One Picture Says It All: "Mac & Me"

At first blush, the film Mac & Me looks like just an ET ripoff. That fact is probably the best thing about it, because the film was also supposed to serve a darker purpose- to promote a variety of products, but mostly McDonald's.

In fact, the film comes to a grinding halt so that the characters can visit the Southern California McDonald's where all of the company's commercials are filmed. This visit turns into an impromptu dance sequence where kids 'get down' with Ronald McDonald. It's as cringe inducing and ridiculous as you can imagine. McDonald's never tried such a transparent promotion again.

 

One Picture Says It All: "Skidoo"

No film in the 1960's was more misbegotten or out of touch than 1968's Skidoo. The film was Otto Preminger's attempt to show that big budget mainstream Hollywood films could still reach the youth audience, which was increasingly turning its back on them. It was also a way for Otto to connect with his college aged son, who had been kept a secret from him until right before that time.

Otto ended up proving the opposite of what he intended- Skidoo was an out of touch mess. He stocked the film with actors who were better suited for a retirement home than a hip movie for the youth of the day. Did he possibly believe that a film starring the likes of Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Burgess Meredith, Groucho Marx and Frank Gorshin would pull in the young people?

The picture that best illustrates this movie's cluelessness is from the scene where Carol Channing performs a strip tease for Frankie Avalon in order to find out where her husband had run off. Viewers could be forgiven for believing they had fallen asleep and had somehow started having a bizarre dream. It is difficult to imagine who Otto thought this scene would appeal to. It's one of the tackiest and clueless scenes from a film that was extremely tacky and clueless.

 

One Picture Says It All: "Road House"

Nobody would accuse the Patrick Swayze film Road House of being an Oscar-caliber movie. Could any film about a sleazy dive ever be one? It is imminently watchable however.

The film seems to exist in its own universe, however. Bouncers are nationally known and petty crime bosses can be killed with no apparent repercussions. It's a fun type of crazy that only caught on with audiences after it began airing on cable television.

It's hard to choose just one picture that could represent the tawdry yet hilarious film, but we'll go with one from the scene that sparks the first big fight in the film. A sleazy gentleman is depicted selling gropes of his wife's breasts for just twenty dollars. A young man who samples the goods angers these budding entrepreneurs when he announces that he doesn't have twenty dollars, thus setting off a bar room brawl.

The scene perfectly encapsulates the insanity of the film that lives in its very own world.

 

One Picture Says It All: "Airport '79"

Disaster films were huge in the 1970's. Some film historians claim that it was due to American disillusionment with government agencies due to the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam and Watergate. The granddaddy of the disaster films was Airport, a melodramatic film that oddly garnered numerous Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Film. The film featured a who's who of actors on the way up or on the way down, creating a pattern for other films in the genre to follow- call up nearly everyone in Hollywood, hire the first twenty or so people who answered their phone, then put them on a conveyance that was destined for disaster. Airport was wildly successful, spawning a franchise that was definitely running on fumes by 1979.

Rather than get out while they were ahead, the producers of Airport decided to go to the well at least one more time. In the final outing, the well of celebrities willing to be in these films had long dried up and the franchise was stuck with the type of cast one might expect on an episode of the Love Boat- there was Martha Raye, Jimmy JJ Walker, John Davidson and Charo. (An example of the film's ineptitude- Martha Raye but not Charo has a wet t-shirt scene.)

The picture that says it all about this film is when George Kennedy opens up a window (on the Concorde!) to fire off a flare gun to divert a heat seeking missile. Again, this happens on the Concorde! Could the writer of this film science? Probably, but to paraphrase MST3K, they just didn't care.

 

One Picture Says It All: "Mommie Dearest"

It was supposed to be an Oscar-caliber production that would bring prestige and golden statues to Paramount Pictures. Everyone on the set left the production believing that they were destined to meet again on the awards circuit. Nobody was more sure of it than Faye Dunaway, who expected that her star turn as Joan Crawford would be heralded by audiences and critics alike. Mommie Dearest was primed for its time in the Hollywood sun.

For those who have never seen it, Mommie Dearest was based on the memoirs of Christina Crawford, who painted a violent, abusive picture of her mother, Hollywood legend Joan Crawford. Adopted as a prop to further her mother's career, Christina painted a bleak depiction of her life as a Hollywood daughter. Though the book was released after Joan's death, the two had become estranged long before then and Joan was written out of Joan's will. Some say that Joan had caught wind of Christina's book project and the change to her will was a last minute slap in the face.

Regardless of whether one believes Christina's side of the story, there's no debate over the campiness of the film. Instead of being greeted with applause, Mommie Dearest received laughs and jeers. Faye Dunaway's over the top performance was not seen as being a huge joke; it was a stark lesson in what happens when an ego-centric actress is not reigned in by the director. Paramount quickly withdrew its serious ad campaign and substituted one that depicted the film as a campy comedy. Faye Dunaway was devastated. Paramount Pictures, on the other hand, found itself with a decent hit on its hands, one that made more money than it would have as the Oscar-bait film everyone originally thought it was.

When thinking about what still picture from the film perfectly encapsulates its insanity, it would be easy to choose one from the notorious wire hangers scene. Instead, we chose this one. Faye Dunaway looks like a man in drag, painted up like a cartoon version of Joan Crawford, brutalizing her daughter with an open handed slap. Instead of feeling the horror we're supposed to feel about this abuse, the scene instead elicits laughs like the rest of the over the top film. It's hard to see what made this film's cast and crew think they were making a best picture caliber film and easy to see where it all went horribly, terribly wrong.