Long before Beau and Jeff Bridges teamed up in 1989 for "The Fabulous Baker Boys". they went on their own trajectories through young actor stardom. And they couldn't have picked a better decade than the 70's to flourish in, since neither of them looked or sounded like conventional movie stars.....perfect for the decade that saw the rise of both unconventional films and the new quirky actors who appeared in them.
In both these films, 6 years apart, each Bridges Bro begins as a young, bored member of wealthy families. For one reason or another, they deeply involve themselves with lower-class, urban properties..... either ripe for refurbishing or demolishing to make way for skyscrapers.
What each of their characters don't count on is becoming deeply and forever involved in the lives and plights of the people they encounter outside of their entitled, privileged circle.
In director Hal Ashby's "The Landlord" Elgar Enders (Beau Bridges) is a pampered Long Island layabout who naively buys a crumbling Brooklyn ghetto tenement. In a sharp, satiric clash of both racial and class warfare, Elgar's plan to hollow out the building as a deluxe home for himself goes awry. As the most unlikely landlord of his struggling black tenants, (and illicit lover of one of them), Elgar's plunge into the real world of low-income, racial strife forever alters his worldview.....(clearly for the better.)
As in many 70's films that declared their rebellious, anti-establishment spirit, "The Landlord" broadly caricatures Elgar's snobbish, clueless family as well as indulging in New Wave jump cuts borrowed from French cinema. But despite all the fussy, dated techniques, the film still resonates with some powerful and darkly funny moments......well delivered by Beau Bridges and a goldmine of a supporting cast - Lee Grant, Diana Sands, Lou Gossett Jr. and Pearl Bailey.
Now we'll ditch New York and head down South to Birmingham Alabama, y'all.....to director Bob Rafelson's "Stay Hungry".......and Jeff Bridges in a similar role to his big brother, playing Craig Blake, a wealthy, old money, young princeling......a good ole rich boy who's his clan's last surviving heir and still living in his huge empty mansion with the family's lifelong butler. (Scatman Crothers)
This film, which dabbles freely in dry satire, romance, drama and absurd comedy, hinges on Craig's dabbling in real estate schemes with his greedy, good-ole-boy pals. They need him to help them buy out Thor Erikson (R.G. Armstrong) the owner-operator of a rundown, seedy gym-spa that stands in the way of a projected new high rise.
You know of course that the decent, unassuming, but decidedly oddball cast of characters at the gym will befriend the easy-going, lackadaisical Craig.....and vice versa. These include Joe Santo, a sweetly simple soul who's both a Mr. Universe bodybuilder and a gifted country fiddler....(played by none other than, who else, a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his first major film role) And becoming way, way more than a friend to Craig is the gym's feisty pixie receptionist Mary Lou (Sally Field, sexy as hell and making her first real foray into a leading film role.)
Like, "The Landlord", 'Stay Hungry' swings back and forth between the two disparate worlds Jeff Bridges finds himself uncomfortably straddling - the Country Club lives of his social circle and his new collection of scrabbling, down-to-earth, and sometimes a little crazy gym folk. All of it leads to fairly wild finale that attempts to mix some grim melodrama with a grand comic spectacle played out on the busy crowded streets of Birmingham. This ambitious attempt at capping the film with a Fellini-esque sequence doesn't quite come off, but deserves a B Plus for effort.
Anyhoo.....put these two films together and you've got yourself a provocative double feature.....a pair of distinctive movies that came out of major studios but equal any of today's independent films in their fierce, off-the-beaten track fervor. For both films 4 stars each (****)
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