1983 - THE SURVIVORS, redneck/right wing satire doesn't really work.

The director Michael Ritchie had a reasonably successful career in Hollywood, he could move between mainstream comedies but probably the genre he really excelled at was satire.  The problem with satire is that it's not a particularly popular theme in movies.  Ritchie's film The Survivors is kind of a case in point.

The Survivors is about a couple of New Yorkers who are essentially beaten down by the city and the system.  Walter Matthau owns a gas station and ends up losing it.  Robin Williams is an office worker who gets laid off by a parrot of all things.  Down on their luck, they happen to get mixed up with a robbery at a diner.  The robber is played by Jerry Reed star of many Burt Reynolds redneck comedies.   After identifying Jerry Reed to the police who eventually release him for reasons I can't remember. They go on the run from Reed who now wants to kill them. Fed up with being a victim Williams joins a survivalist group in Vermont where he embraces their philosophy of self reliance and shooting people.

 

The story is a lot for a film that wants to be a comedy and particularly a satire on this country's mania for guns and the right wing self reliance philosophy.  Some of the comedy works some of the time but for the most part it fumbles along while attempting to score some fairly obvious points about the silliness of the survivalist movement. There may be a place for taking pot shots at right wingers in a comedy, but this film ain't it. 

 

Part of the problem with the movie beside the uneven comedy in the script, is the performance of Robin Williams in this film.  It's been a while since I've watched Williams in anything and I have to say he's a lot more "Johnny One Note," than I remember.  He seems to be in only one gear the manic childlike character he created in Mork and Mindy.  After a while he gets very tiresome.  Walter Matthau the old comedy pro barely has to move a muscle to steal the scenes they appear in together.  Even Jerry Reed is funnier than Williams.  In the end the whole thing just kind of sinks into one of those Vermont snowbanks where the film is set.

The film was written by Michael J. Leeson, the running time is 102 minutes.

1989 - FLETCH LIVES, the sequel to Fletch

Let's take a look at the sequel to the 1985 Chevy Chase mystery Fletch, in my opinion one of the better roles that suited his wise ass persona.  The film was again directed by Michael Ritchie one of Hollywood's best satirists  and written by a decent comedy writer Leon Capetanos.  

The first Fletch film was a rather pleasant funny surprise with Chase donning various disguises and accents as he attempts to solve the mystery of a millionaire who wants Fletch to kill him as he is dying of a terminal disease. Chase smart asses him self through that mystery and the film made fairly decent money eventually a sequel was called for.

In this film Fletch travels to Louisiana to claim an inheritance from a deceased relative, he gets himself mixed up with a bike gang, a televangelist, the Klu Klux Klan and a black handy man right out of a Steppin Fetchit film. 

Fletch Lives doesn't measure up to the first film but it has it moments and probably some of the most outrageous Southern stereotypes ever put on screen since Gone With The Wind. Outrageous but at times pretty funny.

Michael Ritchie and Chase manage a few mild satirical shots at Southerners and I suppose the film is as good as a sequel can be while rehashing the best bits of the first film.  Still, I enjoyed Fletch Lives, the running time is a painless 95 minutes.

1972 - PRIME CUT - a very odd gangster film

This one went right over everyone's head.  Michael Ritchie, one of the best satirists in the film business took on the crime film genre with this oddball film.  

  

The film is at first glance a gangster film with Chicago mobsters attempting to collect from a rival gang which just happens to be located in rural Missouri.  It seems the hick gangsters haven't been paying the big city guys the money owed to them.  In an attempt to get the money the Chicago mob has sent some of their best enforcers down to collect. 

 

Unfortunately for the Chicago guys these hicks aren't exactly a bunch of pushovers.  So the Chicago enforcers return to the big city as wieners.   Yes they are processed at a meat plant in Kansas City and shipped back to the mob boss in Chicago as hot dogs.

The Chicago mob boss isn't going to take this lying down so he sends his top "torpedo" played by who else, Lee Marvin.  Bring on the violence.

