Jimmy O’Neil (Morgan Paull, whom you may recall as
the guy who gets blown away by Brion
James at the start of Blade Runner)
is a fresh-faced police officer in the sleepy California town of Newhall. Not much happens there, and Jimmy is just fine
with that. This gives him lots of time
to score with every single woman he comes across and to passively ignite the
libidos of those out of his age range.
His older partner Lasser (Art
Metrano), on the other hand, is dying to break out to the big city and some
action. But there is a trio of drifters
circling Newhall like a school of sharks, just dying to make things interesting
for everyone.
In her notes on Carnival In Flanders, the late, great Pauline Kael wrote that “movies with
rough edges and bad spots are sometimes more exciting.” While I don’t agree with her opinions all of
the time, I agree enthusiastically with her in this sentiment. Of course, I love the meticulousness of more
technical filmmakers as well, but I think that verisimilitude can also be found
in the more rough-hewn (not always, but sometimes). Lewis
Teague and Leon Capetanos (under
the Howard Freen pseudonym) approach
the structure of Dirty O’Neil (aka The Love Life Of A Cop) in the sort of
freeform way of a Robert Altman film. Obviously, there are vast differences in
directorial styles, but the casual naturalism of most non-sex scenes stands
out. There is no real plot to the
film. There is only a series of events,
and the vast majority of these events are in service of the endgame of Jimmy
getting laid by a bevy of pretty girls (I’ll overlook the instances of female
underarm hair, but if that’s your thing, more power to you). This is, after all, a Sexploitation film,
first and foremost. But in between the
sex scenes are these mini-episodes, and it’s from these the film garners its
charm. The actors have an easy rapport
with each other, so even if the audience doesn’t believe the facility with
which this guy can pick up chicks, the relationships between the characters is
completely believable. Contrasted with
this are the scenes involving the drifters Lou (Raymond O’Keefe), Bennie (Tom
Huff), and Al (Bob Potter). These are despicable villains with the
thinnest of characterizations, but their purpose is not solely to provide some
sleaze and danger for the film.
It is stated flat out in the
film’s dialogue that part of the conflict of the film has to do with the fear
of commitment. This goes a long way in
proffering a motivation for all the sex (not that this is especially needed for
this genre, but it’s nice that one is given).
Of course, there has to be a sexual hold out in order to make this
point, and that is Lisa (Pat Anderson),
the nurse who Jimmy chases after, though never to the point that her
elusiveness bothers him. There are, as
the film goes to great lengths (ahem) to display, plenty of fish in the sea (or
at the absolute minimum, Newhall, California).
When Lisa tells Jimmy that she feels like she can open up to him, he has
fallen asleep while she was baring her soul.
She coaches the girls basketball team (the Amazons) that plays against
the team Jimmy coaches (the Butternut Kittens).
She describes herself as a “cold fish,” because she doesn’t rip off her
clothes when Jimmy shows up, but somehow this is seen as a character flaw
rather than as a sign of character, something for which she apologizes. Nonetheless, this relationship and its
complications don’t drive the movie.
They are just another series of vignettes, and their culmination is
unsurprising and, I have to admit, a little bit of a letdown, all things
considered. But what can you do?
Beyond the film’s commitment
angle (and to my mind running alongside it) is a theme of isolation. Lasser and Jimmy are the two sides of this
coin. Lasser wants to move to the big
city (Los Angeles) and become a cop there.
He wants excitement that Newhall doesn’t offer (“it’s a dull town,”
“you’ll get bored, too”). He wants to be
engaged with life. To that end, he pines
for local bartender Vera (Katie Saylor),
and he reveals his feelings to her, because he craves a lasting
relationship. After returning from
Vietnam, Jimmy wants to retreat from life.
At the film’s start, he enjoys that nothing happens in his town (“you
can get killed out there if things get too exciting”). He enjoys that his sexual liaisons are fast
and easy. He enjoys not being invested
in anything other than what’s in front of him at any given moment. The drifters, then, are the real world from
which Jimmy (and by extension everyone) cannot escape. They mercilessly antagonize him in public, and
while they clearly do get under his skin, he doesn’t rise to the bait at first. If he keeps his head in the sand, eventually
they will have to move on. The drifters
also represent what Jimmy may turn into if he remains an outsider to life. They are the ultimate remove from life and
the ultimate personification of ids unchecked, and consequently, they are
removed from humanity. If Jimmy
continues down his superficial path, he will become inured to any emotional
core he may have once had. And when the
women he nets so easily stop responding to his diminishing allure, like the
drifters he will likely resort to taking what he wants. And it will mean as much to him as it does to
them. Obviously, Jimmy has to confront
them in order to confront this part of himself, and once he recognizes this, he
suddenly begins taking his job more seriously.
With that said, the film makes something of a misstep (hint: it’s the
same scene referred to above with Lisa), because after what Jimmy has gone
through, we are left with the distinct impression that he only did it in order
to continue getting his nuts off. This
is nailed (no pun intended) with the repeated piece of dialogue, “A cop is
usually overworked, underpaid, and misunderstood. But he should never be horny.” After the trouble the filmmakers took to give
the film a streak of seriousness (and the shifts of tone work reasonably well,
all things being equal), it comes off as fairly crass. I’m sure the filmmakers went this way so they
could have an “up” ending, but it rings slightly false to my ears.
MVT: The acting is solid
from just about everyone. Granted, there
are a few amateurs who don’t rein it in as much as they should. But I have to say, overall I was impressed.
Make Or Break: The scene
with the Drifters and a certain woman is an extended exercise in sleaze. It also manages to be gripping and hateful
simultaneously, and it shockingly doesn’t go for titillation, which I
appreciated.
Score: 6.5/10
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