Built Ford Tough

Werth: Hi there, Wise!

Wise:  Hello, Werth. Is that poorly wrapped gift you're holding for me?

Werth: No. I forgot Harrison Ford's birthday two weeks ago and now I'm wondering if it's too late to give him his present.

Wise: He might be a bit busy with the premiere of his new movie, Cowboys and Aliens.

Werth: Oh right! Ford and Daniel Craig play a couple of cowboys lookin' to rassle up some cussed invaders of the outer space variety.

Wise: Ford's career has been full of heroes who've had to deal with aliens in one form or another.

Werth: Wookies, Nazis and the Amish—he's dealt with them all—but one of my favorite roles is the one where he goes up against "skin jobs."

Wise: Sounds like something that happens at a frat house on Wednesday night. 

Werth: After creating his two most iconic characters in Star Wars (1977) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Ford wanted to break away from Han and Indy and do something with a little more gravitas. So when Steven Spielberg recommended him to Ridley Scott for the film version of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ford took the gig.

Wise: Androids and electric sheep sound less like gravitas and more like nerd farming.

Werth: At first glance, I'd agree, but Scott's Blade Runner (1982) really transcends the sci-fi genre. After blending horror and sci-fi so successfully in Alien (1979), Scott did something very interesting. With his production team he took the science fiction aspects of Dick's novel and infused them with the elements of film noir giving birth to what some call "tech noir." Rick Deckard is a blade runner—a quasi-cop who hunts down and terminates errant androids. 

But rather than sporting space suits and jet packs, Deckard is the quintessential hard-boiled private eye. He's not too talkative, wears a trench coat, smokes, drinks whiskey and has an eye for the ladies. But like P.I. heroes Bogey and Mitchum, his hard surface conceals a thoughtful soul, with a tarnished sense of right and wrong. As he hunts down these androids who look just like us, he begins to question just what makes us—or them—human?

Wise: I wonder that every time I watch America's Next Top Model. 

Werth: Art designer David L. Snyder, production designer Lawrence G. Paull, and set decorator Linda DeScenna seamlessly melded the L.A. of the future with its crime-ridden past. Ziggurat-like buildings pierce the bright gloom created by flaming gas jets high above the city, while below, wrecked art deco and classical architecture crumble beneath the gaze of towering Japanese video ads and monotonous blimp messages. 

Metal fan blades and ceiling fans whip through smoke-filled air as if the year was 1941 and not 2019. Costumes designed by Michael Kaplan and Charles Node are visions of shoulder pads, knee-length skirts and fur collars as if they were dressing Joan Crawford and not Sean Young. 

Young's red lips and upswept hair speak of another era while she walks down a crowded, rain-covered street populated by air-cars and videophones. Even the Vangelis soundtrack is a synthesizer re-working of noir instruments like the piano and sax. It's a masterwork of setting that blends the look and dark themes of these two genres together.

Wise: The atmosphere is so richly layered that it sometimes threatens to overshadow the actors.

Werth: Some critics at the time thought so. But Ford's tough guy with a sensitive side routine is effortless, Sean Young's beautiful and damaged Rachael portended an acting career that never materialized, Daryl Hannah's gymnastic performance as a "pleasure model" is a sadist's delight and 

Rutger Hauer is so creepy in his Aryan other-ness that it requires no leap of faith to imagine that he is a mad machine, killing people until he can find the answers he is seeking. With a dedicated cult following and renewed critical appreciation, Blade Runner's lackluster box office performance at the time probably had more to do with a misleading marketing campaign and its summer competition (a little movie called E.T.) than with the actual quality of the film.

Wise: Ford has had his share of blockbuster hits. What's interesting is that his star persona has always been something of a reluctant hero.  While his early roles leavened his courage with a witty sardonicism, his latter roles required him to play the quiet, noble man who gets pushed too far.  And no role typifies this change more than President James Marshall in Air Force One (1997).  

Werth: The Electoral College does radically change a man.  

