{"id":18087,"date":"2022-03-28T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=18087"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:12:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:12:59","slug":"scenes-from-the-class-struggle-in-the-reagan-era-cinema-of-paul-bartel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/scenes-from-the-class-struggle-in-the-reagan-era-cinema-of-paul-bartel\/","title":{"rendered":"Scenes from the Class Struggle in the Reagan-Era Cinema of Paul Bartel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To raise the money to open a restaurant in the Valley, a straight-laced married couple lures sexual deviants to their Hollywood apartment to murder and rob them. In the midst of a hotly contested New York mayoral race, a tabloid journalist investigates a wave of high-profile robberies and learns how far up the criminal conspiracy goes. Fortune hunters in the Old West descend upon a New Mexico town in search of long-buried gold. A quartet of dim bulbs of varying brightness get wind of a sure bet at the track and take out a loan from the mob to cover it. A Beverly Hills chauffeur and the houseboy next door bet they can bed each other\u2019s newly single employer, not realizing they have already entertained the idea of sleeping with the help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever the setting, the comedies Paul Bartel directed in the \u201980s detailed the divide between the haves and the have-nots \u2013 as well as the lengths to which the latter were willing to go to join (or supplant) the former. They also neatly encompassed Ronald Reagan\u2019s presidency since the first, 1982\u2019s Eating Raoul<\/em>, appeared one year into his first term, and the last, 1989\u2019s Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills<\/em>, came out just a few months after his vice president succeeded him. Raoul<\/em> had been in the works for a couple of years while Bartel scrounged up the money to film it, though, so while it wasn\u2019t a direct response to Reagan\u2019s brand of conservatism, it still reflected the \u201canything to get ahead\u201d mentality that gripped the U.S. in the wake of his sweeping victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody can say we don\u2019t earn this money.\u201d \u2013Paul Bland<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eating Raoul<\/em>\u2019s wannabe restauranteurs, Paul and Mary Bland (Bartel and frequent co-star Mary Woronov), are introduced working in a liquor store and as a hospital nutritionist, respectively. Money woes pile up quickly when the refined Paul is fired for refusing to push the cheap wine his boss wants him to, the bank cancels their credit card, and their rent goes up astronomically. The Blands blame the last on the swingers trooping in and out of their building at all hours, so when one tries to force himself on Mary, Paul kills him with a frying pan, whereupon they discover he\u2019s loaded with cash. Deciding the world is \u201coverflowing with millions of sexual freaks,\u201d they set about ridding it of some of them and socking away the $20,000 they need for their restaurant. It\u2019s not long, however, before self-professed \u201chot-blooded, emotional, crazy Chicano\u201d Raoul Mendoza (Robert Beltran) horns in on their scheme and resolves to steal Mary away from Paul. There\u2019s no honor among thieves \u2013 or class solidarity \u2013 when two of them are competing for the love of a third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout, Bartel keeps tongue planted firmly in check, avoiding bloodshed in the interest of keeping things light, even as the bodies pile up and (once Raoul joins the operation) get turned into dog food. Eating Raoul<\/em> is the ultimate indictment of the capitalist system and realization of the adage that the ends justify the means. Paul even justifies his first murder by surmising his victim was the bank official who canceled their credit card, and Mary has a similar run-in with the randy loan officer (played by Buck Henry) who turned them down for a small business loan because she wouldn\u2019t put out for him. As much as Paul and Mary look down on their victims, Bartel declines to judge the couple, who are last seen living the American Dream, beaming in front of Paul and Mary\u2019s Country Kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Eating Raoul<\/em> turned out to be a sleeper hit, Bartel parlayed its success into getting the even-longer-gestating Not for Publication<\/em> greenlit. The result is an off-kilter screwball comedy about corruption in high and low places, and a tabloid reporter (Nancy Allen\u2019s Lois Thorndyke) who wants to live up to the memory of her Pulitzer-winning father. Like many in the film, Lois lives a double life, writing under a pseudonym and secretly volunteering on the reelection campaign of Mayor Franklyn (Laurence Luckinbill), hailed as \u201cchampion of the poor, defender of the public morals,\u201d who has plowed his own money into a low-income housing project. If Franklyn seems too good to be true, that\u2019s because he is, but it\u2019s some time before Lois sees the light and her trusting nature nearly costs her dearly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s trying to suck every dime you got out of you.