The Lords of Discipline

THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE
(R, Paramount Pictures, 102 mins., theatrical release date: Feb. 18, 1983)

Donald "Pat" Conroy passed away last year, leaving behind a beloved literary back catalog which was reliable for prestige filmic adaptations (The Great Santini, The Prince of Tides). This year, Bill Paxton died far younger, his colorful legacy as a character actor including such nostalgic totem poles like Aliens, Weird Science, Twister, and my personal favorite, Near Dark. And here I am to talk about the movie version of Conroy's 1980 novel The Lords of Discipline, with Paxton in a supporting role. I would like to take a moment before this review to honor both men.

Pat Conroy's second fictional tome and subsequent film version continues a theme of The Great Santini, that of achieving manhood in the face of brutal tradition and Deep South dysfunction. Whereas Santini was inspired by the familial ties that bind, specifically the strained relationship between Conroy and his father Donald Sr. (a decorated veteran of Korean War whose Marine pride morphed into a bleak form of paternal torture), The Lords of Discipline focused on Conroy's schooling at Charleston, SC's military academy The Citadel.

For this particular translation, screenwriters Thomas Pope and Lloyd Fonvielle seize upon the senior year shame Conroy had based upon the knowledge of corrupt power plays involving senior cadets which began in 1907 at a renowned military college. The Lords of Discipline takes celluloid form as a conspiracy-based thriller about a form of intramural horror which takes idealistic would-be soldiers and intimidates them into lifelong trauma at best.

Ben Meecham of Santini sought to overcome a form of generational cruelty, whereas Will McLean tries to persevere faced with institutionalized savagery. David Keith aces the lead role of Will following supporting work in The Great Santini, in which he played the racist tormentor Red, as well as An Officer and a Gentleman. The scene is 1964 at the Carolina Military Institute, where English major Will arrives for his graduate year in good-humored style, reuniting with his three roommates and close friends. One of them, Tradd (Mitchell Lichtenstein), is an effete yet cultured confidante who trusts Will enough to give him a spare key to his family mansion and an anytime welcome. Another is Pignetti (Rick Rossovich), a bull-necked bruiser who's a real puppy dog on the inside, making a grand entrance by roughing up one freshman "knob" for the sin of talking vulgar about his sweetheart Teresa, and right to her framed photograph.

Will also meets again with his salty but dignified mentor Col. "Bear" Berrineau (Robert Prosky), who is still molding the military brat by assigning Will a debt-repaying operation he is hesitant to accept. Turns out a stringy African-American boy named Pearce (Mark Breland) has damned the color lines and arrived at the Institute, which is bound to shake up the hornet's nest among the student body. Bear entrusts Will, who refuses to fall in line with the rigorous abuse of his peers even on Hell Night, to ensure Pearce is given a fair shake as a knob, running interference if necessary.

What Will soon discovers is that a Klan-like cabal of roughnecks known mythically as "The Ten" are plotting to drive Pearce out of the academy by any means necessary, be it bodily harm or even murder. And if he's to take a stand, chances are it means questioning his loyalty to the brass ring on both his finger as well as that which is in command of the school. 

The Lords of Discipline bears the liberal-minded hallmarks of an Alan Parker melodrama (Mississippi Burning, Midnight Express), but the director here is fellow Brit Franc Roddam, who made a simplistically affecting coming-of-age tale out of Pete Townshend's rock opera Quadrophenia. Working with both an American cast and subject matter (although filmed in Brighton because no U.S. school was flattered by the location scouting), there is an outsider's sense of sensationalism which stands in stark comparison to the rawer slice-of-life elements in Quadrophenia.

For the first half, Roddam actually excels in depicting the testosterone-mad atmosphere of dominance which is a military academy. The film opens with one solitary freshman (Matt "Max Headroom" Frewer) running toward the quad and getting berated by three of the most unctuous student taskmasters in the senior class, among them future space grunts Michael Biehn as Alexander and "Wild" Bill Paxton himself (that's seriously how he's credited here) as Gilbreath. These same junior martinets later force Pearce to do pull-ups whilst training a sword at his scrotum (all bids are closed at that point as to who at least half of The Ten really are). In between these are some well-acted and colorfully-written camaraderie between Will and his more even-minded if prejudiced roomies, the background a symphony of drill sergeants operating the ringers.

