ROBERT REDFORD R.I.P. – MY FAVORITE NEGLECTED REDFORD FILMS

Robert Redford was one of the few true superstars in Hollywood history. Even the biggest names of recent decades are also-rans when compared to Redford. Other sites will no doubt be focusing on the man’s iconic films but this being Balladeer’s Blog I’m doing his overlooked movies. Well, as overlooked as a major star’s work can be, anyway.

WAR HUNT (1962) – Unusual little movie that was sort of like a Korean War forerunner of Platoon. Redford is Private Roy Loomis, a new arrival who would be the film’s Charlie Sheen equivalent, right down to his first-person narration. John Saxon would be the Tom Berenger equivalent as Private Raymond Endore, who uses the war as an excuse to give his violent tendencies full reign.

Endore is gung-ho and goes forth at night to hunt and slit the throats of North Korean soldiers. Loomis has the more simplistic “just fighting for my country and trying to survive” approach. A young camp follower comes to look up to both figures as they figuratively vie for the boy’s soul.

An uncredited Francis Ford Coppolla plays a truck driver, plus the film features Sydney Pollack, Tom Skerritt, Gavin MacLeod, Nancy Hsueh and Anthony Ray.

SITUATION HOPELESS – BUT NOT SERIOUS (1965) – The title’s a variation on the military designation “Situation serious, but not hopeless.” Alec Guinness of all people stars in this wicked comedy along with Robert Redford and Mike Connors. Robert Shaw cowrote the script.

Guinness plays Wilhelm Frick, a comparatively kindly German native who shelters Army Air Corps figures Captain Wilson (Redford) and Sgt. Finder (Connors) when they land in his small German town after being shot down. The eccentric gent comes to enjoy the thrill of his small-scale intrigue and when the war ends he doesn’t want to let his newfound friends/ captives go.

Frick keeps them “hiding” in his basement long after V.E. Day, concealing the Allied victory from them and telling Tall Tales of fictional German victories that are prolonging the war. When he and the two Americans finally part company, Redford and Connors’ belief that they are having to fight their way back to American lines makes for a pretty funny finale.

THE CHASE (1966) – The night HE came home. Okay, it’s not the kind of Michael Myers Halloween homecoming implied by that joke, so sue me.

Redford portrays Bubber Reeves, a bad boy turned criminal who escapes from prison and is presumed to be headed for his hometown to settle some personal business. Law enforcement and assorted friends and foes of Reeves contemplate the man’s imminent arrival with fondness, hatred or dread. 

Marlon Brando stars as Sheriff Calder and he & Redford famously played “fast-draw flashlight” games with each other during their down time while filming. Arthur Penn directed and the movie also features Jane Fonda, Robert Duvall, Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule and Paul Williams (?).

THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED (1966) – Francis Ford Coppolla helped adapt the screenplay from Tennessee Williams’ play but Williams was so unhappy with the film he pondered taking his name off the credits.

Robert Redford plays Owen Legate, a railroad official who comes to the Mississippi town of Dodson to shut down most of the company’s activities. This will cause large-scale unemployment for the townspeople.

Owen falls in love with local hottie Alva Starr (Natalie Wood, who also starred with Redford in 1965’s Inside Daisy Clover) and wants to help her escape the dead-end town and her mother’s suffocating influence. Charles Bronson also stars, along with Kate Reid, Robert Blake and Dabney Coleman.

BAREFOOT IN THE PARK (1967) – This movie was based on the Neil Simon play that the tv series Dharma and Greg basically ripped off. Redford portrayed Paul Bratter, an uptight suit-and-tie lawyer who married Corie (Jane Fonda), an aggressively eccentric free spirit.

Will Paul’s influence get Corie to become more settled and mature or will Corie’s influence loosen up Paul’s inhibitions? Anyone who’s seen episodes of Love, American Style can probably guess.

Also starring Charles Boyer, Mildred Natwick, Doris Roberts and Herb Edelman. This film is entertaining mostly because of Neil Simon’s dialogue. Ironically, I don’t think Redford is well suited for the type of neurotic New York humor that Simon exceled at, but he and Jane are pretty cute in this.   

DOWNHILL RACER (1969) – Obviously, 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is far too famous to count as an overlooked Redford film. Instead, here’s this underappreciated movie about what Redford himself called “the athlete as jerk” type. Gene Hackman and Camilla Sparv costarred. 

Robert stars as Olympic skier David Chappellet, a VERY obvious pastiche of the unlikable Jean-Claude Killy but as an American. Think of Chappellet as the anti-Roy Hobbs from The Natural. He’s a selfish non-team player who’s all about stealing the spotlight and pushing his own brand and his fellow Olympic skiers on the American team are just stepping-stones to him.

Unlike a flashy Tom Cruise-type who would redeem himself, Chappellet is a jerk to the end, but gets a bit of a comeuppance by being overshadowed in his moment of triumph by a talented newcomer. Not even his father is impressed with David as he points out “Champions – the world’s full of them.”

NOTE: Screenplay co-author James Salter was part of the Colorado crowd like writer Hunter S. Thompson who came to resent the California gentry “invading” Colorado in later years. Salter even played a role in Thompson’s unsuccessful campaign for sheriff. 

THE HOT ROCK (1972) – Sorry, fellow Redford fans, but I’m not crazy about Tell Them Willie Boy is Here or Little Fauss and Big Halsy. Not that The Hot Rock is a masterpiece, but it does just enough right to make me wish it could have pulled it all together.

Subsequent adaptations of Donald Westlake’s John Dortmunder novels might have been much, much better if this had been a hit. Instead, producers seemed to regard The Hot Rock approach as anathema, so we got a lisping George C. Scott and eventually Judge Rheinhold as Westlake’s hard-luck master thief in later movies.

At any rate, luckless mastermind Dortmunder (Redford of course) is fresh off his latest prison sentence and reluctantly oversees a plan to steal – and steal, and steal again – a priceless diamond. George Segal, Ron Leibman, Moses Gunn, Topo Swope and Paul Sand costar, yet it never quite hits the highs it should have. Anyway, “Afghanistan Bananastand!” 

THE CANDIDATE (1973) – I reviewed this film HERE.

THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER (1975) – Remember, I’m omitting RR’s big hits, so I’m skipping The Way We Were, The Sting, etc. The Great Waldo Pepper appeals to me not so much for the film’s actual content, but for the other things that go with it. I know, I’m kind of weird. 

Robert plays barnstorming pilot Waldo Pepper, a romantic dreamer who desperately wanted to fly over Europe against the Germans in World War One. Instead, he got stuck training new American fighter pilots stateside until it was too late and the war was over. 

Pepper’s hardscrabble efforts as a pilot eventually lead him to Hollywood in the 1920s, like so many other experienced flyboys. My love of silent movies makes me a sucker for the scenes in which Waldo is a stunt pilot for silent masterpieces like Wings. A famous World War One German flyer is a fellow stunt pilot, so Pepper gets to figuratively clash with the man after all.

*** Every Robert Redford project after this was so high-profile that there’s no need for me to examine them, but I did look at Brubaker HERE. Rest in peace, Mr. Redford. We’ll never see your like again.