Klute and Tender Mercies

Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda.

Klute (1971). When a businessman suddenly disappears and obscene letters are found among his work papers, the man's wife hires private detective John Klute to conduct an investigation. Klute (Donald Sutherland) quickly learns that the mystery centers around part-time NYC prostitute Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda), the intended recipient of the letters. Bree doesn't remember the missing man, but thinks he could have been a client that beat her up years earlier--and may be stalking her now. More character study than psychological thriller, Klute earned Jane Fonda a Best Actress Oscar for her performance and garnered a nomination for its screenplay. The decision to reveal the villain's identity barely 45 minutes into the movie is an interesting one. Unlike Hitchcock's Vertigo, that knowledge doesn't generate any tension. Rather, it robs Klute of its potential as a whodunit (though the villain's identity is obvious from the beginning, so perhaps that's irrelevant). Clearly, the writers and director Alan J. Pakula are more interested in exploring what makes Bree and Klute tick. In Bree's case, they take the direct approach by including her therapy sessions with her psychiatrist. These monologues provide an acting field day for Fonda, though the character insights are strictly Psychology 101 (e.g., Bree's "tricks" make her feel like she controls her interactions with men for a brief period). As a result, the more interesting character is the quiet and always watchful John Klute. Relentless in his investigation, the introspective detective shows his patience as he develops feelings towards Bree and eventually pierces her self-defensive veneer. Sutherland gives a compelling portrayal and it's a shame that his acting was not as widely recognized as Fonda's. She is very good, but Sutherland is the reason to watch Klute--after all, the movie was named after his character. 

Duvall as Mac Sledge.

Tender Mercies (1983).  After a night of heavy drinking, Mac Sledge (Robert Duvall), a washed-up, alcoholic country singer, wakes up at an isolated Texas roadside motel and gas station. The owner, a young widow named Rosa Lee (Tess Harper), allows him work in exchange for room and board. Mac slowly rebuilds his life, creating a family with Rosa Lee and her young son Sonny and even recording music again. Like its protagonist, Tender Mercies is a quiet, slow-moving film that finds emotional resonance in its simplicity. Director Bruce Beresford lovingly captures the rustic setting with the wind whistling gently across the plains. Robert Duvall delivers a low-key, natural performance that earned him a Best Actor Oscar (the motion picture, Beresford, and screenwriter Horton Foote were nominated as well). Although it's a film about redemption, writer Foote ensures that Tender Mercies avoids easy resolutions. Mac's relationship with his ex-wife remains full of friction and his efforts to reconnect with his adult daughter are hindered by tragedy. In the end, Mac finds an inner peace of sorts, but every day will still bring its own challenges so that one has to cherish each moment of contentment.

Sean Connery Stages the Great Train Robbery

Sean Connery as Edward Pierce.

In addition to writing bestselling novels like Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton also found time to moonlight as a film director. One of his most successful efforts was The Great Train Robbery (1978), based on his own popular novel--which was inspired by a real crime.

The plot concerns the heist of a gold shipment being transported by train to pay British troops fighting in the Crimean War in 1855. The challenges are substantial. Not only must the gold be stolen while the train is moving, but it must be removed from two safes locked with four different keys. Two of the keys are stored in the railway offices in the train station and the other two keys are retained by company executives.

Sutherland as the pickpocket.

None of that is enough to sway Edward Pierce (Sean Connery) from tackling the crime of the century. With the aid of his mistress (Lesley-Anne Down), a pickpocket (Donald Sutherland), and a railway guard, he develops a complex scheme to steal the four keys and make wax impressions of them. His efforts, though, attract the attention of the police, which makes the actual robbery exceedingly more difficult than Pierce's original plan.

The Great Train Robbery is lighthearted escapist fare for most of its running time (thus, a scene where Pierce strangles a crony seems out of place). Sean Connery has a grand time as the heist's mastermind, never taking the plot too seriously but also refraining from winking figuratively at the audience. One of his most amusing scenes is a conversation with one of the executives' wives that's filled with enough double-entendres to make James Bond proud.

Lesley-Anne Down.

