Theme Song: I mean, what can I say. Lots and lots of variations on the riff from Superstar by The Carpenters and lots and lots of really, really bad synth stabs.

Interesting Dated References: Calling the telephone operator in order to ask her for the listing of a television channel. Pronouncing “Gandhi” like “candy.” Microfilm being a useful technology. Airports with green and brown interiors.

Best Line: “You’re a delicious man and I love you.” “A very unprofessional shiver just ran up my spine.”

Social Context: Well, in 1975 this didn’t have a social context so much as it had a social relevance. People were just getting into reincarnation and other such new age shitty belief systems. You can still find people into this shit if you live in California or some other state where people go to run away from reality.

Summary: Whenever a movie opens with a guy swimming naked and apologizing to Margot Kidder for saying stupid things when he was drunk, I automatically think I’m having another one of my dreams. It always seems to happen that way. Then when Margot Kidder beats the naked man with a paddle and he has enough time to react to the blow and cover his genitals for the underwater camera shot, that’s when I realize this isn’t about my life because I never seem to have time to cover my genitals when being attacked by Margot Kidder. Imagine if you were swimming naked and someone attacked you with a large wooden paddle. Would the first reaction be covering your genitals? I mean, I’m really self-conscious, but I still wouldn’t have the wherewithal to cover my genitals. As we watch the nude man sink to his death, it is suddenly revealed this is in fact a dream some guy named “Peter” is having.

Peter is a teacher and his girlfriend is naked a lot. Peter keeps having flashbacks about some guy scoring with a lot of chicks, one of whom is Margot Kidder. He feels a pain in the same spot as the guy who was hit with the paddle, yet his doctor, who looks like Paul Reubens, sees nothing wrong with him. And another thing, the entire motif of the soundtrack is some type of spaced-out chord progression rip off of “Superstar” by The Carpenters. It’s like “Superstar” via one of those shitty Tangerine Dream soundtracks. Did I ever tell you how terrible are those Tangerine Dream soundtracks? I will as soon as I encounter one. Ok, back to the plot. Peter’s psychologist recommends some “dream specialist” on the campus who may be able to help him, and Peter decides to meet with the specialist and be analyzed in this “dream machine” thing. Peter tells his frequently nude girlfriend all of this while in bed. Oh and get this, there are totally different bed sheets on the bed than there were in the beginning. This is very nice to see. Usually movies don’t address the problem with people not changing their bed sheets. it seems this movie was eager to encourage people to change their sheets.

The Doctor explains to Peter he’s not dreaming at all because nothing was registering on the “dream machine.” So they conclude they must be hallucinations, or something. After that Peter goes to an occult bookshop where Dolemite is leading some type of seminar on Satanism. Apparently Peter has already decided he’s been reincarnated because at dinner with his now-not-as-frequently-nude girlfriend he explains all of this to her. Here’s a picture of the doctor because I can’t find anything else of whichh to take pictures:

The doctor then suggests hypnosis to try to get to the bottom of the dreams and after Peter inexplicably feigns skepticism about hypnosis, he goes under.

After that, Peter decides to drive his hot girlfriend all over Massachusetts so he can attempt to figure out which town his past life is from. After she leaves he finally finds the town, where he then sets up shop in a hotel and goes about investigating his previous death. There are tons of nice exterior and interior shots of Massachusetts in the 70s if you’re into that type of thing. So yeah, annoying synth stabs, lots of driving around looking and stuff, and finally Peter finds his old home. The neighbor girl tells him the old lady who lives there has been away for years, but that she knows a secret way in.

It gets a little confusing because the neighbor girl (Suzy) has legs like a football player/your mom, but is wearing short-ass daisy dukes. Once in the house, Peter just wanders around as Suzy tries to get laid by lying seductively on furniture with her gigantic legs.

Holy fuck are these synthesizer noises getting annoying. I can’t think of anything more annoying in a soundtrack than flutes and synthesizers grouped together. Anyway, eventually he tracks down a girl at some country club who is the daughter of the dead guy he once was. I know, convoluted and confusing, all the more so that he appears to be flirting with her. Shit, they agree to a date and Peter comes face-to-face with the mother of the woman he is taking on the date (Margot Kidder) who is also the lady his former self used to fuck. Kinky. Margot Kidder is wearing some shitty make-up and a gray wig to make her look older. After Peter leaves with the chick he’s trying to fuck/his daughter we see Margot Kidder slamming Smirnoff vodka.

