James Olson

  • Buzz Kulik – Incident on a Dark Street (1973)

    Drama1971-1980Buzz KulikCrimeUSA

    By no means a great work, this television movie – a pilot for a series that was never made – does have some strong moments.

    The plot focuses on a team of Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles trying to take down a mobster and a corrupt civil servant. James Olmos plays the straight arrow US Attorney, David Canary is his younger assistant, and Robert Pine (later to land a starring role in CHiPs), the naïve young law school graduate. Together they doggedly pursue Mafia boss Dominic Leopold (Gilbert Roland), piece by piece.Read More »

  • Robert Wise – The Andromeda Strain (1971)

    1971-1980Amos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtRobert WiseSci-FiThrillerUSA

    Quote:
    An alien virus’s brief pit stop in the new American West, starkly documented by Michael Crichton and Robert Wise. A satellite crashes in a New Mexico burg, soon the place is filled with bodies whose circulatory systems have turned to powder — these are the best sequences, full of hushed dread and unnerving use of widescreen dead spaces (the camera focuses on the placid, dusty face of a fallen villager, then tilts up to frame a couple of researchers approaching in hazmat suits and a helicopter whirring against a cobalt sky). The scientific team is rounded up: Exposition-dispenser Arthur Hill, surgeon James Olson (who gets a crush on the computer’s female voice), splenetic researcher Kate Reid, and veteran doctor David Wayne (“A hippie! He’s going to a love-in,” his suspicious wife cries as he packs for the secret mission).Read More »

  • Paul Newman – Rachel, Rachel (1968)

    1961-1970DramaPaul NewmanQueer Cinema(s)USA

    Paul Newman made his directorial debut and Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, stars as Rachel Cameron, a 35-year-old unmarried schoolteacher who feels as though she’s wasted her life. Rachel’s best friend, Calla Mackie (Estelle Parsons), invites her to attend a religious revival meeting. Here Rachel is swept up in the emotional fervor orchestrated by a young guest preacher (Terry Kiser). This is the first of several cathartic incidents which convince Rachel to kick over the traces and express her own needs and emotions. She has a brief sexual liaison with an old family friend (James Olson), and is delighted at the notion that she might have become pregnant. Rachel ends up alone and childless (her “pregnancy” was nothing more than a benign cyst), but still determined to forge a new life for herself. Based the novel A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence, Rachel, Rachel won New York Film Critics awards for both Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, and an Oscar nomination for Joanne Woodward.Read More »

Back to top button