I remember hearing about Paul Schrader's "Hardcore" when it came out in 1979. I liked-and still do-the work of George C. Scott. Rarely has a man had such a mastery of diction. He could screech and growl in a thunderous rage, and you could hear every syllable clearly. The same with Michael Caine.
The movie didn't appeal to me, which may have been the first inkling that I might become a mature adult. The story of a deeply religious midwesterner who loses his daughter to the porn industry in LA didn't seem to be worth the ticket price. I don't even know if it played in Spokane, WA. Honestly, I don't think it made a dime at the time.
The movie even had a television actress named Season Hubley, a very pretty and appealing woman who, in my mind, might show up in the altogether. The movie still didn't ring a bell.
So, it wasn't until VCR days that I started to watch the rented Hardcore, and I gave up on it after a few minutes. It had Dick Sargent (the second Darren Stevens on Bewitched) as Scott's brother-in-law. I never could stand the guy; his pinched-lips delivery of lines gave me the creeps for some reason. It was set at the start in some ice-belt/rust-belt Siberia. I saw the movie two weeks ago, and exactly where the story begins has already left the building.
Scott flies out to LA to see if the cops have any idea where his skinny little sophomore daughter has gone. They don't (and they couldn't care less), so Scott employs Peter Boyle, one of the most talented actors I've never wanted to look at, and Boyle finds a movie with the kid in it. You can imagine what Scott sees when Boyle puts him in the seat in an empty theater.
Scott rumbles and sobs, "Turn it off. Turn it off! For God's sake, TURN IT OFF!!! Boyle's character is equal parts mercenary and merciful. He tells Scott there's little he can do (but go back to Elk Liver, Indiana, and I'll call you if and when I turn something).
Needless to say that there is a reckoning between employer and private dick (and I use that slang term carefully). Boyle takes a back seat, Pa Scott takes a leave from running his furniture store, and Season Hubley pops up, cute as a button for an "adult actress."
Without going into any more detail about the plot, there are two or three scenes that stand out. Before I describe them, I think the most difficult thing about Hardcore is that I never once suspended disbelief watching George C. Scott as a deeply religious dad desperately seeking Susan-or Amy or Heather. I can't remember. He grumbles and shambles about the shabbier crooks and crannies of Hollywood, delivering lines as if he was really George C. Scott. Hey, there's Dick Sargent playing Fred or Jeff or Herbert. Hey, it's Peter Boyle as, well, the exact opposite of Joe Mannix or Jim Rockford. There's even Season Hubley! She sure is cute and perky, but naked?
Nope. Didn't buy it for a second.
There is one scene where Hubley asks Scott to explain his version of Christianity to her. I got a touch confused with the acronym TULIP that Scott explains to Hubley. She's wearing sunglasses, so you can't see her eyes crossing. It's so complex that it reminded me of a beloved brother-in-law whose ancestors hailed from Fish Lip, Minnesota or somewhere, and, before that, Norwegia. He has attempted to explain some of the Biblical details of why God is God and why you can't be and what happens in the End Times and who will be chosen and who the Proles will be who have to run this dopey planet after the good guys go. My Catholic brain says, "Dude, get out of the tall grass. You're getting wheezily weedy, and, is this how I sound when I'm lecturing in my US History classroom?"
It's a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment, and Hubley essentially says that. Scott grimaces, but presses on.
There's also a moment when Pa, wearing a laughable wig, presents himself as a porn movie producer. He's looking for just the right guy for some sort of gay blade flick. He finds one of the guys who he saw in the Turn-it-off! Scene and proceeds to beat the guy with a coffee table. So much for this poor schlub's looks. Somebody remarks that his looks aren't what he gets hired for.
Ugh.
Ugly is right. Scott's character is coming apart at the scenes, employing money, 16 mm movie cameras, and violence to find his daughter, who, by now, must be completely destroyed by this awful business. Sargent comes to save him-from himself-and bring him home. He orders the brother-in-law away.
Finally, before Scott get's on a track that will lead him to Mr. Big and his daughter, he witnesses a "snuff" film, wherein the Big Guy (no, not Hunter's daddy) walks onto a set, flicks open a switchblade, and leaves an exsanguinated mess . Scott looks disgusted, but there' no sobbing to turn off the movie (Hell, the fun of that movie has left the lobby).
To use a modern term from the Iraq War, he's becoming embedded in the action. In another movie, he would embed himself with Season, but this movie, for all its flaws, doesn't go there. Hubley, at one point in his slide, accuses Scott of being ready to dump her the second he finds his daughter. It's a heartbreaking moment because you just know it's going to happen. She's sitting there naked in a glassed-in peep-show cubicle, feet up on the sill, wide, and Scott isn't shocked anymore. He concentrates on her eyes, but you know he's thinking that this is just the way things are out here.
Daddy finds daughter. "Susan/Maggie/Brunhilda, we're going home. Put on your clothes, and you'll be eating a Bismarck by tomorrow morning!"
"Eff off, you effing effer!"
Recrimination time, and, then, this bowel-ish room in some restaurant or theater dirty bookstore (I don't know) becomes a confessional. Dad tells her he has betrayed her because he didn't help her through mom and dad's divorce. He apologizes for his iceman hereith demeanor. He begs her to forgive him.
I don't want to click the spoiler-alert button on IMDb, so you'll have to see how this turns out.
So, is this movie worth the time it takes to download Tubi? Yeah, I think so. The movie is 43-years-old, but, in this time where 60% of the internet is "fantasy," it holds up well. Paul Schrader doesn't have the reputation for making nice films, nor entertaining ones, but, if the skin and dreck don't send you packing, it's worth seeing a "near-miss" of a movie.
