Angelman's Place: Red Buttons

Showing posts with label Red Buttons. Show all posts

Friday, August 16, 2024

The Users: Glossy '70s Trash TV

I grew up in the 1970s, a precocious child and an avid, advanced reader from the age of 8 or 9. I had a voracious need to devour anything and everything I could get my hands on. After blowing through all of The Wizard of Oz books, every Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mystery, Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Wonka series and James & the Giant Peach, I set my sights on my parents’ vast bookshelf that lined the entire back wall of the living room. And, boy, did I ever get an education.

I was indiscriminate in my tastes, as were my well-educated parents. I read Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby and William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist long before I was ever old enough to see the films that were made from them. I read Updike, Mailer, Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon. (The Other Side of Midnight was my favorite.) I read Judith Krantz’s steamy Scruples and thumbed through Alex Comfort’s The Joy of Sex, scrutinizing every detailed illustration. I even read Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, a tome still potent enough to make grown men blush.

One of the adult-themed books I best remember was The Users by Joyce Haber. It was a seamy, tawdry tale of how a clever young hooker infiltrated the Hollywood movie machine and became a major power player, using her wiles and skills in the art of love. The sex scenes were explicit and graphic, and it was said that all the characters depicted were based on real-life actors and moguls of contemporary 1970s filmdom.

Hollywood gossip columnist Joyce Haber

Along with Rona Barrett, Joyce Haber was a doyenne of 1970s movieland gossip, having inherited the mantle from Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, who had wielded a tremendous amount of power with their well-read columns in major newspapers during Hollywood’s classic golden era. So I assumed Ms. Haber knew from whereof she spoke as she weaved her page-turning story of Elena Brent née Schneider, closeted gay movie hunk Randall Brent, billionaire entrepreneur Reade Jamison and the making of a big Hollywood blockbuster called Rogue’s Gallery.

Producers Douglas S. Cramer and Aaron Spelling with Lana Turner

In 1978, the book was adapted into an ABC TV movie of the week, coproduced by Aaron Spelling and Douglas S. Cramer. Spelling, of course, was already a superstar producer, a former actor (I Love Lucy) who found his niche behind the camera, at that time already the creator of the megahit TV series Starsky and Hutch and Charlie’s Angels. Douglas Cramer was also a successful TV producer, with Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, The New Adventures of Wonder Woman and the original TV movie version of The Love Boat already under his belt. Together, Spelling and Cramer would team up to produce some of the most memorable and iconic series of the 1970s and 1980s, including Love Boat, Dynasty and Vega$.

(Joyce Haber happened to be married to Douglas S. Cramer at the time, which may have had something to do with her lucrative TV movie deal for The Users. Later, Cramer and Spelling would also produce the miniseries of Jackie Collins’s Hollywood Wives, which is a better adaptation and a more entertaining guilty pleasure than this version of his ex-wife’s book.)

Jaclyn Smith as Elena Brent—a little too pure!

Not currently available for streaming or on DVD (though lucky seekers may find a bootleg copy uploaded to YouTube), the TV version of The Users is basically a Spelling Productions family affair, headlined by Jaclyn Smith of Charlie’s Angels (the only Angel to appear in all five seasons of the series) as Elena Brent and John Forsythe (soon to be of Dynasty) as Reade Jamison.

Curtis, Smith and Forsythe: Not the Carringtons or Colbys

The rest of the cast is reminiscent of an episode of The Love Boat, which was famous for giving past-their-prime classic stars a chance to keep working in the medium of television: Oscar winners Joan Fontaine (Suspicion, The Witches) and Red Buttons (Sayonara, The Poseidon Adventure) play the shrewd procuress Grace St. George and sleazy super agent Warren Ambrose. Tony Curtis (Some Like It Hot, Spartacus) is Randall Brent, the former A-list star who marries Elena. Darren McGavin (The Night Stalker) is Henry Waller, gruff and macho author of the book Rogue’s Gallery that’s being adapted into a big film.

Jaclyn Smith's Oscar winning costars: Buttons and Fontaine

Mamas & the Papas alum Michelle Phillips is superstar Marina Brent (whose popularity in the book is compared to the likes of Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli), daughter of Randy. Perpetually tanned and laid-back George Hamilton (Love At First Bite) plays director Adam Baker, apparently an amalgam of several hot young directors of the ’70s. Seasoned character actors like the comic Pat Ast (Heat), throaty-voiced Carrie Nye (The Group) and curly-haired Alan Feinstein (Looking for Mr. Goodbar) round out the cast, lending support to the ‘big names.’

