The Naked Face (1984)

Dr. Judd Stevens (Roger Moore) is a psychoanalyst in Chicago who has recently been widowed.  As such, his life is consumed by his work and meals at home alone.  Then, one of his patients is murdered.  Curiously, the patient was wearing Dr. Stevens' raincoat when he was stabbed to death.  Lt. McGreavy (Rod Steiger) and Detective Angeli (Elliott Gould) arrive to investigate.  McGreavy almost instantly suspects Stevens as the murderer.  Throughout the investigation, he is hostile to Stevens.  When more people in Dr. Stevens orbit die, Judd starts investigating on his own with the help of Private Investigator Morgens (Art Carney).  Judd believes he is the true target.

Filmed before Moore's final outing as James Bond in A View to a Kill (1985), this is an unusual role for him.  He is neither a lady's man nor a man of action.  When danger approaches, he runs away and hides in the backroom.  When fisticuffs are required, he gets beaten to a pulp.  When his brother-in-law, Dr. Peter Hadley (David Hedison), urges him to date, he begs off.  He's practically a shut-in.

Rod Stieger and Elliott Gould run the good cop - bad cop routine, Stieger being bad cop.  McGreavy's previous partner was killed by a psychopath some years earlier and Dr. Stevens' testimony was decisive for a successful insanity defense.  That explains McGreavy's hostility.  The usually wisecracking Gould has no personality here.  He is a bland character who serves as a whipping post for McGreavy's frustration or a sympathetic ear to Stevens' complaints about McGreavy.  The script does Gould no favors; it could have been a much better role.

Though it proved to be a small role, Art Carney is great as the private eye.  Of course, the haggard and world-weary private eye was his go-to role for some time (e.g. Sunburn, The Late Show).  Where Gould is bland and forgettable, Carney shines in his scenes.

Overall, it is just okay.  The cast is far better than the script.  There are not enough patients to make it a mystery as to which one is the source of Dr. Stevens troubles.  Ann Blake (Anne Archer) is a headliner among a bunch of unknown character actors.  Gee, what could this mean?  However, the ending did come as a surprise.

Escape to Athena (1979)

It is 1944 in the Greek isles.  The Nazis are pursuing several escapees from the local prisoner of war camp.  Among them are Professor Blake (David Niven), Bruno Rotelli (Sonny Bono), and Nat Judson (Richard Roundtree).  The trio are brought back to the camp and the commandant, Major Otto Hecht (Roger Moore), talks to them like a disappointed father.  The SS Officer, Major Volkmann, would rather they were shot, but Hecht asserts his authority over camp prisoners.  Hecht is an Austrian art dealer who has found himself in the German Army.  In addition to the camp, he oversees the archeological site that provides valuable artefacts for the Third Reich.  Of course, he skims the best pieces for himself.

Charlie Dane (Elliot Gould) and Dottie Del Mar (Stephanie Powers) are American entertainers who were recently captured and routed to the camp.  Otto is quite pleased to welcome Dottie and arranges for her to have a private room where he visits.  Dane, who is obviously Jewish, he allows to arrange a show to entertain the guards.  In the nearby town, Zeno (Telly Savalas) leads the Greek resistance.  He plans to first capture the POW camp, then the town, and finally assault the communication station that has been setup at the monastery on Mount Athena.  Sounds like an exciting action movie in theory, less so in practice.

The movie suffers from too many characters and not a clear villain.  Early on, Major Volkmann is generally the villain.  Then the villain becomes a Nazi at Mount Athena.  Nor is there a central hero.  Though Zeno is the man behind all the action, he is tight-lipped and doesn't tell anyone what is happening.  As such, some events come as a surprise to his allies - Charlie, Bruno, & Nat - though not to Zeno.

Roger Moore is miscast as a German/Austrian officer.  He himself said as much.  However, the movie offered an opportunity to 'vacation' in the Greek isles with his friend David Niven and have nights on the town with Telly Savalas.  I imagine this movie was a lot of fun to make.

Charlie is a fast-talking goofball who somehow transforms into a wisecracking commando.  The transition from one to the other was quite sudden and entirely unbelievable.  Of all the men Zeno could take on his assault on Athena, he chose Charlie?  Of course, Charlie didn't want to be a commando, but there was the promise of vast piles of gold.  Crazy as it was, Charlie proved to be a highlight of the movie.

