New Morality Sex Comedy

THE LAST MARRIED COUPLE IN AMERICA (1980)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 An R-rated comedy about marital affairs with the bright, classy movie star Natalie Wood uttering curse words and other obscenities! Yes, indeed. Though Natalie in the 1970's appeared in only a few TV movies and a forgettable dud like "Meteor," she always carried an edge of having lived a bitter , lonely existence. What is sweet about her role as a mother and wife who has a second sexual awakening in "The Last Married Couple in America" is that she sells the role, hook, line and sinker. The movie is hardly revolutionary in concept (it needed more tinkering in the screenplay department) yet it is really Natalie Wood and George Segal who bring the movie the comic energy it needs.

George Segal is Jeff, a successful architect who is happily married to Mari (Natalie Wood), a sculptor who works at home. They have three boys and a pleasant house in Beverly Hills. Jeff and Mari can't help but notice that their friends are divorcing, left and right. Every day, there is news of another divorce and it begins to affect Jeff and Mari (the couples all play football together and after a while, there is nobody left to play with). Jeff considers himself a saint when it comes adultery, yet Mari did have a past affair (nowadays, many of the Me Too movement will scoff at the fact that Jeff mentions that he slapped Mari after learning of the deceit). Before Jeff can discuss the "new morality" and act on it, he is bed hopping with not one but two women (an unrecognizable blonde vixen played by Valerie Harper who is insistent on jumping Jeff's bones, and naturally Priscilla Barnes). Jeff is infected with Gonorrhea ("The Clap?") and once Mari gets wind of his deceit, promptly asks for a separation and goes on her own affair with a younger man.

The film does go off course with the introduction of Dom DeLuise as a (breathe while you read this) porno actor who wants to stage a birthday party with hookers at Jeff's house! Why at Jeff's house when there are kids there I don't know but, then again, I would not be surprised. My parents were a swinging couple and, yes, Moral Majority please note, I was often in another room while activities occurred when I was not much younger than 11.

But enough digressions, "The Last Married Couple in America" is fitfully entertaining though it could've been sharper, deeper without a cop-out ending. Natalie considered it to be an update on one of her best films, "Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice," and I would agree yet that earlier film had a clearer emotional truth to it about sex and naked honesty. This film only parades around such issues without enough emphasis (though Wood has one heartbreaking scene where she complains about her pimple, the kids, her age and how a gas station is replacing a local market. You don't need more proof than that to know Natalie Wood always found a way to pull your heartstrings). Segal and Wood are a believable couple and there are enough crazy situational comic scenes to render the film a slight recommendation. To quote the classic film "Sullivan's Travels," it just needed a little more sex in it.

Roller Coaster ride of a noir movie

BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE (2018)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A mood of exacting noirish tones is set in motion right at the start of "Bad Times at El Royale." Some man enters a hotel, mostly in silhouette. He takes apart the floorboards and places a bag full of money under them. He covers it all back up, rather neatly, turns on the radio. Another man arrives at his room. He lets him in and BANG! My heart sank for a second watching this sequence, all told in a master shot, because blood splatters the lens (something that has become a tiresome cliche). My heart immediately sprang back to action when we hear on the soundtrack Edwin Starr's strains of "Twenty Five Miles" and immediately I knew this was going to be a decent crime flick. I had hoped for that until I realized midway through that "Bad Times at the El Royale" is actually a great crime movie, full of neatly developed plot twists, strong character types and a blazing energy throughout that slowly develops into a wallop of an ending. Oh, and the blood splatter? It makes sense later on.

Nothing is what it seems at the El Royale. A few customers arrive at this Lake Tahoe hotel, somewhere in the middle of nowhere and relatively inexpensive to boot, and are greeted by a bellboy who pretty much handles the whole darn hotel - there are no other staffers. The hotel is unusual in that a line cuts right through it, a line that separates Nevada from California (this makes for some complications about which room to board since smoking and gambling regulations apply). At first, I thought the movie was going to be more comical than serious because it could've mined the shenanigans involved in crossing the line at this hotel, when to get food and amenities, the unusual circumstances involving one solo staffer, etc. Alas, that is not to be because we see that nobody at this hotel is up to much good. Jon Hamm is presumably a vacuum cleaner salesman, Laramie, who remembers when the hotel was kicking with activity, though he is not what he seems. Laramie investigates and rips out listening devices from his room and ventures into a forbidden back room section where we can eavesdrop every room (there are two-way mirrors). Next we have the arrival of forgetful Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges) who often stands still unsure of where he is; an ex-soul singer named Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo from Broadway's "Color Purple") who has encountered sexism, racism and a whole lot more, and a mysterious woman (Dakota Johnson) who writes an obscenity instead of her name on the guest list who also brings along a bound girl from her own trunk! The bellboy also passes out occasionally after ingesting heroin - not exactly the staffer of the year.

Laramie is not the only one with secrets, practically every other character harbors some well-kept secret. In almost a labyrinthian (with sanguine tones) variation on "Ten Little Indians," we begin to wonder who is really interested in that duffel bag of money and what some of the motivations are behind these characters. It may not be much of a surprise to discover that Father Flynn is not really a priest, but what motivates Darlene Sweet to commit the violent action she perpetrates against him? Why is Laramie so interested in the hotel's surveillance? What about a mysterious reel of 16mm film in the bellboy's sleeping quarters? And how about the virulent Chris Hemsworth who appears as a Manson-like cult leader as he is summoned by the young girl who is bound to a chair in Dakota's room? So many questions.

"Bad Times at the El Royale," directed by Drew Goddard ("The Cabin in the Woods"), is 2 hours and 21 minutes and every minute is packed with tension, humor, unexpected surprises and pathos. With a killer soundtrack that conveniently plays on the main floor of the hotel's jukebox, the film unfolds at a swift though never hurried pace. The performances muster just enough emotion and nuance to get the plot rolling along. Bridges towers above them all and his final scenes with Erivo are amazingly powerful. Ditto the casting of Cailee Spaeny as the bound girl who could easily pass for a Manson Girl - her character is memorably stoic and terrifying. Jon Hamm exudes a lot of the expected charm of a typical 60's salesman - hey, he's got the look down pat especially if you remember TV's "Mad Men."

Though the film is nothing new technically, it is patterned (aside from an echo of "Ten Little Indians") after Quentin Tarantino's own crime oeuvre with a dash of the Coen Brothers from the "Barton Fink" days. Tarantino lately has not been packing much of a punch but who cares - "Bad Times at El Royale" shows a lot more flair and an acute sense of itself without overplaying its hand. That is more than I can say for Tarantino who can push the running time of his films beyond what our patient butts can handle. Goddard packs it in tightly. What a roller coaster ride of a noir movie.