Scott After Patton; Dunaway Before Chinatown

"Oklahoma Crude" is a weird movie. It seemed weird in 1973, too.

It was directed by Stanley Kramer, who, a mere ten years before, had given the world the garguantuan "super comedy" Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and had, in the years before that, given us such serious all-star deep think movies as Judgment at Nuremberg(the Holocaust), On the Beach(nuclear war) and Inherit the Wind(Darwinism.)

Like a number of directors who peaked in the 50s and 60's, it was hard going for Kramer into the 70's, but clearly his name meant something -- he landed George C. Scott as his hero and Faye Dunaway as his heroine.

Scott is interesting in the film. He'd turned down his "Patton" Oscar, but he knew it made him marketable as a middle-aged man of action. Rumor has it that Scott committed to two Westerns in the 70's -- The Cowboys and The Shootist -- which ultimately went to John Wayne(a bigger legend, but not quite a current big star at the time.) "Oklahoma Crude" is a turn of the 20th Century Western(with cars) that shows us what Scott would have been like as "a Western hero." Somewhat incredibly , Scott is Shane here. I mean, the main bad guy is Jack Palance and the story is about land barons wanting "the little guy's" land. Well, in this case, its Oil Barons and they want "the little gal's land."

And that little gal is Faye Dunaway, clearly given a star part here but in a period of time when she was struggling to reclaim her "Bonnie and Clyde" stardom. That role was less than a year away from Oklahoma Crude("Chinatown") but Faye does here with George C. Scott what she would proceed to do with Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, William Holden, Jon Voight, The Three Musketeers and others in the 70's: gives the male lead a sparring partner with sex appeal.

Dunaway's Lena is written as mean and man-hating as they come, and comes equipped with a then-famous speech in which her character expresses a desire to have two sexual organs -- male and female so "I could screw myself." Scott wins this scene with his deadpan disgust with the concept (he's quite handsome in his close-ups here) -- but its not quite so far-fetched today, is it?

As Roger Ebert noted, "Oklahoma Crude" is a throwback to The African Queen and other male/female romances with more of a tough teamwork through-line; it takes a long time for Lena to "cotton" to Scott, and he tries to betray her before that happens. The throwback may be to The African Queen, but the early 70's tone is very unromantic and the happy ending is a "maybe."

I stumbled on "Oklahoma Crude" on streaming the other night and I'm reminded that despite Scott and Dunaway -- clearly two stars -- in the leads, and Oscar winners John Mills(the same year as Scott's in Patton, for Ryan's Daughter) and Jack Palance(almost 20 years later in City Slickers) in support...this movie just didn't make it. Didn't click. Helped further the end of Stanley Kramer's career and didn't do much for Scott's or Dunaway's(though I expect both were paid very well to anchor it.)

For all of that...its worth a watch. Certain classic Western conflicts emerge -- Scott's uncommitted n'er-do-well rises to heroic proportions; Palance's now-aged version of earlier villains is as funny as he is threatening(and he does one scene with his shirt off to prove that he was still built in middle-age). Dunaway so rarely submits to sentimentality that this can be seen as a dry run for her Sexy Careerist Monster in Network...

...and Henry Mancini delivers a very exciting action-packed overture that weirdly seques into a retro "tinny" ballad sung by then-hot Anne Murray.

An interesting failure from a very major year at the movies: 1973.