The courtship continues and Margot Kidder gets increasingly vindictive and puts on worse and worse old person make-up. Eventually Peter meets his mother in the old folks home while he is on a date with his daughter who is actually a girl he is trying to fuck. The daughter is so proud of how Peter handles himself she tells Margot Kidder who gets all salty about it. Oh, and I should mention the girl Peter is dating who is also his daughter from a past life is played by Jennifer O’Neill of Summer of ’42 fame. He tries to resist kissing her, but there’s no way he would be able to actually resist. I mean, she’s all 70s-hot. Curiosity would have naturally gotten the best of him. Sure enough, they go to Make-Out Point and he hooks that shit up. No more annoying stabbing synthesizers, either, it’s all swooning violins and shit now. The only stabbing going on in this movie now is… well, never mind. So this must be the one movie where O’Neill does not show her cans. Probably because of the father/daughter overtones. After they make it, they go back home for some coffee. Man, there’s no way Peter could explain himself now. What a dumbass. If I was him I would just split town. Or I would just keep banging Jennifer O’Neill and never go back to my other life or tell anyone about anything about reincarnation ever.

Sure enough, though, the dream doctor guy shows back up and tries to get Peter to come forward to the media with all his discoveries. Peter claims he doesn’t want to for “personal reasons.” I guess personal reasons mean getting to have sex with Jennifer O’Neill.

He even turns down swimming with her so he can take a nap and let Margot Kidder witness him having one of his dreams. I am totally bewildered as to how this has happened, but for some reason this movie has both kept me interested in the plot and made me mildly excited to see the conclusion. I can’t even fucking believe they are dragging this out for 105 minutes. Clearly this could have been a nice hour-long made-for-TV movie. I mean, seriously, this movie really has nothing going for it, yet I seem to be enjoying myself. Until…

Holy wait, what the fuck! Margot Kidder’s boobs and home plate? Not only that, but we’re supposed to believe she’s like 55-60 years old in this movie, so that means we’re also seeing old boobs and old home plate. I’m so confused. I can’t look at her sexually to begin with, let alone when she’s supposed to be a 55-60-year-old woman. They interspersed this bathtub nudity with a flashback of her getting raped by her husband (is that even possible?) who is now reincarnated as Peter Proud. Okay wait, now it just got a little more uncomfortable as she appears to be masturbating while thinking about getting sex forced upon her by her husband. After she climaxes, she starts crying. That I can relate to. Boy could I tell stories. Oh yeah, during that bizarre sequence we learn she killed her husband because he was cheating on her while she was pregnant, or something. Was Margot Kidder the one they found wandering around someone’s backyard all high and half naked in the 90s? Or was that Lynda Carter? And how the fuck do you have Margot Kidder naked in your movie and not Jennifer O’Neill? Where’s the logic in that? I’ve got a list of things I want to see before my life ends, but Margot Kidder nude masturbating in a bathtub was not on that list.

So in the final act, Peter decides to not come forward with his past life. All he needs to do to totally erase it from his mind is to visit the place where he died. I guess I forgot to mention the plot point that as he visited each place, more and more memories went away. He also has decided to marry O’Neill since he will have forgotten all about that time when he was her dad. Like a fucking idiot he goes swimming right out to the place his former self died. Kidder shows up, but this time instead of a row boat and an oar, she has a motorboat and a gun. She of course kills him and the movie ends. I’m not sure why I enjoyed this movie.

Poster and Box Art: Pictured at the beginning of this review is the 1980′s videocassette cover for this movie. For some shitty whimsical airbrush job, those are actually pretty good likeness’ to the stars in the movie. Although they automatically are disqualified for using the international symbol for mystery: a guy standing in a foggy doorway. Back in the 70s though, the movie was released to theaters with this poster:

I can think of an audience that would be attracted to this movie poster. However, this audience isn’t the same crew that I would think had the desire to see Margot Kidder’s giant home plate. For some reason this image was used in all the 70s advertising for this movie. I think the guy that played the guy that was murdered was like a famous Playgirl model or something so I guess it was such a big deal that they had someone paint the image, add more muscles, and then tried to convince heterosexual males to come see the movie. it really seems like a bad idea and explains why they gave it the airbrushing in the 80s. Also of note on the poster, they really seem to be playing up the book, so it must have been pretty popular. Interestingly enough, in the beginning of the movie there’s a really cool title card:

That I can’t find used in any advertising material for this fucking movie! And it’s totally awesome, and they just like, never used it for anything but the first few seconds of the movie. It makes no goddamn sense! Oh, and again, this is when movie titles had a poster and a logo.

Availability: For some reason, more than likely Margot Kidder and her giant bush and masturbation scene, dealers are charging a lot for this on VHS. No dvd.

Posted by srock on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 12:21 pm. Filed under 70s Existential Bullshit, High Concept - Poor Execution