Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

THE CAREY TREATMENT (1972)

Everybody was running away from this one. Michael Crichton used a pseudonym on his novel; award-winning scripters Harriet Frank & Irving Ravetch, working with tv specialist John D. F. Black, jointly became the fictitious James P. Bonner; and director/co-producer Blake Edwards, after trying to back out, failed at having his name removed. Studio interference drove them to it (a typically crisis-ridden M-G-M), and for sure the film hopscotches thru its medical murder mystery to unsatisfying result, but not without a certain flair & oddball charm. James Coburn, cool, laid-back pathologist at a top Boston Med Center, falls into hospital politics, romance with dietician Jennifer O’Neill and investigating an illegal abortion gone wrong pinned on surgeon pal James Hong by hard-nosed detective Pat Hingle. (In truth, Hingle has a rather blobby nose.) Coburn’s interactions as amateur sleuth with the crusty Hingle are the best thing in here, they could have done a series together. There’s also some fun to be had ticking off the mores & attitudes on display of early 1970s middle-aged hipster lifestyle. (Hint: both amusing and embarrassing.) Edwards may have been miserable on the shoot, but he can’t help but turn out a slippery smooth product, even when forced to have Coburn scare the truth out of two lying gals as the wind up to Act Two and Act Three. A bit more variety might have helped hide the narrative seams & lacunae.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Edwards book-ended this non-starter with two of his least appreciated pics, low-pitched Western WILD ROVERS/’71 and ruminative spy romance THE TAMARIND SEED/’74, both still waiting to be rediscovered.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/06/wild-rovers.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-tamarind-seed-1974.html

No comments: