Five Easy Pieces: When Good Performances Aren't Enough

Jack Nicholson as Bobby Dupea.

The years have not been kind to Five Easy Pieces (1970), which earned four major Oscar nominations and was hailed by Roger Ebert as a "masterpiece of heartbreaking intensity." In retrospect, it's a meandering film that boasts two stellar performances and an iconic scene. That's not enough, though, to justify the bloated running time and the "so what" of it all.

Jack Nicholson plays Bobby Dupea, a disgruntled young man from an affluent family of classical musicians, who works in the California oil fields. Bobby lives with Rayette (Karen Black), a pretty but none-too-bright diner waitress who aspires to sing country music. He cheats on Rayette, berates her in front of friends, and is too embarrassed to introduce her to his family. He also gets her pregnant.

Susan Anspach as Catherine.

When visiting his sister Partita, Bobby learns that his father has suffered two strokes. Partita (Lois Smith) encourages Bobby to resolve his differences with his estranged father before it's too late. Bobby's reunion with his family bores him until he meets Catherine (Susan Anspach), who is studying music with his brother Carl. As Bobby pursues the reluctant Catherine, Rayette waits for him at a motel a few miles from the Dupea house.

As a character study, one can forgive the wandering plot of Five Easy Pieces. However, director Bob Rafelson allows his film to lose focus by indulging in extraneous scenes. There are lingering shots of Bobby working in the oil fields. A hitchhiker prattles endlessly about how the world is filled with filth. Bobby gets irate about a highway traffic jam (one of Ebert's favorite scenes).

Karen Black as Rayette.

The film perks up whenever there's a scene with Karen Black as Rayette. The actress keeps the character from being nothing more than Bobby's victim. Yes, Rayette can be irritating, but she sincerely loves Bobby, forgives him for everything, and finds joy in her simple life. In one of the best scenes, Rayette interrupts a ridiculous pseudo-intellectual discussion by asking: "Is there a TV in the house?"

Jack Nicholson is wonderfully convincing as the disillusioned Bobby--who isn't quite sure what he's disillusioned about other than his life in general. One doesn't have to like the character to admire Nicholson's performance or appreciate the tiny details that make Bobby seem real. There's the justifiably famous scene of Bobby trying to reason with a diner waitress who refuses to make any substitutions on his breakfast. However, Nicholson's best scene is saved for what functions as the film's climax--a "conversation" with Bobby's father that's essentially a monologue of self-reflection.

The film's screenplay, Rafelson, Nicholson, and Black all earned Oscar nominations in 1970. If Nicholson first garnered serious critical acclaim in Easy Rider (1969), then Five Easy Pieces was the movie that made him a star. He would make three of his best films over the next five years--The Last Detail, Chinatown, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest--receiving three more Oscar nominations and winning Best Actor for Cuckoo's Nest.

All of those films are better than Five Easy Pieces, a promising character study that gets lost in its own pompousness.

Now Playing at the Starlite Drive-in: A Disaster Movie Double-feature!

The disaster movie genre was still flying high when Airport 1975 landed in theatres in (ironically) 1974. But, alas, the genre was already poised for a crash by the time Airport '77 appeared. It's interesting that Airport, the 1970 film based on Arthur Hailey's bestseller, spawned a trio of disaster movies (yes, there was also The Concorde: Airport '79). Critics nor moviegoers considered Airport a disaster movie, though it certainly contained the ingredients of what would become the standard formula. Airport was embraced simply as a big-budget blockbuster. The "disaster movie" was officially born two years later when The Poseidon Adventure turned into an unexpected smash. Though there were plenty of disaster pics before Poseidon (e.g., The High and the Mighty back in the 1950s), Irwin Allen's waterlogged adventure justly gets credit for making disaster pics popular fare in the 1970s.

All of which brings us to our first feature: Airport 1975. It has a scene or two in an airport and one of the stars is George Kennedy, the connecting thread in all four Airport movies. Hey, that's good enough to slap the Airport name on it!

Charlton Heston stars as Al Murdoch, an executive and former flight instructor for Columbia Airlines, who doesn't have time for meaningful conversation with his girlfriend, stewardess Nancy Pryor. He does have time for some quick hanky panky, but Nancy lets him know that's not going to happen. She wants to talk about the future of their relationship. (At this point, two things came to mind: (1) My wife convinced me that Nancy was going to deliver big news about being pregnant; (2) I was trying to get past the fact that Nancy was played by Karen Black, who played "crazy" exceptionally well in the classic made-for-TV movie Trilogy of Terror).

I think this movie--more than any other--inspired the hilarious 1980 spoof Airplane! The cast includes: Linda Blair as a little girl needing an organ transplant; Helen Reddy as a singing nun; Sid Caesar as a talkative bit actor; Myrna Loy as a lush; and Gloria Swanson as...herself. Plus, the flight crew includes TV all-stars Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (The FBI), Roy Thinnes (The Invaders), and Erik Estrada (CHiPs). Toss in Dana Andrews as a businessman pilot on the verge of a heart attack and you've got a cast for the ages.

Karen Black in the breezy cockpit.

The plot is pretty transparent, but skip this paragraph if you don't want to know it. I'll wait a second. OK, here we go: While flying a small plan during a nasty storm, Dana's businessman has a heart attack (surprise!) and his out-of-control plane makes a hole in the nose of the 747. Roy and Eric bite the big one and Efrem suffers injuries that prevent him from piloting. It's up to Nancy the stewardess to take the flight controls with some radio assistance from her crappy boyfriend.

Other than the joy of watching some classic movie stars in their twilight years, Airport 1975 has little to offer--other than Karen Black. After some great early roles (e.g., Five Easy Pieces), Black was beginning to find good parts harder to find. Considering that she spends a good portion of Airport 1975 in the cockpit on the radio, she delivers a believable performance worthy of a better movie. She made me temporarily forget how creepy she was in Trilogy of Terror.

Our second feature, Airport '77, is a definite upgrade. Jack Lemmon, sporting huge sideburns and a mustache, plays the pilot of a new luxury jet designed by James Stewart. It's the kind of plane I'd like to travel aboard, with bedrooms, a library, lounge, and even a built-in Pong game. The only downside is the exceptionally bright 1970s decor (I keep waiting for orange and purple to make a comeback...take a note HGTV). The passengers are all guests of Mr. Stewart, including: his estranged daughter (Pamela Bellwood from Dynasty) and her son; businessman Chris Lee and his adulteress wife Lee Grant; Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotten as art patrons; singer Tom Sullivan; and engineer Darren McGavin. The only problem is that the crew includes some bad guys, led by Robert Foxworth and Monte Markham, who plan to hijack the plane and steal the precious art on board.

Pilot Lemmon faces plenty
of problems.

The thieves' plan goes horribly awry during a storm in the Bermuda Triangle and the jet crashes into the ocean. The result is a reasonably interesting mixture of Airport and The Poseidon Adventure. Some of it is silly, especially George Kennedy reassuring James Stewart with cliched lines like: "Don't worry, Phil, we'll get that plan up...in one piece." However, there are some exciting scenes such as when Lemmon and Lee try to release a buoy with a distress signal as the ocean water begins to crush the aircraft.

Though Airport '77 made a tidy profit, it marked the beginning of the end for the disaster movie genre. Despite their big budgets, The Swarm (1978), Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979), and When Time Ran Out (1980) all tanked at the boxoffice, effectively ending the disaster movie craze.