The story that develops inevitably requires Will to confront not just The Ten, but also the complacency and callousness of his friends and teachers. On the one end is Col. Berrineau, who owns up to his virulent racism but in no uncertain terms keeps faithful to the code of honor in which all men are equal in the need for defending America. Less tolerant than even the Bear is boyish Tradd, who plays Mozart in his study to the consternation of his manlier-than-thou father, but who speaks in the haughty, bigoted tones of a plantation owner. Even after The Ten drives a white student, a frail butterball named Poteete (Malcolm Danare), to suicide, Tradd shrugs off the tragedy with the indifference of a Southern Belle out to lunch.

Poteete's shell-shocked demise is even glossed over by the headmaster, Gen. Durrell (G.D. Spradlin), as an accident during "parachute descent" exercises. The senior class and their commandants turn up with candles outside the door of Poteete's parents and ease their grief with a rousing choral rendition of "Dixieland," all the while the victimized Pearce lays in his bunker without as much hope for peace as his dead roommate.

Will convinces Tradd, Pignetti and paisan pal Santoro (John Lavachielli) to help him get to the bottom of things, which places a strain on their close-quarters friendship. But once Will witnesses the awful truth for himself about "the hole" (The Ten's secretive house of pain), the insularity of the environment suddenly chokes the narrative and compounds logistical flaws in a hamfisted attempt to sanctify a battle between white knights and black masks. Even though the shameful developments continue in Will's pursuit of justice, they don't really bear the gravitational weight of one student's loss and another's silent suffering, never mind acknowledging any kind of wider world outside the barracks.

Chalk it up to simple-minded screenwriting misconduct on the part of Pope & Fonvielle, because Franc Roddam at least tries to make the proceedings as urgent and unsettling as he possibly can. He knows how to capture eerie dichotomies, like when Pearce confides to Will within shouting distance of their enemies in the church, lifting his shirt to reveal the numbers "1-0" carved into his back. The performances he coaxes from David Keith, Rick Rossovich and Robert Prosky in particular are grounded above and beyond the call of duty, alleviating the hysteria with some badly-needed humor (a sidelined Judge Reinhold also makes a likeable wiseass as Macabbee). Mark Breland and Malcolm Danare suffer well as the whipping boys, whilst Mitchell Lichtenstein, Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton do the Gestapo routine with gusto, although Lichtenstein's Tradd is betrayed by the script to be a whiny turncoat instead of a genuinely conflicted insider.

In terms of cast and filmmaker, The Lords of Discipline never accrues enough demerits to merit the dreaded Walk of Shame one of Will's friends has to endure. Still, this amiably disturbing if unbalanced period piece never fires off all of its 21 guns.

Finally, seven trivial thoughts in the wake of my first screening:

1) Judge Reinhold, fresh off Fast Times at Ridgemont High, makes for one all-American booger ("I always knew you were corn-holing your roommate, you little pissant!"). Funny seeing him and Paxton together knowing they both were called into active duty in the wartime video for Pat Benatar's "Shadows of the Night." I still recommend Vice Versa, screw whatever the man who made Yoga Hosers has to say.

2) Biehn, Paxton and Rossovich would regularly work together again in various groupings. The trio would reunite in The Terminator and Navy Seals, whereas the six-time team of Paxton & Rossovich tie into my Diane Franklin retrospective by virtue of Deadly Lessons, the TV movie released in the same year as The Lords of Discipline.

3) Malcolm Danare is kind of an unsung hero among chubby 1980s personalities, even more so than Joe Rubbo. Danare played a literal heavy in Christine from '83 (with Robert Prosky, who also later starred in Gremlins 2), and even had a minor role in the blockbuster Flashdance, but gave his best performance as the know-it-all Caesar in the hidden gem Heaven Help Us a couple years later. He must have gotten along well with David Keith, who remembered Danare for his directorial debut with The Curse (1987), where Danare played Wil Wheaton's wicked stepbrother.

4) According to his IMDb bio, Rossovich is "considered one of the nicest people to work with, and a devoted family man." I'll miss him eventually as much as I do Paxton, if that's any indication, as well as for his role opposite Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah in Roxanne. Watch out for him in Top Gun and Streets of Fire.

5) Mitchell "Tradd" Lichtenstein went on to play a closeted Vietnam soldier in Robert Altman's filmed play of Streamers, co-starring Matthew Modine and David Alan Grier. In 2007, he made like a lot of frustrated actors and crossed over into writing/directing with the vagina dentata goof Teeth. He also directed Parker Posey, Demi Moore and Ellen Barkin in 2009's less-acclaimed Happy Tears. Still more imaginative and provocative than Steven Antin.

