Kris Kristof

                                                                  Part 2

Kris Kristofferson continued to rack up good parts in good movies in the 1970's. Well, okay, the 1976 version of A Star Is Born is not on anybody’s all-time great list. But it’s not bad and Kris got to appear opposite Barbra Streisand and he got to use that gravelly voice. Kris plays John Norman Howard, who had been a big country star and let drugs and bad habits drag him down. He meets Esther Hoffman (Streisand) and they are together as her star rises and his continues to decline. The 1937 version with Janet Gaynor and Frederic March is also just okay. You are more likely to have seen the 2018 version with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. It is the pick of this litter.

    Semi-Tough (1977) from the Dan Jenkins novel is a really funny movie about a pro football team and its stars- Shake Tiller (Kris) and Billy Clyde Puckett (Burt Reynolds). Jill Clayburgh is the love interest as Barbara Jane Bookman, pretty daughter of the team’s owner. She and Shake and Billy Clyde form a pleasing threesome that seems to somehow get along just fine. Barbara Jane starts to marry Shake, but that blows up at the altar and she winds up with Billy Clyde. The dialog is sparkling.

Convoy (1978) aimed to take advantage of the Citizen’s Band Radio fad of the time, and did pretty fair job of it. Kris plays Martin “Rubber Duck”  Penwald, one of many interesting characters in the film. Pig Pen, Widow Woman and Spider Mike are part of the crew of truckers that travel together. They are chased and harassed by Sheriff Cottonmouth Wallace (Ernest Borgnine). Duck’s love interest, Melissa (Ali MacGraw) thinks he died in an accident as the movie closes. 

Kris got a chance to star in a Michael Cimino movie, Heaven’s Gate (1980). It almost finished both of their careers. I will charitably say that it is dreadful. For one thing, most of it is so dusty you can’t tell what’s going on. But that might be a blessing. Anyway French star Isabel Huppert, Jeff Bridges, Christopher Walken, and William Dafoe all take part in the debacle. Kristofferson didn’t get another decent role for 16 years, when he played Charlie Wade in the mediocre western Lone Star.

Kris got a bit of redemption when he got to play Whistler in the Blade films (1998, 2002, 2004). If sci-fi horror is your thing, these fill the bill. I do not like or recommend them. 

Kris Kristofferson’s last appearance of note is in Where The Red Fern Grows (2003). By this time he is old and grizzled enough to play Older Billy Coleman, the main character as an old man. It’s mostly as a narrator in this somewhat sappy film. 

All of the films in this article are available somewhere if you look hard and don’t mind paying. All are for adults. 

                                                                Kris Kristofferson

                                                                      Part 1

    Kris Kristofferson, who died recently, was Texas to the core. He was a heralded country music composer and singer. In the 1970's he was a founder of the outlaw branch of country music, a rawer more authentic sound than Nashville slickness.    

But this is a movie column- and Kris had a sterling movie career as well. He burst onto the scene in Blume In Love (1973) as Elmo, the slacker boyfriend of Nina (Susan Anspach). She is divorced from Stephen Blume (George Segal) after he was unfaithful to her. Blume wanders about Venice, site of the Blumes’ honeymoon, musing about why he was such a bad husband and how much he misses Nina. He tries to reconnect with her, which starts badly. But Elmo bows out of this somewhat messy picture, true to his slacker personna, with his exit line: “It’s time to move on”. There’s a Hollywood ending without Kris.

In the same year, 1973, Kris killed the title role in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. No, he wasn’t Garret, that was James Coburn. Kris played Billy. Garrett is sent to get rid of Billy by the governor. Though he and Billy are old friends, he reluctantly takes the job. After lots of fun chases and gunfights, Billy is captured. But he escapes with a hidden pistol and shotgun loaded with “sixteen thin dimes”. He shotguns deputy sheriff Bob Olinger and yells “keep the change, Bob”. If you get to see this one, keep your eyes peeled for Bob Dylan, who wrote the music and had a small part also. Dylan’s character is named Alias. 

Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia (1974) is a very violent western directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Warren Oates as El Jefe, a Mexican cartel chief. His daughter, Teresa, is impregnated by Alfredo Garcia, who was being groomed as the successor to El Jefe. El Jefe is infuriated by thie scenario and places a one million dollar reward on Garcia’s head. He takes off, and so does Teresa. In her wanderings she encounters a couple of outlaw bikers, one of whom is Kristofferson. Not a great part  or a great movie, but he does his best.