Wise: While on a state visit to Russia, President Marshall abandons a prepared speech to denounce the war crimes of imprisoned General Ivan Radek.  This breech prompts a minor diplomatic crisis, and when the First Family boards Air Force One, a rogue group of Radek's loyalists led by Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman) hijack the plane and take the President, his family and the cabinet hostage.  

Werth: Are all the Russians named Ivan in this film? 

Wise: After a skirmish, President Marshall is hustled to an escape pod by the Secret Service, and the hijackers contact the White House where Vice President Kathryn Bennett (Glenn Close) skillfully manages the power grabs and protocol while Washington roils over the possibility that the President has been killed.  Of course, Marshall hasn't run off to safety, but instead has secreted himself on the plane while he steels himself to outfox and outfight his captors.  

Werth: After dealing with Calista Flockhart, it should be a breeze.  

Wise: Of course it is, but director Wolfgang Petersen stages the action with constantly escalating intensity, and while the final outcome is never in doubt, when victory does come, it feels both cathartic and hard-earned.  But it's definitely Harrison Ford's performance that transforms what could have been a run-of-the-mill action movie into something worth watching.  

Screenwriter Andrew W. Marlowe provided all the typical thrills and double-crosses de rigueur to action films of this stripe, but Ford's charisma brings nobility and an almost imperceptible wink of humor to the project, preventing it from falling into an overblown fantasia of revenge.  

Werth: Too bad Petersen couldn't create any excitement in his remake of The Poseidon Adventure.  

Wise: He also directed Das Boot and The NeverEnding Story, so he must either be a genre genius—  

Werth: Or a madman.  Speaking of, do you think I would look crazy if I went to the Cowboys and Aliens premiere to give Harrison Ford his present?  

Wise: Why don't you just saddle up for next week's adventure at Film Gab?  

Like, Totally Gab Me with a Spoon!

Wise: Hey there, Werth.

Werth: Oh, hi, Wise.

Wise: Why so glum?  

Werth: Because tonight is the last night of 1984, the fabled NYC 80’s dance party at The Pyramid where I spent many happy nights busting a move.  

Wise: Does this mean I can never break out the dance moves to Thriller ever again?  

Werth: Not unless you’ve installed a light-up dance floor in your apartment.  

Wise: I’ll work on that. 

Werth: I think the only way we can deal with this wrench thrown into our dancing machines is to gab about a movie from that more innocent, neon-colored time.

Wise: Let me slip into a pair of parachute pants.

Werth; Picture it—May 28—the opening of the 1984 Summer Movie Blockbuster Season. I’m still too young for braces, but old enough to want to see one of the most anticipated sequels of the time: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom!

Wise: Not Cannonball Run II?

Werth: I loved Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and I couldn’t wait to see what exciting, whip-cracking archaeological adventures Han Solo—I mean Harrison Ford—would embark on.

Wise: Too bad Chewbacca got stuck at the university teaching a summer course.   

Werth: The film opens with Indy in glamorous 1935 Shanghai at a Busby Berkley-inspired dinner club. While chasing down a precious diamond and a poison cure at the same time, Indy makes the acquaintance of Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw), nightclub singer, chronic whiner and future wife of Steven Spielberg. It isn’t long before they are joined on the run by Indy’s industrious, pint-sized sidekick, Short Round played with Oriental pluck by Jonathan Ke Quan. Something about Jonathan’s performance zeal spoke to me, so I put a poster of Short Round on the door in my closet.

Wise: There are so many things I could say here.

Werth: After foiling certain death by jumping out of a plane and skiing down the Himalayas in an inflatable raft, the intrepid crew comes upon a poverty-stricken village that implores the famous Dr. Jones to retrieve three rocks known as the Sankara Stones that will restore prosperity to their lives... oh and all the kids in the village have been kidnapped and taken to the Taj Mahal up the hill.

Wise: There’s a lot going on in this script.

