Cynical Cinema

“Whoa, man.  That’s a lotta bread.”

Peggy Lipton, in 1969, was scrumptious.  She was so hot forty years ago, that I am willing to bet good money that today, she remains quite striking.  It’s a hunch I have.  But the point is that in 1969, she was ridiculously attractive, and safe.  Why safe?  Well, because I can watch Season Two, Volume One of The Mod Squad, out November 25th from Paramount Home Entertainment, and lust after Peggy Lipton, without getting into trouble with my girlfriend.  Because although she rolls her eyes at my silliness, she knows that were I to meet Peggy Lipton today, she would be in her 60s and pose no threat. 

I have often tried to make the point that lusting after Scarlett Johanssen is no different, because were I to meet her today, she would have no interest in a fat, unattractive individual like myself anyway.  I couldn’t get her into bed if I was the richest, funniest, most clever man alive.  But somehow there is a difference.  This is why I’ve been watching so many Audrey Hepburn movies lately.  Again, Audrey Hepburn poses no threat.

And once again, the best reason to watch The Mod Squad is, indeed, Peggy Lipton.  The second best reason to watch is the dialogue.  I’m not sure if it sounded realistic in 1969 or 1970, but listening to this stuff now is hilarious.  They refer to money as “bread”.  Like, “that’s a lotta bread”.  They take down bad guys in “groovy” fashion.  And they sure don’t look like “the man”.  There are even political messages in some of the episodes.  The first episode of Season Two is one that is clearly in favour of legalizing abortion.  A back-alley abortionist wishes fervently that she would be out of a job, should the procedure be legalized.

The second season gets a slightly better rating than the first one, simply because there is more Peggy Lipton involved.  And she is totally scrumptious.  Just don’t tell my girlfriend I said so.

There is a bit of controversy over the shutout of American Gangster at the Oscars. It was not nominated for best picture, and both Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington were shut out of the nominations for best actor. I understand the snub of Crowe. (Frankly, he deserves it more for 3:10 to Yuma than he does for this movie.) But the only reason I can think of for snubbing Washington is that he is too tailor-made for this part. You forget that he is an actor, because you’re watching Denzel Washington. As though it were a reality show about his life. If Denzel killed people and ran a drug empire and married Miss Puerto Rico, this would be exactly what his life would look like. The one role he has played to which I could compare this one was in Training Day, and he won the Oscar for that one. And here, he is better. That really is the strength of American Gangster, the performances.

Not just Washington, but Russell Crowe is reliably terrific as the cop tracking him down, and the supporting cast is remarkably good. The RZA, of the Wu-Tang clan, appears here, and as soon as I saw him I thought “oh, no! A rapper in a major role means this movie will start to hit Seagal territory in parts”. But the RZA is good. So is Armand Assante, who I love, and Josh Brolin as a crooked cop. Cuba Gooding Jr. is in the film also, and I absolutely hate Cuba Gooding Jr. However, he has maybe five lines, total, and wasn’t around long enough to irritate me. I also really like the inclusion of Clarence Williams III as Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson. Johnson was a real-life legendary gangster figure in New York, and he was the subject of the under-rated 1997 movie “Hoodlum”, where he was played by Lawrence Fishburne in one of the best roles of his career.

In American Gangster, Bumpy dies near the beginning, and his right-hand-man, chauffeur and gopher, Frank Lucas, is left a little adrift. Frank is played by Denzel Washington, and he has few choices. Now that his mentor is gone, he can either leave town and go back to his family, or work for someone else, or take matters into his own hands. Of course, he chooses the third option and rises to power as the number one dealer, importer and gangster in New York. He manages to exist on the periphery, away from the other gangsters, the corrupt cops, and the good cops. One of those good cops is Russell Crowe, who has been blackballed by his police department for being a good cop. In a few scenes very reminiscent of Serpico, he is left hanging because the other cops in the department feel that if a cop won’t take money, then he of course would turn in cops who do. But of course, it isn’t black-and-white. Washington is not all bad, Crowe is not all good, which of course happens in any great movie. And a lot of bad ones.

What really sets American Gangster apart, aside from the fantastic actors doing fantastic acting, is the style. Ridley Scott has managed to make some of the most visually appealing movies in history. (Check out his early work, like The Duellists, or Alien). Sometimes that goes off the rails and the movie suffers for the stylish makeup - think Hannibal, or Black Hawk Down. But in American Gangster, Scott seems to treat the whole movie almost like a period piece. Of all his movies, this one feels the most like The Duellists, both in it’s theme and it’s style. It moves along at a crackling pace on the backs of Washington and Crowe, and although it runs more than two and a half hours, you never have a sense of the time passing. Tremendously engaging and fantastically done.

Boy, did I ever miss out when I was younger. Or, more accurately, by being born too late. I did not get to see Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Syd Barrett, The 13th Floor Elevators or the other cultural icons of the sixties do their thing. I never got to see the Beatles perform, I was nowhere when JFK was shot, I was unable to experience Paul Henderson’s goal for myself, and I missed out on The Mod Squad. Well, thankfully this fine show was preserved in a sixties time capsule for me by the good people at Paramount and released in a glorious 4-disc DVD box set! The main thing I took from this show was that at one point, Clarence Williams III was a major star of a major show. Was this a major show? I don’t even really know. Oh, he’s still around, playing bit parts in movies such as American Gangster and ridiculous parts in movies such as Half Baked and Reindeer Games. But he is the only cast member I recognize. Michael Cole looks a lot like Roger Daltrey to me, which was likely a perfect casting choice for the time, but I don’t see his name in the credits of any movie since 1992’s classic Triple Impact. And Peggy Lipton was definitely hot in 1969, and she has kept working over these past 40 years, but in nothing significant enough that anyone would have seen it.

The main premise of the show is that three “street kids” are recruited by the cops to work undercover, rather than go to prison. They are continually referred to as kids, despite the fact that Michael Cole was clearly 48 at the time of filming. I guess he paved the way for the likes of Luke Perry in later years. The “kids” talk jive to one another, and at the end of each episode, ruminate wisely about the events that have just taken place, and how those events may well shape the rest of their bright futures. I assume this show was a fairly big one , simply because in later years Claire Danes was recruited to create a movie version of the program. Much like Starsky and Hutch, Miami Vice, and every other movie based on a TV program, The Mod Squad movie sucked.

But watching this show reminded me of the old days. Days when I would come home after a night out and sit by the TV, watching The Simpsons late, and afterward a program called Funky Squad. Does anyone remember this show? It was clearly something that CTV had dredged up from the 70s, and was also an obvious parody of The Mod Squad. Since I was rarely in a straightforward state when I watched this program, I can’t recall if it was good or not, but I do remember finding it hilarious at the time. If there is one show that is ripe for parody, it’s The Mod Squad. It just isn’t ripe for a Hollywood movie ripoff. The Mod Squad, Season One, Volume 2 contains some classic episodes, like When Julie’s Mom Comes To Visit, and The Crime Ring That Extorts The Parents Of Young Babies.