Donald Sutherland, one of the busiest actors of the late 1970s and early 1980s, is well cast as Connery's partner-in-crime. However, the most surprising performance comes from Lesley-Anne Down, who spent much of her career stuck in superficial roles. In The Great Train Robbery, she gets to masquerade as an upper-class French prostitute and a cockney lass in addition to playing Connery's plucky mistress.

Naturally, the film's highlight is the robbery aboard the moving train. It requires Connery's character to run along the tops of the railcars, ducking periodically to avoid being decapitated by bridges and tunnels. Incredibly, Connery does most of his own stunts, which include jumping from the tops of the cars. He actually fell off the train doing one stunt. In The Films of Sean Connery, the actor mentions that his wife Micheline was furious when she saw The Great Train Robbery and learned the risks he had undertaken.

Yes, that's actually Sean Connery atop the moving train.

In case you're wondering, the real-life robbery did indeed involve stealing four safe keys and hijacking the gold from a speeding train. The similarities pretty much end there. Edward Agar, one of the thieves, was arrested after the robbery for passing a bad check. While in prison, he learned that one of his fellow criminals kept the portion of the gold intended for Agar's mistress and illegitimate son. Agar then cooperated with the police, provided all the details on the heist, and all the train robbers were eventually captured.

The Great Train Robbery was released as The First Great Train Robbery in Great Britain to avoid confusing it with the Great Train Robbery of 1963. There was an excellent 2013 miniseries made about that train robbery; you can read a review of it at our sister blog British TV Detectives.

The Eagle Has Landed

Michael Caine as Kurt Steiner.

Toward the end of World War II, Hitler commissions a "feasibility study" to determine the plausibility of kidnapping Winston Churchill. Initially, Colonel Max Radl (Robert Duvall) thinks the study is a waste of time. But as he gathers and analyzes intelligence data, Radl slowly realizes that an unlikely series of events has created an ideal opportunity. Churchill has scheduled a weekend retreat along a sparsely-populated English coastline--and an undercover Nazi agent already lives in a nearby village.

Robert Duvall as Colonel Radl.

Radl recruits heavily-decorated war hero Kurt Steiner (Michael Caine) and rascally IRA operative Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland) to lead the mission. It begins smoothly with Devlin infiltrating the village as a new game warden and Steiner's men posing as Polish troops conducting maneuvers. However, the plan collapses when Devlin becomes attracted to a young woman (Jenny Agutter) and one of Steiner's men saves a child from a water mill.

Donald Sutherland as Devlin.

Based on Jack Higgins' best-selling novel, The Eagle Has Landed (1976) is one of several exceptional historical thrillers made in the 1970s and early 1980s. Others include Eye of the Needle (1981) and, my personal favorite, The Day of the Jackal (1973). It's interesting to note that Eagle shares something with each of those films: the rural coasting setting in Eye of the Needle (plus star Donald Sutherland) and the nifty trick of having the audience root for traditional bad guys (The Day of the Jackal).

Yes, while the audience manipulation in The Eagle Has Landed is effective, it's not exactly subtle. When we first meet Michael Caine's German officer, he disobeys orders to try to save a Jewish woman. Later, one of his men sacrifices his life for one of the village children. These aren't the ruthless Germans portrayed in hundreds of other war films. Likewise, Sutherland's British traitor is charming and acts downright chivalrous in regard to Agutter's smitten young woman. It's no wonder that we root for them right to the scene where Caine's character is pointing a gun at Churchill.

Donald Pleasence as Himmler.

While the three leads are in top form, the supporting cast almost steals the film. Donald Pleasence projects eerie calm as the cunning Himmler, while Jean Marsh is coldness personified as the undercover Nazi agent. It's fascinating to watch her face when she realizes her place in village society has come to mean something to her--and now she will lose it all. The only weak performance belongs to Larry Hagman, who overplays his role as a military paper pusher who's too eager for action.

For the record, the events depicted in The Eagle Has Landed are fictional. The plot shares some elements with Graham Greene's story Went the Day Well?, which was filmed in 1942. Eagle author Jack Higgins wrote a sequel in 1991 called The Eagle Has Flown, which also features the character Liam Devlin. In fact, Devlin pops up in several novels by the prolific Higgins.