Werth: That’s not the half of it! But that was the allure of the Indiana Jones films. Spielberg and George Lucas combined fantastic, retro action/adventure-packed stories with cutting-edge special effects to create non-stop cinematic thrill rides. In fact some of the sequences in Temple were considered too thrilling. The scenes of “traditional” Indian haute cuisine and hearts being ripped out of living human sacrifices caused some parents groups to rage that the film’s PG rating was not strong enough. So the MPAA invented the PG-13 rating, assuaging parents and helping blockbuster filmmakers find a comfortable box-office sweetspot between PG and R ratings.

Wise: Because who doesn’t love a theater packed with thirteen year old boys?  

Werth: Fans of the Indiana Jones Trilogy (no, I don't count that recent, stillborn cinematic blunder Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) frequently rate Temple of Doom as their least favorite—maligning Capshaw's spoiled princess character. However, I personally relate to Capshaw's non-adventuress. If I was trapped in a floor-to-ceiling, bug-covered room or dropped into the mouth of a live volcano by a skull-wearing nutjob, I'd be a little peevish too. And I think the choice to break away from Karen Allen’s brilliant “capable dame” performance in Raiders, if nothing else, provides some comic relief from the unrelenting pace. And Capshaw’s Chinese language version of "Anything Goes" is a hoot.

Wise: I often find myself humming along to Mandarin versions of Cole Porter tunes.  

Werth: Time goes by and new technologies have made movies faster, noisier and more like theme park rides than ever before, but nothing can ever really diminish that special pre-adolescent thrill that Temple inspired in this dorky kid from the Heartland. What 1984 flick inspired your dorkiness, Wise?

Wise: Based on Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel of the same name, The Natural recounts the story of nineteen-year-old baseball prodigy Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) who, while on his way to try out for the Chicago Cubs, strikes out a Babe Ruth-like ballplayer at a carnival and is subsequently shot by Harriet Byrd (Barbara Hershey), a madwoman who sees it as her mission to wipe out arrogant baseball players.  The film flashes ahead sixteen years to 1939, when an older, chastened Hobbs appears at tryouts for the fictional New York Knights.  After a rocky start, he eventually impresses the coaching staff, played with cuddly gruffness by Wilford Brimley and Richard Farnsworth, and joins the team as a “middle aged rookie.” 

Werth: Baseball? Wise? Alan Wise?

Wise: Despite his age, Hobbs eventually becomes the star of the team which puts him in the bad graces of the club’s owner The Judge who has a financial stake in the Knights losing the pennant.  When Hobbs refuses a bribe to throw the season, The Judge sends Memo Paris (Kim Basinger) to seduce Hobbs and ruin his career, but a chance encounter with his childhood sweetheart Iris Gaines (Glenn Close) restores his faith in playing ball.  The Judge continues to up the ante, and Hobbs eventually must decide between his health and the game he loves.  

Werth: What’s next? Field of Dreams? Eight Men Out?... Major League II?!

Wise: A number of critics have pointed out how the movie romanticizes the bleakness of Malamud’s novel, but The Natural was clearly made as a star vehicle for Robert Redford and the liberties the producers took in their adaptation seem entirely appropriate to a Hollywood golden boy who was in the early stages of taking a more active role behind the camera.  Both Hobbs and Redford were sterling talents who learned to appreciate the quieter, more hard-won pleasures that come with maturity.  

Werth: Who are you?! Where is my Judy Garland, Oz-loving friend, Alan?! 

Wise: I should also mention how perfect the entire supporting cast is, especially Glenn Close’s Oscar nominated performance which breathed life and humanity into what could have been a merely symbolic role.  Also worthy of a mention is Randy Newman’s soaring yet deeply personal score as well as Caleb Deschanel’s dreamy cinematography.  Has our trip down 1984 memory lane made you feel less depressed about the closing of your favorite danceclub?

Werth: Yes, but now that you’ve exposed your masculine side, I want you to get to work on building that dancefloor.

Wise: Tune in next week for more Popping and Gabbing!