The under riding theme of the film seems to be about the deep corruption in America's heartland.  The film is a mixture of county fairs, swap meets and farm boys running around with shotguns protecting their way of life even it it means killing a bunch of city slickers.

 

Subtle in it's own unsubtle way.  No one watching this film in 1972 was going to get what was going on.  I doubt even in 2020 a viewer will understand this very crazy satire on American way of life.

Prime Cut was written by Robert Dillon who specialized in very oddball stories, the running time is 88 minutes.

1985 - FLETCH, modest but enjoyable comedy/mystery

Chevy Chase wise crack's his way through a fairly decent mystery as investigative reporter Irwin Fletcher.  The director is Michael Ritchie who turns in a competent professional job on the downside of his career. 

Chevy Chase's real life wiseguy persona can get mighty tiresome after a while but Fletch plays to his strong suit.  He improvised a lot during filming and got to play a lot of different characters since he was supposed to be an undercover reporter.

Fletch has a good cast of character actors, Richard Libertini, George Wendt, Joe Don Baker and Tim Matheson.  The film is also short so it doesn't wear out it's welcome coming in at around and hour and a half.

98 minutes, written by Andrew Bergman.

1979 - AN ALMOST PERFECT AFFAIR - pretty poor love story

A love story from a good but very erratic director, Michael Ritchie.  Ritchie has a very up and down list of films.  He would direct good films like Downhill Racer, The Candidate, Smile and The Bad News Bears and then there were the bad films.  Prime Cut, The Golden Child, Fletch Lives and The Island.  An Almost Perfect Affair is one of his bad films.

 

This is a love story set during the Cannes Film Festival.  A self involved independent film maker has a brief affair with the wife of an Italian film producer.  The independent film maker is at Cannes to peddle his dreary little 16mm film on the life of Gary Gilmore.  Through a  completely contrived circumstance he hooks up with an Italian producers wife.  The resulting romance is to put it mildly dull and very boring, Ritchie phoned this one.

The independent film maker is played by Keith Carradine who is essentially playing the same character he played in Altman's Nashville.  The wife is played by Monica Vitti as the usual larger than life Italian stereotype.  Vitti is definitely playing against type in this film.  Usually her best roles were as some angst ridden depressive woman in Antonioni's better films.  It's kind of dispiriting to watch her perform in this silly romantic comedy plus her English is not very good.

About the only fun to be had in this film are the background glimpses of film personalities such as entertainment reporter Rona Barrett, directors Sergio Leone and Paul Mazursky and actors George Peppard, Brooke Shields and Farrah Fawcett.  But these little cameos can't save this uninteresting film.

93 minutes, written by Walter Bernstein and Don Petersen.

1976 - THE BAD NEWS BEARS, tame comedy and social satire

Nobody remembers Michael Ritchie or his films anymore.  For a while he was known as a director who could mix social satire into his stories in an entertaining way. 

The Bad News Bears is actually a typical sports film.  A group of misfits on a ball team rally together to become friends and compete in the big championship game.  The novelty in this film was to make the team a bunch of Southern California kids with little potty mouths, there is lots of little kid swearing.

The film is pretty conventional and follows the predictable story path leading to the big game.  There's lots of heartbreak and bonding and moments of self discovery, etc.  The satire in the film is also very mild with some tame criticism's about the competitive nature of team sports. 

Walter Matthau good as usual is the drunken team coach of the Bears.   Vic Morrow is also good as the type A coach of the opposing team.  Tatum O'Neal was a pretty hot kid actor at this time so she was cast as the tomboy pitcher for the Bears.  The rest of the cast is a bunch of kids where the main entertainment for the audience  is to watch them screw up on the softball field.

The Bad News Bears was a big hit for Michael Ritchie but in a way it was the high point of his career.  Ritchie for the most part stopped adding social satire into his films and moved into  a more mainstream Hollywood career making mostly uninteresting films after this. 

102 minutes, written by Bill Lancaster.