I first saw The Eagle Has Landed when it was released in the late 1970s. Honestly, that may have been the last time I saw it until it recently popped up on Amazon Prime. The decades have been kind to it; I found myself thoroughly engrossed during its two-hour running time. Speaking of which, there are at least two alternate versions, one running 135 minutes and the other 151 minutes.

The Eagle Has Landed also marked the end of John Sturges' long career as a director. Sturges helmed 44 films, including action classics such as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963).

Snack-sized Reviews: "Eye of the Needle" and "Used Cars"

Eye of the Needle (1981). I'm not sure why this well-made suspense picture isn't better known. In many ways, it reminds me of The Day of the Jackal (although it's not quite in that class).

Donald Sutherland stars as Henry Faber, a German spy operating in Great Britain during World War II. Faber learns that an airfield in East Anglia is an elaborate deception to fool the Germans into thinking that an Allied invasion is targeted at a location other than Normandy. For security purposes, Faber needs to personally deliver this vital information to Hitler. However, British Intelligence is closing in around him and he must survive long enough to rendezvous with a U-boat off the coast of Storm Island.

He washes ashore on the isolated island during a raging storm and is found by the Rose family. Lucy (Kate Nelligan) and her husband David, who is mostly confined to a wheelchair, run a sheep farm. David, who once flew airplanes for the RAF, is a bitter man who recoils from the touch of his attractive wife. While David distrusts Faber, Lucy finds herself attracted to the stranger--and the feeling is mutual.

Based on Ken Follett's novel, the first half of Eye of the Needle is a tightly paced thriller in which the ruthless Faber narrowly avoids escape on multiple occasions, leaving innocent victims in his path. The plot takes an intriguing turn when it shifts focus to the relationship between Faber and Lucy. Faber's feelings toward Lucy remain effectively ambiguous all the way through to the climax. Are his actions spurred by sexual gratification alone? Are they driven by years of loneliness created by living a lie? Or has he developed some kind of emotional attachment toward her (I don't think it's love)?

The Isle of Mull.

Donald Sutherland gives one of his best performances and Kate Nelligan, one of my favorite actresses of the 1980s, holds her own. The film also gets a huge boost from Miklos Rosza's lovely score (one of his last) and the stunning scenery. The ficticious Storm Island is "played" by the Isle of Mull. If those haunting seascapes look familiar, then you're probably a fan of Powell and Pressberger's I Know Where I'm Going (1945).

Used Cars (1980). What do Forrest Gump, Snake Plissken, and Laverne & Shirley have in common? If you answered the rowdy cult classic Used Cars, you'd be correct. It was the second film directed by Robert Zemeckis, starred Kurt Russell, and featured Lenny & Squiggy (Michael McKean and David L. Lander) in supporting roles. 

Wanna buy a car from this guy?

Russell plays Rudy Russo, an ultra ambitious used car salesman trying to save $60,000 so he can buy the nomination for a State Senate seat. Rudy will do anything to sell a car! In the hilarious opening montage, we see him rolling back an odometer, fastening a loose bumper with a wad of bubble gum, repairing a tire with "Fix Flat," and spraying "new car scent" into old cars. It's no surprise that the New Deal Car Lot is on probation for consumer fraud. Still, Rudy may be more ethical than Roy L. Fuchs (Jack Warden), who owns the competing Auto Emporium across the street.

Roy has paid off a local politician to learn that a new highway will be coming right through his lot. So, he hatches a scheme to take over the New Deal Car Lot, which, by the way, is owned by his nice-guy twin brother (Warden again, of course). And if it involves causing his brother to have a heart attack, well, that's just business.

Jack Warden as the villain.

If you're looking for subtle high-brow comedy, then avoid Used Cars like one of those car deals that sounds too good to be true. However, if you admire a movie that will do almost anything for a laugh, then you'll probably enjoy this broad farce. For example, when you see a pretty model's dress caught in the trunk of a car during a live commercial, you can guess what's going to happen to that dress. And, yes, that's just what happens. And, while it's a little rude, it is funny.

Kurt Russell and Jack Warden attack their roles with relish and seem to be having a grand time. Still, Gerrit Graham almost steals the film as Russell's fellow huckster and superstitious friend ("Red car is bad luck and trouble"). He and Toby the Beagle have the best scene in Used Cars. Click here to watch it.