'WUSA' .....PAUL, JOANNE & THE DAWN OF ALT-RIGHT AND HATE RADIO....

WUSA (1970)   Given the excruciating slow process of major studio filmmaking, it took over two years after the cataclysmic, blood soaked hell of 1968 until the studios woke up and smelled the tear gas. At long last, in 1970, Hollywood rolled out its various cinematic responses to the upheavals of the era.....the assassinations of beloved leaders, campus riots, the demoralizing Nixon presidency,  the ever raging Vietnam war and the drifting of youth into open rebellion and drug-fueled hippie-dom.

         "WUSA" came with the highest pedigree of all these films......star power in Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Anthony Perkins and a literate script by novelist Robert Stone based on his book "A Hall Of Mirrors". It sank without a trace, killed instantly by Stuart Rosenberg's inert leaden direction and (in the BQ's humble opinion)  Stone's maddening elliptical dialogue, which cleverly danced all around the incendiary subject matter without ever confronting it directly.

           Arriving in New Orleans with only fifty dollars and a suit bag, Newman plays Rheinhardt, a alcoholic world-weary cynic and ex-musician turned 'communicator'...aka radio DJ. He stumbles upon Geraldine (Woodward), another drifting lost soul, a part time waitress and full-time abused, physically scarred floozy. The decent Geraldine makes futile efforts to serve as Rheinhardt's conscience as he becomes, to his own bitter amusement, a rising star DJ/commentator  at the fast growing radio station WUSA.

              The sinister WUSA,  owned and operated by a jovial bigwig bigot (Pat Hingle), drapes itself in All-American patriotic fervor while not-so-secretly pursuing a right wing racist agenda.  One of its schemes involves a phony survey of the city's African Americans, designed to expunge them off the welfare rolls. As their prize patsy to conduct this survey, they employ Rainey (Perkins), a twitching, stuttering do-gooder naif, fresh from a nervous breakdown and only just beginning to realize he's nothing but a clueless pawn in WUSA's covert race war.

              Sounds like irresistibly heady stuff, right?  In the hands of a powerhouse director, (maybe an Elia Kazan or even a down 'n dirty sensationalist like Robert Aldrich) this film might have sprung to the crazy heights it aspires to......after all, it even comes equipped with its own apocalyptic finale, a "Day Of The Locust" bloodbath at a WUSA flag waving pep rally. But Stuart Rosenberg directs it all as if he's both underwater and under sedation.......the actors are game (especially in a telling verbal duel between the dissolute Newman and the quaking, kindly Perkins....."You cornpone Christ!"  Newman snickers at him...) but the scenes lie there and die there.

                 We never do get to hear any of WUSA's poisonous broadcasts.......the film leaves those to your imagination. But as failed as the movie is, it's uniquely prescient in its depiction of a broadcast entity existing only to spew bile and hatred into the national bloodstream. On our first viewing, we thought Rheinhardt's rise to fame made no sense.......why would WUSA pick such a morally bankrupt faker to articulate its propaganda instead of finding an honestly rabid ideologue?

              Looking at the film through the misery of current events, we take back our initial objections. Newman's character looks way more believable to us now. Rheinhardt, that brazen, silver-tongued opportunist who tells people what they long to hear, believes only in himself and his ability to profitably surf the wave of unleashed anger and fear he arouses.

              Didn't we just elect a Rheinhardt?   For its cast and its 1970 crystal ball gaze into a future filled with enough chaos to make 1968 appear quaint....we'll dial up 3 stars (***) for WUSA.