A better part in a better movie for Kris in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More (1974). Ellen Burstyn is Alice, whose husband is killed in an accident and who has tried to make it as singer. She decides to try again and moves with her son Tommy to the desert southwest. David (Kristofferson) is a divorced, successful local rancher who forms a on and off relationship with Alice. 

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea (1976) is in fact Kris Kristofferson as Jim Cameron, second mate of a large mechant ship. The film is from a story by Japanese author Yukio Mishima, relocated to a British coastal town. Sara Miles portrays Anne Osborne, a widow with a 14-year-old son, Jonathan.  She becomes romantically involved with Cameron and Jonathan is insanely jealous. He and his renegade friends hatch a plot to do away with Jim the next time he docks. 

All of these films are for grown-ups. All are available somewhere. Next time: Kris part 2.

                                                            Movies To TV Shows

    This week we flip the category from TV shows that were made into movies to movies that became TV shows. As you might expect, this is a hit and miss category.

I’ll start with the unquestioned king of this category. M*A*S*H (1970) was a terrific dark comedy about surgeons stationed in South Korea. It easily transitioned into an equally terrific TV show with the same name but only one holdover actor. The television series ran for eleven seasons (1972-83) and topped the charts in most years. Alan Alda (Hawkeye), Wayne Rogers (Trapper John), Loretta Swit (Hot Lips) charmed and entertained us week after week. BTW, the one holdover actor was Gary Burghoff, retained as Radar O’Reilly. 

Fargo (1996) was nominated for seven Oscars and won two. It introduced winner Frances McDormand as the pregnant police chief of a small Minnesota town. The film’s screen writers also won Oscar. The chief is investigating a kidnaping gone horribly wrong. She is underestimated by about everyone, including the bad guy. The wood-chipper is a scene you don’t readily forget. The TV show it birthed has run for ten years (2014-24) and may chalk up a sixth season. Other than the locale, it bears little resemblance to the film, but has been hugely popular. 

Friday Night Lights (2004), about a small Texas town obsessed with high school football, had moderate success. The TV series it sired was actually more popular and generally better. But the movie had the marvelous Billy Bob Thornton and the TV show did not. The TV show ran for five seasons, ending in 2011. The series dived into more contemporary issues. It was nearly cancelled several times but its fans kept saving it. 

    Westworld (1973) is a sci-fi western with the improbably cast Yul Brynner as an android dressed up like a gunslinging cowboy. People can pay to enter Westworld and play at cowboys and cowboys. Then things go terribly wrong. What a surprise! The TV show ran for three seasons, ending in 2020. The stories feature the same locale, which gets a little repetitive. It does have more A-list actors: Ed Harris, Thandie Newton, Evan Rachel Wood, etc. Somehow,  there is still talk of another season. 

Fame (1980) is a reasonably good film about young talents trying to make it big in show biz via the NY High School of Performing Arts. . Irene Cara was the star and quite a good one. The movie was well-liked though Cara didn’t break out after it. The TV series ran for six seasons and was much loved by young people. The stories are uneven but generally good quality.

Two I don’t have room for: Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and About A Boy. 

All of the movies and TV series in this article are available for streaming somewhere, if you look hard and are willing to pay. All are for grown-ups. 

                                                     TV SHOWS TO MOVIES

I picture a meeting at MGM or Paramount (or your choice) and someone says: ”I saw the best show on TV. It would make a great movie”. Would it? Maybe.

    Lots of successful TV shows have been made into movies. One of the latest to hit the silver screen is Downton Abbey (2019). All the principals are there: Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, etc. The film centers around a visit to the Abbey by the royal family. Yikes! Well, the movie is pretty good. Good as the TV series? Afraid not- the series allows enough time to develop the characters and grow to love (or hate) them. If you’d never seen the TV series would you like the movie? Hmmm...

The Fugitive (1993) is maybe even better than the TV series. Lots of people just got tired of the chase after the suspect and didn’t like the ending. The movie stars Tommy Lee Jones who is just terrific as Marshall Sam Gerard (and won the Oscar for Best Actor). It also features Harrison Ford as the heavily pursued Dr. Kimble who searches for the real killer, the one-armed man. The movie has the best train wreck ever and is just really good. 

Mission Impossible was a hugely popular TV show in the late 60's and early 70's. With Peter Graves, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris and Peter Lupus as a clandestine arm of the US government. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it” is the tag line we loved as much as the theme music and the disintegrating tape. Tom Cruise reinvented the show as (so far) six movies starring him. He says he does his own stunts and they are spectacular. To me it’s apples and oranges. I like both series. 

