manners, the end result is equally effective emotionally. What truly sets the 1954 A Star is Born apart from other films of its ilk is its magnificent musical score by Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin. The songs include The Man Who Got Away (brilliantly performed by Garland in one long take, sans dubbing), It's a New World, Somewhere There's a Someone, I Was Born in a Trunk, Lose That Long Face and Gotta Have Me Go With You. When originally previewed in 1954, the film ran well over three hours, thanks to the lengthy-and thoroughly disposable-Born in a Trunk number, added to the film as an afterthought without the approval or participation of director George Cukor. The Warner Bros. executives trimmed the film to 154 minutes, eliminating three top-rank musical numbers and several crucial expository sequences (including Norman's proposal to Vicki). At the instigation of the late film historian Ronald Haver, the full version was painstakingly restored in 1983, with outtakes and still photos bridging the "lost" footage. Though nominated in several categories, A Star is Born was left empty-handed at Academy Award time, an oversight that caused outrage then and still rankles Judy Garland fans to this day (Footnote: Judy Garland had previously played Vicki Lester in a 1942 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the original A Star is Born). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When bucolic character comic Grady Sutton shows up as a pistol packin' Westerner in Grand Canyon, your suspicions are confirmed; this oater is supposed to be a spoof. A movie company comes to the Grand Canyon area to shoot a B-western. Pompous leading man James Millican breaks his leg and is replaced by local mule jockey Richard Arlen. The novice actor has to be literally led by the hand by leading lady Mary Beth Hughes (no Oscar prospect himself), but everything is roses by fadeout time. Reed Hadley, steadfast narrator/star of such TV crime series as Racket Squad and Public Defender, is given a rare opportunity to make funny as the western's director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The upsurge in commercial air travel in the postwar years resulted in several films dealing with the trials and tribulations of airline stewardesses. Gloria Henry, who'd later star as Alice Mitchell in TV's Dennis the Menace, is teamed with Danny Thomas' future TV wife Marjorie Lord and Audrey Long in Air Hostess. The three leading ladies are cast as stewardesses-in-training, and of course each of the girls is pursuing her own agenda. Henry wants to follow in the footsteps of her sister; Lord wants to honor the memory of her late husband, an airline pilot; and Long is on the lookout for a wealthy husband. Way down on the cast list is another TV star-to-be, Barbara "June Cleaver" Billingsley. In addition, Air Hostess represents one of the few talking pictures made by former silent-screen favorite Leatrice Joy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This cute film is Doris Day's film debut and in it she plays Georgia Garrett, a substitute traveller on an ocean cruise. Her friend Elvira Kent (Janis Paige) had scheduled the cruise but at the last minute cancels when she suspects that her husband is cheating on her and she decides to stay at home to check up on him. So she gets her friend Georgia to go on the cruise in her stead. Meanwhile the husband hires a detective to watch Elvira while on the cruise, because, he too, suspects cheating. Of course, the detective falls for the substitute Elvira (Doris Day), making a somewhat complicated scenario with many possibilities. This is a fun-filled spoof with lots of good tunes by Doris Day. ~ All Movie Guide