I wonder whatever happened to Season Hubley.
The movie didn't appeal to me, which may have been the first inkling that I might become a mature adult. The story of a deeply religious midwesterner who loses his daughter to the porn industry in LA didn't seem to be worth the ticket price. I don't even know if it played in Spokane, WA. Honestly, I don't think it made a dime at the time.
The movie even had a television actress named Season Hubley, a very pretty and appealing woman who, in my mind, might show up in the altogether. The movie still didn't ring a bell.
So, it wasn't until VCR days that I started to watch the rented Hardcore, and I gave up on it after a few minutes. It had Dick Sargent (the second Darren Stevens on Bewitched) as Scott's brother-in-law. I never could stand the guy; his pinched-lips delivery of lines gave me the creeps for some reason. It was set at the start in some ice-belt/rust-belt Siberia. I saw the movie two weeks ago, and exactly where the story begins has already left the building.
Scott flies out to LA to see if the cops have any idea where his skinny little sophomore daughter has gone. They don't (and they couldn't care less), so Scott employs Peter Boyle, one of the most talented actors I've never wanted to look at, and Boyle finds a movie with the kid in it. You can imagine what Scott sees when Boyle puts him in the seat in an empty theater.
Scott rumbles and sobs, "Turn it off. Turn it off! For God's sake, TURN IT OFF!!! Boyle's character is equal parts mercenary and merciful. He tells Scott there's little he can do (but go back to Elk Liver, Indiana, and I'll call you if and when I turn something).
Needless to say that there is a reckoning between employer and private dick (and I use that slang term carefully). Boyle takes a back seat, Pa Scott takes a leave from running his furniture store, and Season Hubley pops up, cute as a button for an "adult actress."
Without going into any more detail about the plot, there are two or three scenes that stand out. Before I describe them, I think the most difficult thing about Hardcore is that I never once suspended disbelief watching George C. Scott as a deeply religious dad desperately seeking Susan-or Amy or Heather. I can't remember. He grumbles and shambles about the shabbier crooks and crannies of Hollywood, delivering lines as if he was really George C. Scott. Hey, there's Dick Sargent playing Fred or Jeff or Herbert. Hey, it's Peter Boyle as, well, the exact opposite of Joe Mannix or Jim Rockford. There's even Season Hubley! She sure is cute and perky, but naked?
Nope. Didn't buy it for a second.
There is one scene where Hubley asks Scott to explain his version of Christianity to her. I got a touch confused with the acronym TULIP that Scott explains to Hubley. She's wearing sunglasses, so you can't see her eyes crossing. It's so complex that it reminded me of a beloved brother-in-law whose ancestors hailed from Fish Lip, Minnesota or somewhere, and, before that, Norwegia. He has attempted to explain some of the Biblical details of why God is God and why you can't be and what happens in the End Times and who will be chosen and who the Proles will be who have to run this dopey planet after the good guys go. My Catholic brain says, "Dude, get out of the tall grass. You're getting wheezily weedy, and, is this how I sound when I'm lecturing in my US History classroom?"
It's a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment, and Hubley essentially says that. Scott grimaces, but presses on.
There's also a moment when Pa, wearing a laughable wig, presents himself as a porn movie producer. He's looking for just the right guy for some sort of gay blade flick. He finds one of the guys who he saw in the Turn-it-off! Scene and proceeds to beat the guy with a coffee table. So much for this poor schlub's looks. Somebody remarks that his looks aren't what he gets hired for.
Ugh.
Ugly is right. Scott's character is coming apart at the scenes, employing money, 16 mm movie cameras, and violence to find his daughter, who, by now, must be completely destroyed by this awful business. Sargent comes to save him-from himself-and bring him home. He orders the brother-in-law away.
Finally, before Scott get's on a track that will lead him to Mr. Big and his daughter, he witnesses a "snuff" film, wherein the Big Guy (no, not Hunter's daddy) walks onto a set, flicks open a switchblade, and leaves an exsanguinated mess . Scott looks disgusted, but there' no sobbing to turn off the movie (Hell, the fun of that movie has left the lobby).
To use a modern term from the Iraq War, he's becoming embedded in the action. In another movie, he would embed himself with Season, but this movie, for all its flaws, doesn't go there. Hubley, at one point in his slide, accuses Scott of being ready to dump her the second he finds his daughter. It's a heartbreaking moment because you just know it's going to happen. She's sitting there naked in a glassed-in peep-show cubicle, feet up on the sill, wide, and Scott isn't shocked anymore. He concentrates on her eyes, but you know he's thinking that this is just the way things are out here.
Daddy finds daughter. "Susan/Maggie/Brunhilda, we're going home. Put on your clothes, and you'll be eating a Bismarck by tomorrow morning!"
"Eff off, you effing effer!"
Recrimination time, and, then, this bowel-ish room in some restaurant or theater dirty bookstore (I don't know) becomes a confessional. Dad tells her he has betrayed her because he didn't help her through mom and dad's divorce. He apologizes for his iceman hereith demeanor. He begs her to forgive him.
I don't want to click the spoiler-alert button on IMDb, so you'll have to see how this turns out.
So, is this movie worth the time it takes to download Tubi? Yeah, I think so. The movie is 43-years-old, but, in this time where 60% of the internet is "fantasy," it holds up well. Paul Schrader doesn't have the reputation for making nice films, nor entertaining ones, but, if the skin and dreck don't send you packing, it's worth seeing a "near-miss" of a movie.
I wonder whatever happened to Season Hubley.