I'm wondering based upon Arnold Schwartznegger's 1976 win of a Golden Globe for best film debut just who else made their film debut that year. Other than Jessica Lange in the critically maligned remake of "King Kong", I can't think of anyone. It isn't that the future "governator" is bad; he just does nothing other than play himself. Long Before he said, "I'll be back" (and apparently now says, "Oh, my back!"), he came off as a humble Austrian with a basic good nature, working with Jeff Bridges and Sally Field in a public gym which is the subject of an attempted buyout from some ruthless roughnecks. But that's a shell of the story, only dealt with as the film winds down it's second half. Field, America's TV sweetheart, gets to show off her assets in a few nude scenes, which doesn't besmerch her reputation or make me look at her any less, but considering her meteoric rise to film immortality just a few years later, this isn't a great switch for her from the to the big screen.
Such familiar faces as Ed Begley Jr., Scatman Crothers and Fannie Flagg appear in smaller parts, but it's mainly about Fields and Bridges, with "slice of life" views of life in a small southern community. Really, nothing happens to move the plot along. Talkie moments seem to try to manipulate the audience into thinking that something is happening, but that's rarely the case here. Crothers comes out of nowhere to tell Bridges that he's quitting (threatening to take an iron suit with him), and Fields and Bridges get into fights at Flagg's elaborate get-together. One of the gym's female instructors teaches women karate as self defense and later uses it on the thugs who break in. Eventually, this gets boring and dismal, seriously pointless, making me wonder if the film was just horribly edited. The display of a Confederate flag is also eye raising, especially since the gym employees young blacks. Frankly, after an hour, I just didn't care anymore yet suffered through the remainder of it, but even the presence of Sally and Jeff couldn't get me into it.
Such familiar faces as Ed Begley Jr., Scatman Crothers and Fannie Flagg appear in smaller parts, but it's mainly about Fields and Bridges, with "slice of life" views of life in a small southern community. Really, nothing happens to move the plot along. Talkie moments seem to try to manipulate the audience into thinking that something is happening, but that's rarely the case here. Crothers comes out of nowhere to tell Bridges that he's quitting (threatening to take an iron suit with him), and Fields and Bridges get into fights at Flagg's elaborate get-together. One of the gym's female instructors teaches women karate as self defense and later uses it on the thugs who break in. Eventually, this gets boring and dismal, seriously pointless, making me wonder if the film was just horribly edited. The display of a Confederate flag is also eye raising, especially since the gym employees young blacks. Frankly, after an hour, I just didn't care anymore yet suffered through the remainder of it, but even the presence of Sally and Jeff couldn't get me into it.