Linda Manz – The Movie Gourmet

OUT OF THE BLUE: when there is no redemption

January 23, 2022 by movie gourmet

Linda Manz in OUT OF THE BLUE. Courtesy of Discovery Productions, Inc..

Newly restored for re-release, Dennis Hopper’s 1980 Out of the Blue is an anti-redemptive parable of alienation. It features both an unforgettable performance and an unforgettable ending.

The spirited teenager Cebe (Linda Manz) has the worst parents in her British Columbia town, maybe in the entire province. Her dad (Dennis Hopper), is a drunk, deservedly in prison for an act of irreparable harm. (Cebe bears a facial scar from this incident – and lots of emotional damage as well).

Her chirpy mom (Sharon Farrell) can’t keep a needle out of her arm or guys out of her pants. Ever impulsive, she ruefully observes that there are two kinds of men – the sexy, adventuresome types and the good providers; it’s evident that she hasn’t bet her life on the good providers.

After five years in prison, the dad is released and gets a job operating heavy machinery at a garbage dump overrun by sea gulls. But he’s still sucking on his ever-present pint bottle, and the town won’t forget why he was incarcerated.

Cebe is full of life and has a gum-chewing swagger. She’s comfortable leading her teen peers in some rowdiness, but she also has a rich imagination and she spends a lot of time in her room alone, acting out her interests in Elvis and punk music.

But Cebe doesn’t know in what direction to channel her exuberance; she can’t tell her sympathetic, court-appointed psychologist (Raymond Burr) what she wants.

The one thing that Cebe doesn’t want is what’s best for her – to be separated from her parents. As is common with neglected and abused children, she clings to the bad situation that she is familiar with.

Cebe acts out in mildly rebellious mischief at school, and she runs away for a night of adventure in Vancouver, somehow emerging unscathed from risky situations.

Back home, she hides from her parent’s arguing in her room. Suddenly, the audience is shocked by something the father says (what??!!), and it is revealed that the parents’ dysfunction is MUCH darker, more twisted than previously apparent.

Cebe erupts and Out of the Blue ends with a stunning, utterly unpredictable climax. Hopper follows Billie Wilder’s screenwriting advice – “don’t hang around”; the ending is not even one second too long.

Dennis Hopper wrote and directed Out of the Blue, pacing the film well and delivering verisimilitude from Vancouver area setting. The camera swirls around the actors at times, and Hopper makes good use of the thousands of seagulls populating a garbage dump.

Out of the Blue is really all about Linda Manz’s singular performance as Cebe. Often improvised her performance is naturalistic and unpredictable. When she is in her room or walking through a Vancouver night, she acts like no one is watching her, and it’s riveting.

By the time she was 19 in 1980, Linda Manz had acted in and narrated a masterpiece (Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven) and appeared in two cult films (Philip Kaufman’s The Wanderers and Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue). Then she retired to raise a family. Manz died at 59 in 2020.

Don Gordon (left) and Dennis Hopper (center) in OUT OF THE BLUE. Courtesy of Discovery Productions, Inc.

As the dad, Hopper is able to demonstrate the that attracted the mom and the playfulness that endears him to Cebe. In a scene where the dad dramatically gets himself fired, Hopper shows a man so enjoying his ballsy action, and then his visage changes as the consequences of his impulsivity sink in, reflecting on his helplessness when he is once again done in by his own impulses.

As the mom, prolific television actress Sharon Farrell excels in a rare movie role.

Don Gordon plays Charlie, the dad’s marginally more functional pal. Gordon had key supporting roles in Bullitt and Papillon and over s hundred appearances in the episodic TV of the 60s and 70s.In Out of the Blue, Gordon displays his gift for playing drunk convincingly. Gordon really understood the essence of drunk thinking and behavior, has an even more compelling drunk scene in Hopper’s The Last Movie).

Out of the Blue premiered at Cannes and enjoyed praise from Roger Ebert (“Bitter, unforgettable. An unsung treasure.”) and other critics. But the ending is so shocking and emotionally desolate, that it wasn’t released in the US; no distributor wanted to bet on its acceptance by a US audience. John Alan Simon acquired the distribution rights for a 17-week art house tour in 1982 with Hopper. Now Simon and Elizabeth Karr have digitally restored Out of the Blue from the only two 35mm prints in existence.

Out of the Blue is not available to stream; (I own the DVD.) In late 2021, the 4K restoration opened at a New York City screening presented by Chloë Sevigny and Natasha Lyonne. I’ll let you know when Out of the Blue reaches Bay Area theaters or a streaming platform.