6) Mark Breland is of course known as the former World Welterweight Champion with five Golden Gloves and a great pro boxer record of 35-3-1, including 25 knock-out victories. He rolls with the punches as Pearce, but I think he could take out his white co-stars flawlessly, even Gilbreath and Pignetti.

7) Franc Roddam's mainstream career took a sharp nosedive in 1985 after he reteamed with Gordon "Ace Face" Sumner and one of the writers of the Lords of Discipline script for The Bride (Sting, Stangk, Stunk!). In the aftermath of the overlooked War Party and the pretty vacant K2 (with Michael Biehn in the lead), he's now content with a long career as writer for the Masterchef TV franchise. At least I'll always have the Criterion release of Quadrophenia to remind me of his (and Sting's) former glory.

Enchantéd, Pt. IV: Summer Girl/Deadly Lessons

Enchantéd: A Retrospective Tribute to Diane Franklin

IV. Summer Girl/Deadly Lessons (1983)

(Unrated, CBS/ABC TV)

In my introduction to this series, I realized there was no chance I could assess the complete works of Diane Franklin. To put a finer point on it, Diane’s TV work trumps her theatrically-released resume by a notable margin. Focusing on just the seven movies from 1982 to 1989 wherein Diane was cast seemed like a good idea at self-discipline, kind of like how I used to withhold watching Better Off Dead... on cable until I got through a considerable chunk of my homework. But it also doesn’t do justice to what I’d like to achieve with this retrospective tribute: a reappraisal and re-evaluation of Diane Franklin as an actress throughout the varied films of her career, as well as an honest examination of each title. This means that I have pondered deeply the notion of giving at least a couple of Diane’s televised feature performances due processing.

The 1982 double-header of The Last American Virgin and Amityville II: The Possession are readily available from the same home video distributor on MGM DVD and were previously issued on VHS. The two accompanying Diane Franklin vehicles from the next year have barely been placed on the market thus far (there was a now OOP VHS edition of Summer Girl), now resigned to DVD-R obscurity except that you can’t even buy them on-demand. What kind of world am I living in when one of Diane's horror vehicles, a mad psycho mystery which co-stars Ally Sheedy and Bill Paxton(!), and another of her most full-bodied roles in both physicality and performance aren’t a click or two away from being in my cinematic library? I understand compromise all too well, but I can’t just let my first filmic flame become extinguished that easily.

I was intending to proceed straight to 1984's Second Time Lucky, but thanks to some anonymous help, I have allowed myself to break one small rule in the name of respect and depth. In part four of Enchantéd, I will spotlight Diane’s two subsequent TV movies from 1983, Summer Girl and Deadly Lessons.

Journeyman episodic TV director Robert Michael Lewis' adaptation of the eponymous Caroline Crane novel, Summer Girl feels like the most glaring blind spot in Diane’s oeuvre. Compared to her prior films, this is an outright showcase of a role, as Diane magnificently turns up the heat and the horror for her first truly antagonistic character (remember, Karen with a K was simply fickle, not evil). Cynthia, or Cinni to her friends, is a teenage seductress with a malevolent maturity and alter ego delusions of Greek myth superiority that gives her the confidence of both a truly sexy young woman and a cunning sociopath. Hired as a nanny for a fractured family, Cinni seizes upon their disillusion in order to tempt the workaholic father and teach his children to betray their frazzled mother. More than just a good girl gone bad, Cinni is a devious goddess as acidic as she is alluring.

Better Off Dead... co-star Kim Darby takes the raisin-free lead as harried housefrau Mary Shelburne, a retired photographer and mother of two, Jason and Fern (future Bundy brood David Faustino, Laura Jacoby). When an unanticipated third bun arrives in the oven, it generates fiscal arguments between Mary and workaholic husband Gavin (Barry Bostwick), who is straining to pay for the beach house where Mary’s doctor suggests she rest at to prevent further stress for a couple of weeks. Despite his providing, lighthearted demeanor, Gavin feels caged in by a surplus of soul-deadening responsibility and the strains of domestic turmoil.

When Mary considers appointing a babysitter, along comes a bookish, frumpy teenager named Cinni for an interview. Honest and polite if a bit too prissy, dressed like she just raided her grandmother’s closet, Mary is impressed by the high school student’s bluntness and sense of responsibility. Once she leaves the room, Cinni’s hyper-intelligence reveals itself to be the product of schizophrenia and violent jealousy. And three weeks later, the Shelburnes arrive to pick up Cinni only to discover their supposedly Plain Jane caretaker is actually a statuesque, sunshiny knockout who gives their elderly neighbors Jack & Esther Reardon (Murray Hamilton and Millie Slavin) equal pause.