Naked Gun is a totally silly TV series that was popular in the 80's when it was aired as Police Squad. Leslie Nielsen is the glue that holds this thing together and does it again in the movie versions. Unfortunately, the movie series seems endless but the first few are funny as can be. Could Nielsen possibly be the guy Debbie Reynolds adored in Tammy? Yep, and he’s also the star of the hilarious Airplane! (1980). His ability to utter inane comments is just right. 

Deadwood was a big western hit in the 2000's, with Timothy Oliphant the star. Deadwood is a lawless town not a part of any state (yet) and therefore open to all sorts of bad, but interesting, drama. The movie, released in 2019, is actually made for TV but pretty good.  Oliphant is back as the hero and the story revolves around South Dakota reaching statehood and spoiling lots of the bad stuff in town. 

Only Downton is ok for kids, though I doubt they would like it. The rest are for adults. Next time we flip the story: Movies to TV shows. 

                                                          James Earl Jones 

                                                                  Part 3

    Continuing with the incredible career of James Earl Jones, who lived to be 93 and compiled a movie list the envy of many. 

Matewan (1987) is the somewhat true story of the bloody miner’s strike of the Stone Mountain Coal Company in Matewan, West Virginia. Chris Cooper, in his debut appearance, portrays Joe Kenehan who is a union organizer. James Earl Jones plays one of the miners with the wonderful name of “Few Clothes” Johnson. As mediation efforts flag, the violence grows incrementally. Who wins? Nobody.

Whether you like or hate Coming To America (1988) probably depends on your opinion of Eddie Murphy, the catalyst for this film. Murphy wrote the story for the film and has the lead role as crown prince Akeem of the fictional African country Zamunda. He grows tired of his entitled lifestyle and particularly of the fiancé picked by his parents. So he decides to travel to America to find a woman he can love and who can love him for himself. James Earl Jones plays appropriately intense King Jaffe, Akeem’s father. There is a sequel that isn’t even as good as the original. 

Field of Dreams (1989) is a wonderful film about baseball and dreams coming true. Kevin Costner is Ray Kinsella, owner of a corn farm in Iowa. Inside his field he hears a disembodied voice say “If you build it, he will come”. And he has a vision of disgraced Black Sox scandal Shoeless Joe Jackson ( Ray Liotta) playing on a baseball field at the Kinsella farm. So Ray convinces his wife (Amy Madigan) he should build the field. And they come. James Earl Jones portrays Terrence Mann, whose books have been summarily banned in Iowa. Ray is a fan and gets Mann to come to the ball field. The rest is, well, magic!

Sommersby (1993) stars Richard Gere as Jack Sommersby (or not) who has been missing from home for six years after fighting in the Civil War. Laurel Sommersby (Jodie Foster) begins to suspect this guy isn’t her husband. But- she likes him a whole lot better than the original. Jack winds up charged with murder and desertion before Judge Isaacs (James Earl Jones). The judge gives him the choice of choosing the name that will hang him or the one that will just try him for desertion. This film is the American take on the look alike French classic The Return of Martin Guerre. 

Cry, The Beloved Country (1995) is a star turn for Jones, as he portrays Rev. Stephen Kumalo. He is called to Johannesburg by the church and discovers that his son is accused of murdering a white man. James Jarvis (Richard Harris) is the father of the murdered boy. The two meet and against all odds find they share certain aspects of humanity. The film is based on Alan Paton’s novel of the same name. It is also the second configuration of this story. The 1951 version with Sidney Poitier is just as good.

James Earl Jones has a hat trick as Admiral Greer in the thrilling Hunt For Red October (1990), and in Patriot Games (1982) and in Clear and Present Danger (1994). He’s good in all of them.  

All of the movies in this article are for grown-ups. 

                                                                 James Earl Jones

                                                                 Part 2

Last week’s article dealt with the incredible, unmistakable voice of James Earl Jones. But that only scratched the surface of his film resume’. Today we begin his movie roles.

    The first Jones appearance of note is as Lt. Luther Zogg in the madcap classic Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Jones was 33. This film is regarded as one of the greatest. A crazed general unleashes a B-52 nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. The mistake is discovered and the Russians are notified. They respond that they have a Doomsday Device that will effectively kill everyone on earth if Russia is bombed.  The attempts to stop the bombers works on all but one. Lt. Zogg is the bombardier and Slim Pickens (Major “King” Kong) is the pilot. They make it to the target. Best of many quotes “You can’t fight in here- this is the war room!” 

