That '70s Drift

We begin another occasional feature, this one an ongoing appreciation of our favorite decade of American filmmaking, the 1970s. Here, we found two unsung titles lurking on YouTube.

THE HEARTBREAK KID (1972) (A-minus) - This is the original film (I've seen only parts of the Farrelly Brothers' fiasco with Ben Stiller a few years ago), a surprisingly sober production created by Bruce Jay Friedman ("Stir Crazy," "Splash"), written by Neil Simon and directed by Elaine May.

Charles Grodin, in his big shot at leading-man status, plays Lenny Cantrow, a sporting-goods salesman who rushes into marriage with Lila (Jeannie Berlin, May's daughter), a virgin waiting for the ring before putting out. A mere few hours into their honeymoon road trip from New York to Miami, Lenny realizes that he can't stand Lila, a tone-deaf singer who chews food with her mouth open. When they finally do arrive at Miami beach, Lenny immediately falls for the flirty Kelly (a radiant 22-year-old Cybill Shepherd) and vows to end his nascent marriage and run off to Minneapolis to pursue Kelly despite the feral hatred of Lenny expressed by her banker father (a fun Eddie Albert).

It's obvious here that the crew here is exploring the idea of self-loathing among Jews. The crude, harshly lit Lila seems to have been born a nag, with a grating voice and lousy manners. In stark contrast, the Aryan Kelly is photographed like an angel, a savior, a soothing figure to be worshiped. And Lenny is a walking guilt trip.

Grodin is wonderful as Lenny, who takes advantage of his bride's bad sunburn on their first day at the beach to keep her tethered to the hotel room for a few days as he makes up elaborate excuses to go meet Kelly. His creative lie about a traffic accident is hilarious; the patter is classic Simon. The latter part of the film grows fairly serious, though (as May often did in her dark comedies), when it becomes clear that Lenny is not going to let go of this crush, undaunted by the repetitive weather reports of sub-zero chill that greet him upon his arrival in Minneapolis.

Simon, perhaps reined in by May, is a lot less broad than we remember him from touchstones like "The Odd Couple," "The Out of Towners" and "Biloxi Blues," and instead lets the proceedings simmer to a point that never reaches a full boil. The ending is understated; we realize that the movie all along was not about the appeal of the two women but rather about Lenny's neuroses. The stories he likes to spin about human nature start to weigh on him.

THE NICKEL RIDE (1974) (B) - This hard-boiled mob story struggles mightily for street cred but stumbles at times trying to ratchet up the menace. But we do get an honest tale from the time of quarter beers and rotary-dial phones.

Jason Miller (Father Damien in "The Exorcist") comes off as a finely handsome Charles Bronson figure playing Cooper, a mid-level mob lieutenant intent on cutting a major real estate deal in the middle of a rundown downtown area. (He runs warehouses where mob types stash stolen goods.) The debut script by Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump," "Munich") tones down the swagger and wallows in Cooper's slow slide into depression fueled by his growing irrelevance as a pawn in the bigger game.

Cooper has a pretty young southern belle as a girlfriend (Linda Haynes) and a sympathetic pal who runs a bar, Paddie (Victor French, "The Waltons," "Highway to Heaven"), but he sees his own hold under mob boss Carl (John Hillerman, "Magnum, P.I.") slipping away. And the handwriting seems to be on the wall when a mean-looking cowboy, Turner, shows up looking to stir up trouble in the ranks. (It's rarely a good thing when Bo Hopkins enters the picture.)

Cooper and his galpal, Sarah, whom he refers to lovingly as Georgia, hit the mattresses at a cabin in the woods, hoping to let subside the fallout from a fighter who refused to take a dive. It seems only a matter of time before Turner tries to track them down. This being the mid-'70s, the odds are long that there'll be a truly happy ending.

BONUS TRACK 
Jason Miller is an interesting figure. He has generated fun trivia -- he fathered Jason Patric with Jackie Gleason's daughter. This was his second movie role, which followed an Oscar nomination in his big-screen debut in the iconic "Exorcist." (Wikipedia also reports that he turned down the lead in "Taxi Driver" to take this role.) He had made a splash before that, though, by penning the Pulitzer-winning theater hit "That Championship Season" (which he eventually made into a film in 1982 and which he originally wrote, coincidentally, during down time while performing "The Odd Couple" in Fort Worth, Texas). His fame faded quickly, and he was reduced to mostly TV projects. In the mid-1980s he returned to his hometown to run the Scranton Public Theater. He died in 2001 at age 62. Paul Sorvino crafted a bust of Miller that sits as a memorial in a public square in Scranton.