Cinema: Quick Cuts

• Share

McQ presents John Wayne in civvies, which seems a little like dressing Gary Grant in bib overalls. The Duke messes around casually with playing the title character, a Seattle cop who quits the force to press a vigorous one-man investigation of his partner's death. His searches lead to discoveries of gangsterism in the import business, corruption in high places, lax moral standards in corporations and other illuminations that come as more of a surprise to Wayne than anyone else.

The action sequences are frequent but arthritic. Colleen Dewhurst — whom one hardly expects to find in such company—provides an agreeable cameo as a roundheeled cocktail waitress with a taste for cocaine. The Duke remains amiable and unruffled throughout, but it is a bit troubling to see him poaching so obviously on Clint Eastwood's loner-cop territory.

As for Eastwood himself, he makes a halfhearted attempt, in MAGNUM FORCE, to clean up Dirty Harry, that law-and-order fascist manqué whom you hated to hate a couple of seasons back. Once again, as in the 1971 film named for him, Detective Harry Callahan (Eastwood) is confronted by a series of apparently motiveless, definitely psychopathic murders. This time, it turns out, they are not the work of an isolated madman but of a self-appointed death squad, members of Harry's own San Francisco police department who have grown impatient with the delays and niceties of the rule of law. This gives Harry an opportunity to pull the old switcheroo. Unlikely as it seems, he announces that for all his notorious individualism he believes in working for change through the system.

This liberal-mindedness on the part of the film makers seems more opportunistic than deeply felt—an attempt, perhaps, to still political criticism of the earlier film. But what really spoils the formula is a thin and meandering script by John Milius and listless direction by Ted Post, whose work cannot stand even glancing comparison with Don Siegel's authoritative handling of Dirty Harry. The film climaxes, as all policiers apparently must, with a car chase, but it is nowhere near as interesting as the successful off-casting of nice Hal Holbrook as a heavy. He is the only one present who seems genuinely interested in What's going on.

THE FIGHTERS concerns the first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier bout in March 1971 and shows every moment of every round, recorded by a battery of cameras stationed all over Madison Square Garden. With only this fight footage, meticulously edited, Director William Greaves would have had a fine sports film. What lifts The Fighters out of the special-interest category is the first hour of documentary on the preparations for the match. The fighters, the promoters, the managers, the hangers-on, all speak a kind of spiked Odets chatter that makes the movie look and sound like a cinéma vérité replay of Body and Soul. Greaves has a quick eye and an obvious affection for the more flamboyant personalities behind the sport. A reporter at a swanky press reception rather tentatively badgers Promoter Jack Kent Cooke about the high cost of fight tickets. "Well, I'd like everyone to drive a Cadillac, like everybody to be employed, get a good education," Cooke replies with a fulsome disdain. "But," he adds with ill-disguised glee, "it just isn't that kind of world."