Bye Bye Birdie (1963)

Director: George Sidney

Cast: Janet Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, Ann-Margret, Maureen Stapleton

Have I Seen It Before: I feel like I have seen those episodes of Mad Men where they try to cannibalize this movie for the very first Diet Pepsi* commercial. Does that count?

Did I Like It: There’s something vaguely unsettling about the movie at its very core, as if it were the natural conclusion of someone trying to make a gender-swapped Lord of the Flies.

Maybe it’s just that I get the sense that there was a version of this film—and certainly the broadway play—where Kim (Ann-Margret) is something of a second-tier character, and the story is really about Rosie (Leigh) and Albert (Van Dyke).

That film could have been a nice romantic comedy centering on two of the more charming personalities to ever be in a movie. That isn’t the film as presented.

As it stands, the teenage girls swarm over the characters of the film like locusts. I don’t even think the film is being fair to the phenomenon of adolescence, or even the phenomenon of adolescence in the late 1950s which it is seeming to satirize. But these girls are frightening. There isn’t even a frolicking chase to keep things light, as in A Hard Day’s Night (1964). These girls won’t be bough, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. They just want to consume this music star, Conrad Birdie** (Jesse Pearson), even if they’re not entirely sure what consuming him might be. There might not have been any need for Carpenter to re-make Village of the Damned (1960), this production got the job done only three years after the original.

No wonder Van Dyke and Leigh get pushed out of almost every frame they’re in. And it might be contrary to say so, but the film is poorer for it.

*Or Patio, if you’re nasty.

**While we’re on the subject, Birdie is clearly supposed to be a stand-in for Elvis, but named to spoof Conway Twitty, who ended up becoming the schmaltziest kind of country crooner. His beg legacy is a running gag on Family Guy. At least The Beatles and Elvis had some good songs…

Magic (1978)

Director: Richard Attenborough

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, Burgess Meredith, Ed Lauter

Have I Seen it Before: Never. A Cabin movie, but one I only pushed for after seeing Siskel and Ebert (mostly; Roger had some reservations) about it on and old episode of their show).

Did I Like It: Yes, to a point. Hopkins is exceptionally effective as both ventriloquist and dummy, made all the better as before The Silence of the Lambs (1991), he didn’t feel the need to play “Anthony Hopkins, certified movie maniac.” This is a role which—had it been made after Lambs—would have lent itself to a typical Hopkins schtick. It’s a shame that all too often he has to play similar characters now, but there is not an ounce of self-consciousness here. For someone who made large parts of his fame and fortune off of the personae of a gleeful killer, it is an interesting counterpoint to see him play someone who is as horrified—if not more so—than the audience by the increasing violence in his life. He even manages to evoke a pretty competent ventriloquist, which is no mean feat for someone who hasn’t spent years training for that type of performance. I’ll allow for the possibility that some of this was accomplished via ADR, so at worst, the sound editors did a superlative job. Burgess Meredith and Ann-Margret do end up playing only slight variations on their established screen personae, but I would be hard pressed to say having them around in a movie hurts the proceedings

The plot, however, is where I’m left with something of bad taste in my mouth. There’s the final moments when Peggy (Margret) returns to the cabin, which feels too cute of an ending for my taste, but I’m willing to forgive that. I think the moment might have been more effective had we seen her re-enter the Cabin (and just before she could give voice to her horror) or just before she started saying anything and we see her walking into the cabin might have been more effective.

What I really have a problem with is two scenes that are positively load-bearing on the plot. In the key encounter where Greene (Meredith) tells Corky that if he can go without the dummy for five minutes, then he doesn’t need help, Corky can’t make it thirty seconds, indicating an undercurrent of compulsion in his psychosis. Later on, Corky takes a ride in a fishing boat with Duke (Ed Lauter) and can go without Corky for several scenes which are just as harrowing and stressful for the man. The plot is double dealing, and even if I could blame only William Goldman*, but Attenborough was certainly within his rights to make even the psychotic logic of that a little more cogent.

*Man, between this and my review for The Princess Bride (1987), these reviews are quickly becoming a microcosm of a feud with Goldman. I probably need to cleanse the system and take in Misery (1990) as quickly as possible.