2020 FAREWELLS: On the Screen (Part 2)

December 27, 2020 by movie gourmet

Actor John Saxon, was versatile, intense and prolific – the handsome, swarthy, character actor you would come to recognize in his 200+ screen appearances, mostly on TV. In 1976 ALONE, Saxon appeared on The Rockford Files, The Bionic Woman, The Six Million Dollar Man, Starsky and Hutch and Wonder Woman, acted in seven movies. and starred in the miniseries Once an Eagle. His best known movie roles were as Jackie Chan’s martial arts buddy Roper in Enter the Dragon (Saxon had already studied karate for years) and as police Lieutenant Don Thompson, who repeatedly battled Freddy Kreuger in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Saxon could handle quality roles when he got them, as in War Hunt and Joe Kidd.

The 5’5″ Ian Holm was a giant of the stage, where he created a definitive King Lear, and is most well-known in movies for playing Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings franchise. I remember Holm’s heartrending performance in Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, my choice as the most profoundly sad movie ever. He also appeared in supporting roles in some of my favorite movies: Young Winston, Jesus of Nazareth and the Kenneth Branagh Henry V.

Jerry Stiller, along with his wife and professional partner Anne Meara (scroll down), was a comedy pioneer. He’s best remembered for playing George Costanza’s father on TV’s Seinfeld and for being Ben Stiller’s real life dad. But Stiller sandwiched some good work in movies (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Ritz, Hairspray) between the early and later phases of his work.

Character actor Allen Garfield contributed to many fine films, especially in the 1970s heyday of American auteurs, including The Candidate, The Brink’s Job, Nashville and The Stunt Man. My favorite Garfield performance was as the sleazy Bernie in the 1974 masterpiece The Conversation.

Michael Lonsdale in THE DAY OF THE JACKAL

Michael Lonsdale is justifiably best remembered for playing the determined investigator in The Day of the Jackal (plus a Bond villain). He also worked in the recently rediscovered Mr. Klein and over 100 French films.

Ann Reinking, the great Broadway star, was most famous for originating the character Roxy in Chicago. Her greatest work came from her artistic partnership with Bob Fosse, with whom she lived for six years. Reinking’s art is forever preserved in one indelible film performance, essentially playing herself in Fosse’s All That Jazz. I strongly recommend Sheila O’Malley’s remembrance.

The prolific actor Stuart Whitman was strikingly manly and relatable, and also had the gift of imbuing strong-and-silent characters with emotional texture. Indeed, he was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for a 1961 film that I haven’t seen – The Mark, in which he played a guy seeking a normal life after being imprisoned for attempted child molestation. I remember Whitman for his performances in The Longest Day and the offbeat Convicts 4. He would not wish to be remembered for the giant carnivorous rabbit chiller Night of the Lepus.

Wilford Brimley started out in life as a real cowboy. At age 45, he broke through as an actor playing Jack Lemmon’s loyal assistant engineer in The China Syndrome. More good curmudgeon performances followed on TV and in movies (Cocoon, Absence of Malice). Ironically, this fine actor is most well-known for a Quaker Oatmeal commercial.

Actress Sue Lyon died at the very end of last year and hadn’t made a movie in forty years. She is best remembered for her performance at age 16 as the titular character in Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 Lolita. She also appeared in The Night of the Iguana and in one of my guilty faves, The Flim Flam Man.

Actor Jo Shishido starred in a zillion Japanese crime action films, most notably Cruel Gun Story (1964) and A Colt Is My Passport (1967). Oddly, his career as a leading man took off after his plastic surgery, intended to emphasize his cheekbones, left him with puffy chipmunk cheeks.

I fondly remember the Rock pioneer Little Richard for his hilarious turn in Down and Out in Beverly Hills as the neighbor to Richard Dreyfus’ family, Orvis Goodnight. He appeared in one of the very first rock n roll movies Don’t Knock the Rock (1956), a same-year followup to Rock Around the Clock. His music was featured in hundred of films and television shows.

By the time she was 19 in 1980, Linda Manz had acted in and narrated a masterpiece (Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven) and appeared in two cult films (Philip Kaufman’s The Wanderers and Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue). Then she retired to raise a family.

John Benfield was superb as Mike Kernan, the sexist Britsh police commander perpetually frustrated by Helen Mirren’s Jane Tennison in five seasons of Prime Suspect.

Here’s Part 1.

2020 FAREWELLS: On the Screen (Part 1)

December 26, 2020 by movie gourmet

Kirk Douglas – that icon of explosive virility – died at age 103. Douglas will be forever remembered for the epic Spartacus, a blockbuster hit that he produced, with his own searing performance as the star and the effect of ending the Hollywood blacklist. He could play sexy and despicable at the same time in Out of the Past, Ace in the Hole and In Harm’s Way and a profoundly decent hero in Seven Days in May. Two of my guilty pleasures are Ulysses and The Vikings, with Kirk as a shirtless warrior.

If we’re going to talk about male cinema stars with overpowering magnetism and studly charisma, we’re going to start with Sean Connery, who has died at age 90.