There are a couple of love stories in the mix.  Major Hecht pursues Dottie, which is awkward considering he is her jailor.  Then there is Zeno and Elena (Claudia Cardinale), the madam of the local brothel.  In addition to his love interest, she plays his conscience.  Yes, she is less than keen on his risking lives of Greeks on his grand designs.

The finale turned into a Bond film, as the Nazis deploy a rocket from a secret base to sink the allied fleet.  What?  As if this film wasn't bonkers already.

Light, mindless, popcorn fun.

Vanishing Act (1986)

Harry Kenyon (Mike Farrell) wanders the streets of a snowy mountain town, clearly looking for a brunette. Eventually, he makes his way to the police station.  There is only a woman playing a flute, who isn't a cop.  However, she does tell him where he might find the chief, Lt. Rudameyer (Elliot Gould).  He tells Rudameyer that his wife is missing.  They are newlyweds and had a fight.  She ran off with the car and he hasn't seen her for a worrying amount of time.  Rudameyer reassures Harry that he'll get on the case.  The following morning, Rudameyer says he hasn't found her yet but he's still looking.  Then, Harry gets a call from a local priest, Father Macklin (Fred Gwynne), who has news of the missing wife, Chris Prescott Kenyon. Harry goes to the church and Father Macklin presents Chris Kenyon (Margot Kidder). "Is this a joke?" Harry demands. "This isn't my wife."  Somehow, every situation paints Harry as a mentally troubled husband and Chris as an innocent.  Rudameyer is clearly convinced that "Chris" is the genuine article, and every witness confirms her story rather than Harry's.  Why is there a grand conspiracy to foist this impostor on Harry? Who is this woman and why is she pretending to be his wife?

An entertaining mystery that has twists and turns. The conclusion is quite good and surprised me when I saw this movie when it originally aired. Of course, watching it now, I see that all was revealed early on.

Good popcorn fun.

The Long Goodbye (1973)

Philip Marlowe (Elliot Gould) awakens in the middle of the night when his cat jumps on him.  Out of cat food, he offers the cat something else.  The cat shoves it on the floor, where Marlowe leaves it.  He goes out to get food for the cat but the cat refuses that.  At this point, Terry Lennox, an old friend, arrives with a story about a fight with his wife and needing a ride to the Mexican border.  Uh huh.  No sooner does he arrive back in Los Angeles than the police are waiting for him and asking where he took Lennox.  Marlowe says nothing, even spending several days in jail.  When he learns that Terry killed his wife, he is baffled.  He is being released because Terry committed suicide in Mexico, closing the case.  But Marlowe's troubles are only beginning.  A thug shows up and demands the money that Terry owed him; either Marlowe locate the money or there will be consequences.  Then there is the neighbor of Terry who calls about her missing husband, a somewhat famous author.  Unsurprisingly, it all ties in with Terry Lennox.

This is the worst performance I have ever seen by Elliot Gould.  In every scene, he is lighting a cigarette.  He's dragging matches on every surface available to light half-smoked cigarettes.  Most of the time, he is a flat monotone.  Is he depressed?  For a private detective, he does almost no detecting.  He just wanders around as the clues come slap him.  He is thoroughly unlikeable.  Playing on the 40s origin of the character, he drives a 1948 Lincoln, a car that couldn't possibly hope to blend.  Try to tail someone in that thing.  Well, he does.  Sure.  Then, in order to get information from demonstrably corrupt officials in a small Mexican town in 1973, Marlowe pays the princely sum of $5,000!  How do you stay in business?

The movie has a soundtrack of 1 song.  It is a sad dirge of a song that repeats in different styles and formats though the film.  Here it is on the radio and here the piano man at the bar sings it.  Combined with Gould's flat delivery, this melancholy excuse for a song adds to the misery.

When the story is all told, it is stupid.  Why would Terry Lennox's mistress hire Marlowe to find the husband on whom she was cheating?  Her husband had told Lennox's wife about the affair, triggering the fight that resulted in her death.  Why does the thug attack his mistress to prove how serious he is to Marlowe?  What's with stripping off his clothes?  That Gould is utterly unmoved by anything makes the stripping scene even more bizarre though it is funny to see Arnold Schwarzenegger as an unnamed hood eager to strip.

IMDb rates this a 7.6 film.  How?  Who likes this crap?  I've enjoyed some of Robert Altman's movies and have always liked Elliot Gould but this is darn near unwatchable.  Thumbs down.