You've heard this story before: "It was a wandering daughter job." This is an excellent version of that story. This time the wandering daughter is Kristin VanDorn (Ilah Davis, in what might have been her only movie role), who's been brought up n the rigid Calvinst home of her father, Jake (George C. Scott). When she goes missing on a church-sponsored trip to California, Jake hires a sleazy P.I. named Mast (Peter Doyle) to find her.What Mast finds is a hardcore porn film starring Kristen. Was there ever anybody better at playing a tightly wound guy than Scott? The scene where Mast shows Jake the film is just one of several in the movie that prove Scott was a masterful actor. The scene is so famous that it's become part of an Internet meme, as in George C. Scott watches Star Wars on Blu-Ray or George C. Scott watches the Modern Warfare 3 trailer.
Naturally Jake doesn't consider that his daughter might be appearing in a hardcore film of her own volition. He believes she's been kidnapped and forced into the role, so he goes to Calfifornia to find her. He travels through the belly of the beast in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Along the way he enlists the help of a woman named Niki (Season Hubley), who's in the porn game herself. There are some fine scenes between the two of them, complete opposites that they are, that really bring out their characters.
The rest of the plot and its unfolding, I'll leave it to you to find out. This movie was a real shocker to me when I saw it long ago, 1979 or '80. I'm sure it's lost a lot of the shock value by now, but parts of it would still be tough to watch. Scott is really good. So are Boyle and Hubley.
The movie was written and directed by Paul Schrader, whose brother, Leonard, wrote the novelization. I read that one when it came out, and I'm sure I still have a copy of it somewhere. If I ever run across it, I'm going to read it again.
9 comments:
HARDCORE is very intense. I saw it when it was first released--in a nearly empty theater. A lot of people couldn't take the explosive ending.
Season Hubley, not Susan.
I can remember watching this on HBO. It blew me away. Schrader grew up in a Calvinist sect in Grand Rapids like the one in the movie and really took it apart. It was powerfully done. Great stuff.
Jeff
I'll fix that. I blame autocorrect.
This is one of Schrader's best. I too saw it in a mostly empty theater. I like it so much I bought a copy of the script to study. The performances are spot on, esp. as was mentioned, Scott, Boyle and Hubley. I've never understood why this movie was allowed to vanish. Thanks for your excellent review, Bill.
Saw this several years ago as well and really enjoyed it. Scott, as usual, was excellent.
I vaguely remember finding the way Hubley's character is left disturbing, if probably too true to how such things would play out.
Definitely not a feel-good ending.
I think I have to watch it if only just to find out the ending, after hearing everyone speak about it so cryptically.
We didn't want to do spoilers, I guess.
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