Prophecy (1979)

John Frankenheimer's Prophecy (1979) is a curious misfire. This potentially decent creature feature sinks under the weight of outsized pretensions, plus one of the dumbest-looking monsters ever.

Fed up with a soul-crushing city job, Dr. Robert Verne (Robert Foxworth) accepts a job with the EPA. Along with his pregnant wife Maggie (Talia Shire), he travels to Maine, where a land dispute between a paper company and local Indians rages. Plant owner Isley (Richard Dysart) blames Indian leader John Hawks (Armand Assante) for the disappearance of several loggers. The Indians blame Kahtadin, a mythical beast protecting their land. Verne discovers that pollution has mutated local wildlife, and that the loggers were killed by a particularly nasty byproduct.

Ken Begg of Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension pegs Prophecy's primary failing: it's too damn serious. Frankenheimer and writer David Seltzer cram their monster movie with every conceivable issue. Environmentalism is a given, but Indian rights, urban squalor and even abortion get a work-out in the overbaked script. Our hero is introduced treating a rat-bitten black baby in a DC apartment, to give you an idea. Frankenheimer approaches this with utmost solemnity, but when an Indian and lumberjack hold a chainsaw-axe duel, it's hard to buy in.

For all its pretentions, Prophecy doesn't mind employing black-and-white morality. The Natives are Noble Savages out of a Billy Jack movie, and no points for guessing how Frankenheimer portrays the lumbermen. The paper mill's intro is hilarious: we get a two-minute establishing shot while Leonard Rosenman's score blares portentiously on the soundtrack. On the other hand, since Maggie's dumb enough to carry a Kathadin cub around, it's hard to root for the heroes either. 

Unfortunately the horror angle is equally botched. Mercury creating murderous mutants might pass muster in a Roger Corman flick but Seltzer's long, pseudoscientific explanations are laughable. Characters describe the Kathadin as a chimera, but in practice it's a dessicated bear. Frankenheimer can't even stage decent attacks, preferring faux-artistic details (shots of mutilated corpses set to Brahms) to frights. The scariest scene involves a racoon, a good indicator of the film's quality.

Talia Shire is mostly somnolent, though she goes into Connie Corleone screaming mode towards the end. She's nicely balanced by Robert Foxworth, who bites off dialogue like a hippie Charlton Heston. Armand Assante, Victoria Racimo and Richard Dysart come off as well as the script allows. George Cluetsi's deluded elder makes a tragic figure, at least until his ludicrous death scene.

Prophecy is laughably misguided schlock. Everyone involved treats this story of murderous bear jerky like an Ingmar Bergman flick. Viewers are more likely to treat it like crap.

Seven Days in May

Seven Days in May (1964) is another fine thriller from John Frankenheimer. Compared to the dark satire of The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and rousing action of The Train (1964), it's subdued, sober and serious, highlighting liberal fears in the shadow of the Kennedy Assassination.

President Jordan Lyman (Frederic March) sees his popularity nose-dive after hammering a nuclear disarmanent treaty through the Senate. The opposition is led by General James Scott (Burt Lancaster), the charismatic, outspoken, and politically-ambitious Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Scott's aide, Colonel Casey (Kirk Douglas), comes to believe that Scott is plotting a military coup d'etat, kidnapping the President during an emergency drill and establishing a far-right government. The President and his associates are skeptical at first, but when the President's aide, Paul Girard (Martin Balsam) dies in a plane crash, and Senator Clark (Edmond O'Brien) is arrested while trying to visit a secret military base, the government must act to foil Scott's plans.

Seven Days in May expresses the fear of early '60s liberals: a coup by hardline Cold Warriors. This was a very real concern: the well-known distrust between John F. Kennedy and Generals Curtis LeMay and Maxwell Taylor came to a head during the Cuban Missile Crisis, with the Joint Chiefs furious at Kennedy's emphasis on diplomacy over military action. The movie opens with right-wingers crashing a peace demonstration outside the White House: an eerie premonition of the hard-hat/hippie clashes to come. Kennedy was almost universally-loved for his charisma, charm and good looks; his politics were much more divisive than the Camelot myth suggests.

When Kennedy died in 1963, many fingered the military as culprits, killing their commander-in-chief for being "soft" on Communism. Certainly the Red-baiting ramblings of LeMay, Edwin Walker, J. Edgar Hoover and Barry Goldwater, painting anyone who spoke of peaceful coexistence with the Soviets as an anti-American pinko, did little to dissuade them. However exaggerated these fears seem today, they were certainly prevalent at the time, and echoes can be heard today in conservative hatred of the "socialist" President Obama.

Made in 1964, just before Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement kicked off, the film is a curious mix of paranoia and New Frontier optimism. It anticipates the paranoia and anti-militarism of post-Watergate thrillers like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor, but lacks their bald cynicism, with President Lyman and Colonel Casey nobly upholding democracy. Here, Scott is an aberration, anathematic to American values; disillusioned seventies filmmakers would treat him as a natural product of the system. Lancaster himself would later star in Executive Action (1973), a crude prototype of Oliver Stone's JFK, illustrating just how much the '60s soured liberals on America.