No screen actor has more personally defined a role than did Connery with James Bond. The character of James Bond in Ian Fleming’s source novels is nothing special; Bond was made iconic by Connery’s gifts. The Bond movies are cartoonish, but Connery’s James Bond never is. Connery’s Bond is hunky, but he’s not just a hunk. He is supremely confident. He is cunning. He always assesses a risk before he takes it.

My favorite Connery performance (and the best movie he was in) is The Man Who Would Be King (1975).

Sixty-three years after the chess game with Death himself in The Seventh Seal, actor Max Von Sydow has finally succumbed. Von Sydow is justifiably most well known among cinephiles for his many roles in a cascade of Ingmar Bergman’s grimness, including The Seventh Seal, The Magician, The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, Shame and The Passion of Anna. And in The Magician, he had to don the most off-putting of facial hair. His biggest hit, of course was as the title character in The Exorcist. Contrary to his image, he had the capacity for hilarity, which he demonstrated in Hannah and Her Sisters as a ridiculously pretentious and selfish artist. Along with that role, my favorite Von Sydow performances were in Jan Troell’s The Emigrants and The New Land as a Swedish settler in frontier America.

Carl Reiner (far right) in THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!

No one has been more important in the evolution of American comedy than Carl Reiner, who has died at age 98. Reiner was a writer and performer on Sid Caesar’s seminal Your Show of Shows. He created one of the greatest and most influential TV sitcoms, The Dick Van Dyke Show. Reiner was the comedy partner who helped Mel Brooks form his work. And he directed four Steve Martin comedies. Reiner was the third person awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. My favorite Carl Reiner performance was in The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

Olivia de Havilland in GONE WITH THE WIND

Silicon Valley native and icon of classic Hollywood, Olivia de Havilland (her real name) was raised in Saratoga and went to Los Gatos High. Her performance in A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream in the Saratoga Community Theater led directly to her appearing in the Hollywood film version of the play at age 19. She starred as the leading lady in her next film, Captain Blood, the first of a series of Warner Brothets costume romances that matched her with Erroll Flynn, with whom she had undeniable chemistry: The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Santa Fe Trail, Dodge City, They Died with Their Boots On and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. In this period, she was loaned to David O. Selznick for her most remembered role, that of the profoundly sweet and decent Melanie in Gone with the Wind. De Havilland won her contractual freedom from Warner Brothers through landmark litigation in 1943. She went on to more serious fare and earned yhree Oscar nods in the next six years, winning for To Each His Own and The Heiress.

Dick Powell and Rhonda Fleming in CRY DANGER

Actress Rhonda Fleming has died at age 97. She was known as the “Queen of Technicolor” when movie studios exploited her blazing red hair, blue eyes, ivory complexion and uncommon beauty in a series of Western, sword-and-sandal and adventure films; in this period, she was a candidate for the world’s most beautiful woman, along with her age peers Gene Tierney, Lana Turner and Marilyn Monroe. But Fleming’s very best acting work was in black-and-white, in Spellbound, Out of the Past, Cry Danger and While the City Sleeps. My favorite Fleming performance is in Cry Danger, where she plays the girlfriend of the guy who had framed the hero (Dick Powell) – an irresistible woman of uncertain loyalty.

The actor Brian Dennehy stood a bear-like 6’3”and could have filled his career by playing menacing heavies (and he had his share of those). But Dennehy had uncommon range, as evidenced by his most well-remembered roles – Rambo’s nemesis in First Blood and the alien in Cocoon. My favorite Dennehy movie roles were the crooked sheriff in Silverado and Harrison Ford’s morally complicated boss in Presumed Innocent. Dennehy was even a bigger star on stage – he won Tony Awards for his Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman and his James in Long Day’s Journey into Night (the role Ralph Richardson played in the movie).

Fred Willard, as much as anyone, invented the deadpan mockumentary, starting with his talk show sidekick, Jerry Hubbard character in 1977’s Fernwood 2 Night with Martin Mull. Willard’s zenith was in This Is Spinal Tap and the Christopher Guest ensemble mockumentaries that followed: Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, For Your Consideration, A Mighty Wind and Mascots. He finished up by playing yet another uncontrollable character, Phil Dunphy’s dad on Modern Family.

Here are some tidbits from Willard’s unashamedly unprepared dog show commentator Buck Laughlin in Best in Show:

If you put them in a race, who would come in first? You know if you had a little jockey on them, going like this imitates jockeys hitting the side of the horse].
And to think that in some countries these dogs are eaten.
I went to one of those obedience places once… it was all going well until they spilled hot candle wax on my private parts.
[sees the trophy] I’ve taken a sponge bath in smaller bowls than that.

Chadwick Boseman in MARSHALL. Photo credit: Barry Wetcher ;ourtesy of Open Road Films

Chadwick Boseman, an emerging superstar after his iconic role in Black Panther, was able to humanize real life icons like Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall and James Brown. My favorite Boseman performance was in Marshall.

Tomorrow: Part 2