End Of The Road (1970) from the John Barth novel, is definitely not to all tastes. Stacy Keach carries the thing as Jake Horner, a returned Vietnam vet who has descended into catatonia. He winds up in the hospital of the demonstrably crazy Doctor D (JE Jones) and is “cured” and sent out to teach unsuspecting college kids. A summary really doesn’t tell you much about this strange film. While I can’t really recommend it, I will say that Jones is superb.

The Great White Hope (1970) brings Jones to the top. He plays Jack Jefferson, based on real life Jack Johnson. A black man struggling in the white world of championship boxing in the early 20th century, he defeats every white challenger put before him. White fans are looking for a “white hope”, a white boxer who can defeat Jefferson. Jones revealed he had never boxed before appearing in this film. He was nominated for Best Actor Oscar, but lost to George Scott for Patton. Jane Alexander was also nominated for her role as Jefferson’s white love affair, but also lost.

James Earl Jones is The Man (1972).This is a made-for-TV movies, but the screenplay is by Rod Serling and the cast is first-rate. As president pro tem of the Senate, he becomes president of the United States through a series of mishaps to the president and the rest of the succession. Douglas Dillman thus becomes the first black president. This is nearly forty years before Barack Obama. He encounters many problems, most of them racially motivated, but most people reluctantly agree he does a good job. He decides to run for election and strives to get his party’s nomination. 

The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (1976) is about an all black baseball team in the 1930's, most of whom are good enough to play in he Major Leagues, which are lily white. Billy Dee Williams is Bingo Long, owner of the team, and Jones is Leon Carter, star catcher and slugger. Their adventures as they barnstorm and play all comers is delightful and entertaining. 

All of the movies in this article are available for streaming somewhere. All are for grown-ups. Next time more James Earl Jones movies. 

                                                               James Earl Jones

                                                                 Part 1

It took Hollywood a while, but once they caught on to his distinctive booming bass voice he was the go-to narrator guy. This famous voice first appeared in the first Star Wars movie, which is actually number IV in the Star Wars cycle. You never forgot the villainous Darth Vader and his rumbling, terrifying voice. Jones voiced Darth Vader in all the Star Wars films. He did so once again in number V. If you scroll through the credits in those two films, you will not see the name of James Earl Jones. It was him, ok, but he refused the credit, not wanting to over shine his friend David Prowse, the actor who played Vader. After that film, Jones was always credited. Strangely, the correct sequence of Star Wars movies in the order of their release is 4,5,6,1,2,3,7. That seems to bother absolutely no one. 

The Star Wars galaxy of films is not based on a book, but on a series of screen outlines developed by George Lucas. So the very first release is titled Star Wars IV: A New Hope. The next two films follow in sequence. Then they return to number 1, which is actually a prequel. I will never forget watching the first Star Wars film in 1977. I was completely blown away, and so was most everyone else. The complete Star Wars movie package has made more than 10 billion dollars. Yoda, Princess Leah, Wookie, Luke, Hans Solo,  R2D2 and CP3O are all legends now. 

Returning now to James Earl Jones and his unmistakable voice. Who will ever forget “Luke, I am your father” ? Jones probably made more money from his voice- overs and narrations than from his acting. And there’s another movie franchise that utilized Jones’ unique voice. The Lion King first appeared as an animated musical in 1994. Hugely popular, it went on to sire many film offspring, and a hit Broadway Musical.

That first version contained a host of famous voices: Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Jeremy Irons, Whoppi Goldberg et al. But the one everyone remembers is James Earl Jones, voicing Mufasa, the King of the title and the leader of the pride of lions. He is killed by the treacherous Scar, who replaces Mufasa and does an expectedly terrible job as leader.  Mufasa with the Jones voice is heard once again in the real life version in 2019. And there are lots of other Lion King opportunities for Jones. 

He was born with a debilitating stutter. He hardly spoke at all until he was 8 years old and spoke very little until high school. A high school voice teacher taught him how to deal with his problem. Jones had written poetry and the teacher convinced him to read it aloud in front of the class. He did so and didn’t stutter at all. The rest, as they say, is history.  His overcoming this condition all the way to narrating films is an inspiring story. He can also be heard in The Sandlot, Our Friend Martin, Merlin and several other films. He has recorded the entire New Testament.

Next time: James Earl Jones the actor.