The movie moves at a brisk clip, expertly reeling off exposition, introducing a large ensemble cast and generating a perfect mixture of paranoia, unease and suspense. Frankenheimer's direction is understated, providing an almost documentary feel to the proceedings. Storywise, there are two big faults: a pointless romance with Casey and Scott's mistress (Ava Gardner), which exists only to prove the nobility of our liberal heroes, and a dud finale. The final confrontation between Lyman and Scott is wonderfully explosive, but it's followed by a self-important lesson on democracy, concluding with a shot of the Constitution (!). The film makes its point well-enough without the patronizing social studies lecture.

Burt Lancaster owns the film, carefully hiding his anger fanaticism behind a facade of righteous rectitude. Kirk Douglas is fine in a one-note role; the attempts to portray his character as conflicted between country and military don't come off, and he's sidelined for the film's second half. Ava Gardner is squandered in a useless role. Frederic March (Inherit the Wind) personifies liberal nobility and fortitude, and the supporting cast includes fine actors like Edmund O'Brien (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), Martin Balsam (Little Big Man), Andrew Duggan (Red Nightmare), George Macready (Vera Cruz) and John Houseman (Three Days of the Condor).

Seven Days in May is a fine thriller, and despite its flaws and obnoxious speech-making, is entertaining, nuanced and thoughtful. It probably couldn't happen this way, but the film remains unsettling regardless.

The Train

During the last days of Germany's occupation of France, German Colonel Von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) arranges for a collection of priceless art from a French museum to be shipped via train to Germany. The museum curator (Suzanne Flon) enlists a cell of French Resistance fighters, led by railroad inspector Paul Labiche (Burt Lancaster), to rescue the paintings "for the glory of France." Labiche refuses to waste lives saving paintings, but a complicated series of events results in Labiche commandeering the train anyway. However, Von Waldheim is obsessive about his cargo, and Labiche and his colleagues must go to extreme lengths to stop him.

The Train is a truly brilliant movie. As a rousing action film, it is among the best of its kind. It also works as a thoughtful mediation on the cost and meaning of warfare. Skillful direction by John Frankenheimer and two extremely talented leads cause both ends of the film to come off extremely well.

The movie is brutally honest in its examination of war. Labiche says early on that paintings aren't worth risking lives, and a comparison between the value of human life and the value - artistic and monetary - of the art is repeatedly raised. Dozens of lives - French and German - are lost during the mission, callously thrown away to preserve the paintings. Labiche doesn't understand why so many people must die for the sake of art - but that, in and of itself, is largely the film's message. At one point, Boule (Michel Simon), the cranky old engineer assigned to drive the train, justifies the mission by tying it to "the glory of France". It doesn't seem overly convincing to the audience, but then, is saving paintings representing France's national heritage any less of an abstract idea than patriotism itself? If nothing else, the paintings serve as a physical manifestation of national pride, and they are a viable object to fight for - something that can be touched. The brilliant climax, however, provides a stark and brutal answer to Labiche's dilemma; afterward, there can be no question what he values most.

First and foremost, however, the movie is an action film. On a technical level, it is brilliant. The film has an atmosphere of gritty realism which has rarely been surpassed by films of this type. The Train is filmed in crisp black-and-white, which adds immeasurably to the movie's stark, gritty feel. Labiche's heroics remain completely within the realm of the possible, and he wins more or less by luck. There are many impressively-staged sets, with steady dolly shots and pans around crowded rooms and station platforms. The movie's set-pieces are brilliantly staged, including the air raid on the train station, the massive train crash using three real locomotives, and the final confrontation between Labiche and Waldheim. Few war films are as realistic and believable as this, while remaining entertaining and exciting. Maurice Jarre contributes a subtle, effective score to the proceedings.

Burt Lancaster gives a truly exceptional performance as Labiche. An actor capable of over-acting on occasions, Lancaster restrains himself and gives a serious, thoughtful turn as the French Resistance fighter who is forced into a mission he doesn't believe in, who values the lives of his colleagues over abstract ideals and suicide missions. He performs his own stunts, and his physicality serves the role very well. Labiche is tough but not indestructible; but in the end, he is a man who will simply not be stopped, regardless of his personal feelings or the obstacles in his path.

Just as impressive is Lancaster's counterpart, the late, great Paul Scofield (A Man for All Seasons). His character is obsessed, but not insane. As a man who appreciates the art, he feels it his duty to save the paintings, and will go to any length at all to save them. Scofield gives a fiery, intense performance, making Waldheim a sympathetic and well-rounded character. His final speech to Labiche, as they face-off beside the wrecked train, is poignant and moving in its own twisted way, spelling out the themes of the movie in a most eloquent manner.

Supporting the two leads are a roll call of top-notch French and German talent: Jeanne Moreau as a French war widow who briefly romances Labiche; Suzanne Flon as the idealistic, determined curator; Albert Remy, Charles Millot, Michel Simon, and Jacques Marin as Labiche's colleagues; Wolfgang Priess, Richard Munch and Jean Bouchard as Von Waldheim's colleagues and henchmen.

The Train is simply one of the best, most realistic and entertaining war films of all time. It is to the immense credit of Frankenheimer and his skilled cast and crew that they were able to pull off both realism and entertainment without sacrificing one or the other. 9/10