Michelle Phillips: Move over Barbra, Liza and Bette

Hamilton: Too handsome to be behind the camera?

The production values are pure Spelling and foreshadow the look and feel of Dynasty a couple of years later: indeed, Jaclyn Smith and her castmates are dressed by none other than the legendary Nolan Miller, who was discovered by Aaron Spelling while he was working as a Beverly Hills florist.

Designer Nolan Miller and one of his many beautiful leading ladies

I wish I could say that The Users is a great or even good film; it really isn’t, and the movie bears only the most superficial resemblance to the book, which was a bawdy, racy and incisive look behind the screen at Hollywood politicking and deal-making. The TV movie version obviously had to be sanitized to remove references to blue movies, omnisexual West Hollywood orgies and blow-by-blow descriptions of hot and heavy encounters at Hollywood parties. (If you want that, watch 1975’s Shampoo instead.) Unfortunately, without all of Haber’s trashy (and addictively readable) accoutrements, The Users is nothing more than a tepid soap opera, glossed over with those slick and deft touches of a Spelling and Cramer production.

But the story behind the story is kind of fun—and I recommend you read the book and try to guess who’s who in Joyce Haber’s roman à clef.

(Bonus, thanks to Brian in the comments below – Joyce Haber and ex-husband Doug Cramer on an episode of the 70s game show Tattletales!)

This is an entry in the Spellingverse Blogathon, hosted by the beautiful and talented Gill of RealWeegieMidget Reviews. I look forward to reading all your posts about Aaron and Company.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Survival of the All-Stars

Warning to the award-winning actors performing in all-star disaster epics: Your Oscars and box office mojo do not necessarily guarantee your survival. But if your character does happen to bite the dust before the final reel, you may get nominated again, and prolong your career longevity in the process.

The success of Ross Hunter’s lavish productions of Arthur Hailey’s novels Hotel in 1967 and Airport in 1970 revitalized the tradition of the all-star ensemble that had begun with MGM’s Grand Hotel in 1932 and continued through film fare as varied as The Ten Commandments, Judgement at Nuremberg, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Ship of Fools. (Later, the all-star concept became a TV staple, with shows like The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and Murder She Wrote consistently topping the Nielsen charts.) But it was Airport that offered an exciting new wrinkle--put your stars in peril amid some disastrous occurrence to heighten the drama--spawning the age of the 1970s disaster movie. Throughout the decade, a surprising number of disaster flicks were released, with varying degrees of artistic merit and box-office success, including Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, The Swarm, Airports ’75, ’77 and ’79 (aka The Concorde). But The Poseidon Adventure (1972) is arguably the best of the bunch.

Literate, thought-provoking and entertaining, The Poseidon Adventure boasts a compelling theme, a cogent through-line, spectacular special effects and notable performances by a group of talented and award-winning actors--it’s an old-fashioned, story-driven crowd-pleaser.

The special effects were groundbreaking for their time and created the appropriate suspension of disbelief necessary to keep viewers on the edge of their seat. Even today, they’re impressive--especially film’s the iconic set piece as the ship capsizes and overturns amid a New Year’s Eve celebration. To achieve the realistically terrifying topsy-turvy effect, producer Irwin Allen and director Ronald Neame rigged the vast dining room set to revolve 180 degrees to literally tumble and scatter dozens of actors and extras, a feat never before attempted on film up to that time. (Perhaps they were inspired by Fred Astaire’s famous dancing on the ceiling moment from Royal Wedding, but that was a much smaller room and only involved one actor). It’s an action-packed ride.

Gene Hackman as Reverend Scott

But unlike many of today’s big-budget films, the pyrotechnics do not detract from the strong performances of the seasoned actors with whom we take this harrowing journey. The actors and the effects both serve the story--a rollicking, well-plotted adventure interwoven with the universal themes of triumph over adversity, determination and courage.

