Living Room Drive-In

Summer television, even in this era of endless channels, brings few rewards (Court TV and E! True Hollywood Story can only occupy so much of one’s time). Thankfully, though, there is Netflix and what better time than now to take full advantage of the recent DVD releases of crime/crime-related movies from one of the greatest periods of American film history: 1968-1980. Sure, there’s The Godfather Part II, Taxi Driver, The French Connection, Chinatown, and the like, but also many less-heralded screen gems. Here’s a sampling of the rich treasures to be had, some of which were heretofore unavailable on either video or DVD:

• The Gambler (1974) and California Split (1974). Two variations on the quintessential narrative loop of the 1970s: the gambler as a metaphor for modern man, half wrecked and half hopeful and all desperate to beat a system (as in the government, or America itself) revealed as soul-sucking and carelessly corrupt. The Gambler tells the story of a college professor (James Caan) in gambling’s thrall, and screenwriter James Toback (himself a college professor and compulsive gambler) does it dark and nasty--it’s a movie half in love with its own gorgeous ’70s New York City ugliness. Director Robert Altman, on the other hand, does it Robert Altman style, rendering California Split, the tale of two poker players (Elliot Gould and George Segal), shaggy, loose, easy-going and then suddenly, surprisingly, heartbreaking.

• No Way to Treat a Lady (1968). Rod Steiger and George Segal (again) tear at the scenery in this dark romp that takes an early and smart run at the cop-tracking-serial-killer-with-whom-he-identifies theme. With the stench from the bloated carcass of Hannibal Lecter finally starting to dissipate, this clever and arch nugget brings the fun back to serial-killer movies.

• Fingers (1978). And it all comes back to James Toback, in this, his directorial debut. Remade (and very well) recently as The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Fingers tells the story of a piano virtuoso-cum-underworld thug. And, in the title role, Harvey Keitel makes it all work. For some people. It’s an audience divider, as Keitel’s tortured character twists and turns and brutalizes us, all the while begging viewers to care about him anyway. And, again for some of us, it’s hard not to.

• Prime Cut (1972). Hat tip to Wallace Stroby for recommending this lil’ jewel with unforgettable turns by a good guy (for the ’70s), Lee Marvin, and a bad guy (for the ages), Gene Hackman, as, respectively, a Chicago enforcer and a Kansan slaughterhouse boss with a hefty vig. This film is an unholy cross between early Daniel Woodrell and Quentin Tarantino--just prepare for an ending that may make you want to throw something at the television screen.

• 3 Women (1977). Sissy Spacek, blank-faced and naked through much of Prime Cut, re-emerges as Pinky Rose in Altman’s great “woman’s picture”--that is, the woman’s picture you always hoped for. Think Ingmar Berman’s Persona meets, well, Robert Altman. Spacek attaches herself to a fellow desert spa employee, chattering and poignant Shelley Duvall, and identities blend and blur as Altman’s trademark slack structure gives us no set path, only a sense of inarticulate anxiety and inexplicable dread.

• The Sentinel (1977). In this underrated ’70s horror flick in the Rosemary’s Baby mode, Christina Raines (Nashville) stars as a fashion model who’s just moved into a glorious Brooklyn Heights brownstone apartment, only to find that it may be the portal point to Hell. Golden Age Hollywood fans can revel in cameos by Arthur Kennedy, José Ferrer, Martin Balsam, John Carradine, and a luminous Ava Gardner, along with a very young and divinely creepy Beverly D’Angelo. Sure, it’s Polsanki lite, but who doesn’t need Polanski lite?

• Pretty Poison (1968). Is there anyone who more cannily reveals the grinning perversity behind the cornflower blue eyes of the All-American Girl better than Tuesday Weld? Strange and wonderful and a more-than-worthy contribution to the deranged couple genre. Anthony Perkins appears as Weld’s outmatched partner in crime.

• Hardcore (1979). No summer is complete without the frustrating brilliance of writer-director Paul Schrader and here he is in full dark, suffering-Calvinist bloom. Midwestern businessman George C. Scott goes looking for his daughter, who went missing from a church trip. As he plumbs the depths of the seediest Los Angeles this side of Star 80, the film turns darker and darker. It’s The Searchers at heart, of course, and there’s nothing not to love about that.

• Foxes (1980). Speaking of ugly-beautiful Los Angeles, here’s some candy for a summer evening. Four teenage girls, including Jodie Foster and Cheri Currie, the Runaways singer (sadly lacking her onstage zest), drown their misery at being teenage girls in the Valley in booze, pills, and much-older men. The counterculture desperadoes of the 1960s and ’70s now have adolescents of their own, but are too distracted or debauched to take notice. Movie poster tagline: “The city had it coming.”

And these only scratch the surface (the hard-to-get Panic in Needle Park, with pre-Godfather Al Pacino and a script by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, was finally released on DVD a few weeks back). Happy viewing, indeed.