The Conversation

When one thinks of the great movies of the seventies and there were many The Conversation does not often come to mind. In fact this was not even a movie I was aware of until recently when it appeared in reference to a few other movies that I have watched.

The Conversation was the baby of Francis Ford Coppola. Fresh off his Godfather success Coppola wrote, produced, and directed this psychological thriller starring Gene Hackman.

Hackman plays Harry Caul a surveillance expert who according to one of his peers is " the best bugger on the West Coast." Through the movie we learn that a recording that Caul did years ago led the deaths of a rat in the Teamsters union as well as that mans family. He lives with that guilt. Most of what he does in his career are of the typical insurance scam, cheating spouses sort of thing but as the movie begins we see Caul and his crew performing a unique surveillance.

Two people Bernie Moran, played by Frederic Forest and a woman known only as Ann, played by Cindy Williams, yes that Cindy Williams of Laverne and Shirley fame, are walking around a public square having a conversation. The Conversation is about that conversation and it's effects on all the people. John Cazale plays Caul's assistant. Cazale soon on his way to dieing of cancer and fresh off his role as Frodo in The Godfather was, even in a small role, magnificent.

Hackman again plays an everyman. This is not some suave, debonair, spy. This is a rumpled, balding, eyeglass wearing, everyman who lives in a small nondescript apartment, obsessed with privacy and security and who when he gets home the first thing he does is take off his pants and spend his evening in his boxers. No Harry Caul will never be confused with James Bond.


When preparing the tapes for his buyer Caul becomes concerned that these tapes may lead to someone's murder. Hearing Bernie say to Laurie as they walk around the square that " he would kill us if he could" he becomes sure that his client might do just that. With his past experience this sends Harry into a state of controlled panic. What we learn as the movie progresses is that what you think you hear is often not what you hear and the results of misinterpretation are sometimes much more severe than one might think.

Also starring in this movie are a young Terri Carr and an even younger Harrison Ford along with an uncredited performance by Robert Duvall. Still the movie is Hackman's from beginning to end, a tour de force performance, with Hackman a little more out there than his normal role.


Not quite the movie I expected but certainly one that I would reccomend.

The Rain People

The Rain People is a 1969 movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Perhaps best known as a vehicle for future superstars James Caan, Robert Duvall, and as assistant director George Lucas the movie was a moderate success.

Starring Shirley Knight as Natalie Ravenna a young housewife unsure of what she wants in life. Upon finding out that she is pregnant she takes off on a trip, one that soon becomes a cross country trek. Her husband is none too pleased.

Along the way she picks up a hitchhiker named Jimmy Kilgannon. Nicknamed Killer, Jimmy is an ex college football player who has been injured and suffered brain damamge from repeated blows to the head. Played effectively by Caan he has been given a thousand dollars and told to leave school. We never learn the real specifics of what happened to Jimmy but from the flashbacks in his memory ( that we see ) it appears that he stayed on at school, doing odd jobs, raking leaves and such but eventually has been asked to leave.

Soon after she picks him up Natalie realizes that Jimmy, " Killer", cannot take care of himself. She is struggling with her own identity issues however and does not feel like she can or frankly wants to take care of him. After attempting to find him a job as a laborer for an odd pet shop she realizes she cannot leave him, the man only want to take the boys money and use him for slave wages.

Eventually Natalie runs afoul of a local law officer and things get even stranger. Robert Duvall plays a police officer that has his whole own set of issues.

How these people, connect, interconnect and affect each other's lives makes for an interesting movie. Not much more. It is not a great movie, it struggles to be good but Caan and Duvall are interesting in these early roles.

Apocalypse Now

I have heard many references to this 1979 film by Francis Ford Coppola. The story tells of Special Operations Agent Willard played by Martin Sheen. Willard is assigned the job of journeying up river into Cambodia, not a war zone at the time, and terminating a renegade Colonel who has established his own independent fighting unit of native tribesman.Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando, hovers over the movie.

As the story is set in Vietnam I was not aware that the film is based on the Conrad novel Heart of Darkness. Certainly however it does fit, the scene and century is different but the tail of going up river in a hostile area to find a white man gone power mad with locals as his army is one that transfers.

As Willard starts on his mission he meets interesting characters played by Robert Duvall and others including a very young Laurence Fishburne.

When he arrives far enough into Cambodia to reach the Colonel's stronghold he is allowed entry. There he meets a hopped up photographer played by Dennis Hopper, played very authentically I might add and eventually is brought into the presence of Kurtz.

Brando first appears on screen with his face hidden. His impact on the movie is severe. Though he appears in a limited way over the last quarter of the movie only, knowing that he will be in the movie makes one wait for the moment. Head shaved, voice a rasp Kurtz spins tales and lessons, soliloquy's only he understands.

At the movie's climax Sheen and the one survivor of his crew leave the village with Kurtz last words of " The horror, the horror" ringing in their ears.

I thought this was a good movie, but not a great one. Still some of the scenes are iconic and deservedly so. Brando was an amazing actor and Sheen does not overact in his role, in many ways his voice is in the narration advances the story as much as his actions on the screen.