Cinni’s playful rapport with fun-loving Gavin quickly morphs into erotic entrapment. On their second day at the beach, Cinni tricks Gavin into rescuing her from drowning, flatters him with calculated timidity and then lotions herself up with come-hither cuteness. Mary’s suspicions are aroused enough that she reassumes her shutterbug talents, but it gets worse when Gavin leaves on business. That’s when Cinni starts manipulating and menacing Jason and Fern, revealing her fantastical lineage to Artemis, the fabled Greek goddess of the moon whose Roman counterpart is inadvertently named Diana. She tells the kids about her secret island kingdom, where no other women can trespass but she gleefully teases that their daddy can come.

Unlike Karen or Patricia Montelli, Cinni affords Diane Franklin a boundless opportunity to fuse the desirable with the dangerous, the model California girl gone to the Land of Nod, the glamour of Jane Russell and the psychosis of Norman Bates. Women’s costumer Christine Zamaira (Modern Romance) flatters Diane with so many modes of drop-dead gorgeous in various one-piece bikinis, tank top/hot pants combos, dresses, and evening gowns that it feels like the world’s hottest history lesson in sexy fashion trends. Yet these choices wouldn't fully matter had Diane not matched such diverse surface allure by twisting the same star-making attributes found in her debut performances (her teased curly brown hair, beguiling eyes, twinkling smile, inviting voice, and fantastic body) into something so persuasively, vicariously frightening as well as scintillating.

Whether crushing Jason's newly-captured jellyfish with twisted delight, reliving the heated murder of her best friend after first adjusting the downed strap of her nightgown or dreaming up a chilling soliloquy whilst demonstrating the body language of a witch but with the actual body of Gidget, Diane Franklin proves herself utterly spellbinding as a femme fatale with a very playful if iniquitous poise. Siren though she may be, Cinni could just be Diane’s definitive "babe" performance in every loving definition of the term. It is certainly her most undervalued turn.

The result naturally makes the already credible performances of Kim Darby and Barry Bostwick that much more worthy of investment. Everydude Bostwick is both excitable and tormented as the young-at-heart Gavin, thus providing a morally-grounded sunniness to Cinni’s moonlit charms but giving off enough inner turmoil to make him feel believably weak. But it is Kim Darby as Mary who has to anchor the picture with a very sympathetic display of unwanted neurosis and maternal fear. Distraught but darling, Darby humanizes the pulpy melodrama in valiant ways. You never doubt Mary’s sanity even as her own husband tries to tell her she’s gone overboard in her rightful mistrust of Cinni, and you’re with her every step of the way in uncovering Cinni’s murderous manifesto. Also in the cast are Martha Ellen Scott as Mary's doting mother and soap opera superstar Hunt Block as Peter, the lovesick victim of the apathetic Cinni’s anti-affection.

The cinematography looks TV-movie protocol, a bit too flat due to inferior source quality, but hopefully a restored print (the Warner Archive Collection needs to give this a chance) will do justice to the Hawaiian summertime glow of the beach scenes and the ominous darkness in the night shots as well as the flesh tones and costumes of sumptuous Cinni.

However, as a feminine battle of wills and a domestic drama about the old reliable notion of the home-wrecking coquette, the characters are so well-handled that you're kept in a state of relentless unease. Robert Lewis and adaptive writer A.J. Carothers know how to generate tension, and despite any handful of contrivances and a easily redemptive third act built upon child endangerment, the stakes prove to be very high. All in all, Summer Girl is trashy fun for all seasons and deserves to be rescued from the bottom of the teleflick barrel.

After such a bravura change of pace, the disappointing Deadly Lessons sets back Diane Franklin in Amityville II mode as the naïve ingénue ensnared in a hostile environment. Fourth-billed despite leading character status in this William Wiard-directed chiller, scripted by Jennifer Miller (also responsible for the pre-Summer Girl nanny from hell MOW The Babysitter), Diane plays Stephanie, the sheltered new summertime scholarship student studying French ("Mon dieu!") at Starkwater Hall, an all-girl private school. Arriving dressed similarly to Cinni at the start of Summer Girl, Stephanie is greeted by two of the more friendly girls whom she first meets, including Marita (vivacious Ally Sheedy), who in turn introduces Stephanie to shy Eddie (Bill "Severen" Paxton, Esq.), who is grooming the Saudi stallion belonging to Stephanie’s roommate Shama (Vicki Kriegler of The Competition).