Ernest Borgnine as Rogo

Red Buttons as Mr. Martin

Consistent with the values embraced in what was soon to be dubbed “the Me Decade,” the film’s chief protagonist, a radical and rogue man of the cloth, preaches a libertarian gospel of self-determination and survival of the fittest. Foreshadowing the concepts of today’s New Age philosophies, Reverend Scott asks his followers to depend on the god force within rather than looking to an external father figure in the sky. Follow your own instincts, he advises, rather than relying on groupthink (or faith or prayer, for that matter) to solve problems. But, in this film as in real life, there are no guarantees. Only the strong survive--and even then, not always.

Stella Stevens as Linda Rogo

Waiting for “the authorities” to arrive and save them, the vast majority of the passengers are lost. But those aboard the Poseidon with the sharpest survival instincts are a diverse and motley crew--from an elderly Jewish grandmother to an unusually bright 10-year-old child. One by one, many of these characters lose their lives in pursuit of freedom, often right after helping others to safety or having given their own lives to save others.

Roddy McDowall as Akers

This unforgettable ensemble of stars--Roddy McDowall, Stella Stevens, Jack Albertson, Carol Lynley, Red Buttons, Shelley Winters, Leslie Nielsen, Ernest Borgnine and Gene Hackman, joined by young newcomers Eric Shea and Pamela Sue Martin (who later gained TV fame on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries and Dynasty)--make this a film worth watching over and over. The chemistry among all of them is strong; this must have been a difficult shoot, obviously involving some potentially dangerous stunt work, and there is a familial feel among the group and an underlying strain of dark humor throughout that enhance the audience’s experience.

Eric Shea as Robin

Pamela Sue Martin as Susan

Of course, as in almost all adventure films, the he-men of the group are its leaders--Hackman and Borgnine vie for the alpha male position, while lonely bachelor Red Buttons (is this character gay, I wonder?) lends support to the group with compassion and common sense. Both Borgnine and Buttons enjoyed long lives and careers--Borgnine lived into his mid-90s and Buttons into his late 80s. Prior to this film, both had won Oscars, Borgnine for Marty in 1955 and Buttons for Sayonara in 1957.

The great Shelley Winters as Belle Rosen

Gene Hackman dominates the film as the maverick Reverend Scott. Hackman had just won the Best Actor Oscar for The French Connection, after nominations for Bonnie and Clyde and I Never Sang for My Father. Of all the surviving stars of The Poseidon Adventure (basically now just Stevens, Lynley, Shea and Martin), Hackman is the only one still working steadily in Hollywood.

Carol Lynley has little to do but whimper and cry when she’s not lip-synching to Maureen McGovern’s Oscar-winning rendition of “The Morning After,” but brassy Stella Stevens has her all-time best film role as the former prostitute now married to a gruff cop (Borgnine), who gamely slips out of her skirt to climb to safety in nothing but panties and gold-toned high heels.

McDowall must have enjoyed the break from donning the ape makeup of his Planet of the Apes epics to join the adventure, taking on a charming Scottish brogue as Akers the waiter, but his character is one of the first to perish and his screen time is all too brief. A former child star (Lassie Come Home) who became one of the most reliable of supporting actors, it’s a shame he was never even nominated for one Academy Award in his long career. He died in 1998.

Veteran scene-stealing Method actress Shelley Winters, already the recipient of two Best Supporting Actress Oscars (for Diary of Anne Frank and A Patch of Blue) earned another nod for her portrayal of the brave (if a bit kvetchy) Belle Rosen, who saves Reverend Scott from a gruesome underwater death before expiring herself. Once a svelte blond sex symbol, Winters gained respect as an actress as her weight ballooned--but she lived to be 85, obesity be damned.

A big box office hit when it was first released, Poseidon’s popularity has only grown through the years, attaining cult status for its spectacle, its star performances and its sheer audacity. Its early special effects must have inspired James Cameron’s vision for his own epic masterpiece, 1997’s Titanic. Its camp value, underlined by the ballsy performances of actors Winters and Stevens, the wooden delivery of other actors including a humorless Leslie Nielsen, and the high-’70s production design (I personally dig the “groovy” gyrations of the black-tie New Year’s revelers on the dance floor) make it a beloved staple in the film collections of anyone with a gay sensibility. It’s a well-made film with something for just about anyone, and holds up well.

For a delicious video overview of this film from a gay standpoint, visit classic movie “vlogger” Steve Hayes here.