\u201d \u2013Stump in <\/strong>The Longshot<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Not for Publication<\/em>, Bartel went into work-for-hire mode, directing Lust in the Dust<\/em> for producer-star Tab Hunter and The Longshot<\/em> for writer-star Tim Conway. In spite of his inability to put his authorial stamp on either project, they still touched on some of the themes he\u2019d been playing with. The greed that manifests itself in the pursuit of the buried gold in Lust<\/em> drives the action from the get-go, with alliances formed and broken in rapid succession. When enough money is at stake, there\u2019s no line some people won\u2019t cross \u2013 or partners they won\u2019t double-cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for The Longshot<\/em>, Conway plays up the haplessness of his quartet of nobodies whose lives revolve around the racetrack. The prospect of hitting it big motivates them to risk going to a loan shark when the alternate plan of Conway\u2019s character seducing a wealthy widow goes predictably awry, but even with old pros like Harvey Korman and Jack Weston backing him up, there\u2019s little that can be done to breathe life into his corny script. (This is exemplified by the scene where Ted Wass\u2019s Stump gives mouth-to-mouth to his goldfish.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next up for Bartel was writing, directing, and starring in a pair of Amazing Stories<\/em> \u2013 \u201cSecret Cinema,\u201d a remake of his 1966 short of the same name, and \u201cGershwin\u2019s Trunk,\u201d about a blocked Broadway composer who uses a medium to channel George Gershwin and commits murder to keep his secret \u2013 after which he closed the decade with Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills<\/em>. Conceived with Bruce Wagner, who penned the screenplay, Scenes<\/em> is a feature-length extension of the opening montage from Eating Raoul<\/em>, which described Hollywood as a \u201ccity of contrasts, home to the rich and powerful, yet so popular with the broke and destitute.\u201d The difference in Beverly Hills is the rich and powerful and the broke and destitute often sleep under the same roof and occasionally in the same bed. When chauffeur Frank (Ray Sharkey) makes his bet with Juan (Robert Beltran) and they both hold up their end of it, he\u2019s exultant. \u201cWe did it,\u201d he boasts. \u201cDon\u2019t you see? Our side won.\u201d Victory over his betters isn\u2019t the end-all, be-all for Juan, though, whose real ambition is to acquire some land. \u201cSomething that\u2019s mine, you know?\u201d Suffice it to say, Bartel did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing he wasn\u2019t able to do before he died in 2000, however, was get solid backing for the proposed Eating Raoul<\/em> sequel Bland Ambition<\/em>, the plot of which co-writer Richard Blackburn describes on Raoul<\/em>\u2019s commentary. As it involves Paul and Mary Bland getting roped into a contentious California gubernatorial race, it\u2019s a tantalizing might-have-been, but the body of work Bartel left behind (which also includes 1972\u2019s unclassifiable Private Parts<\/em> and his two New World Pictures, Death Race 2000<\/em> and Cannonball<\/em>) is enough to secure him the cult status he deserves. \"\"\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEating Raoul\u201d is currently streaming on <\/em>HBO Max<\/em><\/a>. \u201cNot for Publication\u201d can be viewed on <\/em>Kanopy<\/em><\/a>. \u201cLust in the Dust\u201d is on <\/em>Tubi<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThe Longshot\u201d is on <\/em>Starz<\/em><\/a>. \u201cScenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills\u201d isn\u2019t streaming anywhere, but is available for purchase from <\/em>Kino Lorber<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a handful of idiosyncratic indies and comedies-for-hire, writer\/actor\/director Paul Bartel carved out a niche as a merciless social satirist in a grim era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":463,"featured_media":18089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1422],"class_list":["post-18087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/463"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22015,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18087\/revisions\/22015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}