After squeezing in as many characters as possible during the first seven minutes, we cut to stern but immoral headmistress Miss Wade, played by Donna "Miss Ellie Ewing" Reed (who cursed in vain this movie in her last days), holding an inaugural assembly warning the girls to keep away from both townsfolk and the neighboring boys academy (during which we meet Nancy Cartwright from the same year’s Twilight Zone: The Movie as awkward loner Libby). A whole lotta casual cattiness and suspicious glances at muddied boots ensues before sweetheart Stephanie (the kind of girl who enjoys playing murder mystery board games like "Evidence!") and friends uncover the first sign of mortal danger floating in the lake.

"I guess they have a different attitude about death in the east, don’t they?"

A network-friendly slasher/giallo-style mystery made three years after the trendsetting Silent Scream and Friday the 13th is hardly an intriguing alternative, especially in the same year when films as batty, bloody and badly overdramatic as Pieces or Sleepaway Camp were playing theatrically. The latter film’s annoyingly vulgar characters are thankfully not the norm here, as the female students are to a degree plucky and appealing, though clearly some have a hard time looking like convincing young adults (Cartwright may voice Bart Simpson, but it’s tough to suspend disbelief when you actually see her). The movie doles out ominous references in the form of detective movie posters, curriculum quizzes about The Merchant of Venice (wherein Stephanie is thrust into her first catfight in a scene that should’ve been more OTT) and the world’s most carefree red herring in the form of Shama. And there are enough shifty characters who either seem like they have secrets to protect via murder (Miss Ward’s clandestine affair with horse-riding instructor Ferrar, played by David Ackroyd) or just stand about dishing idle threats or looking particularly odd, including Eddie (who we learn has quite an ethics-questioning history in relation to his brother) and the atypical shadowy groundskeeper.

The resulting movie unspools like a more chaste variation on numerous other films of its type (The Dorm That Dripped Blood, The House on Sorority Row), albeit one that’s still quintessentially 1980s in set design (Marshall Crenshaw poster!), vernacular ("grody" and "barfy") and fashion. Cliffhanger transitions and screeching string/synthesizer sections do most of the heavy lifting in terms of suspense until Marita finally gets abducted by the psychotically protective Talking Killer(?). The performances all around seem serviceable, starting from the supporting vets at the top of the cast list, Donna Reed and Larry Wilcox (doing Cameron Mitchell proud as surly Detective Russ Kemper) on down to the effervescent team of Diane Franklin and Ally Sheedy, who truly could‘ve annihilated playing sisters in a much looser, funnier project, and finally a sullen, hunky love interest in the form of Bill Paxton’s Eddie, who, truth be told, felt more at ease in the same year's Mortuary.

And if you always wanted to see Diane as an amateur equestrian before crossing over into horse whisperer for that one Savage Steve Holland-helmed Encyclopedia Brown episode, this one will definitely be on your must-see list. She even takes a fateful, commercial-transitioning roll in the hay, albeit all by her lonesome and without my cushy frame to level the fall and keep her comfy. Have you noticed already how I am just so sweet on her? You try watching Stephanie screaming in panic on a wily horse and resist yelling for help. Discrete as I try to be, I can’t deny that Diane has quite an eternally appealing hold over me.

Deadly Lessons, the movie, it pains me to say, does not. Although her eyes still enrapture, I didn't notice a lot of smiling on behalf of Diane’s character Stephanie, which does mirror my own reaction to this. Whereas the last three films I focused on were quite bracing and stylish, this one has a rather listless pace and a dearth of engrossing set pieces. For a cast that includes three other very likeable, gifted stars in Cartwright, Sheedy and Paxton, people whom Franklin speaks very kindly of in her book, the characters as written don’t make full use of the their glowing presences. The movie overall is actually quite leaden, cluttered and a bit too self-conscious of its TV-friendly trappings enough to feel like an honestly entertaining movie.

It deserves to be seen on the basis of nostalgic star power, a modicum of intelligence and a dynamite third act, but it’s nowhere near as irresistible or revelatory as Summer Girl, in which the drama truly comes alive enough to warrant the anxiety, the central characters feel more relatable and, yes, dream queen Diane Franklin proves herself to be stirringly sensual and multi-faceted in time for her next film. Although I had to pre-empt it, said film demonstrates with the same enticing vigor just how weak in the knees my favorite moon goddess can make me when I’m in the mood for love.

Holy claymation hot dog, I feel lucky tonight!