This essay is Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s
entry in the
Goldblumathon,
currently underway at Cinematic Catharsis from
August 1-3, and spotlighting the films of one of our most treasured modern-day
character thesps. Jeff Goldblum.
Participating blogs and the topics under discussion can be found here.
In 1975, screenwriter Joan Micklin Silver directed her first
feature—an independent film based on an 1896 novel by writer Abraham Cahan
entitled
Yekl: A Tale of the New York
Ghetto.
The book, which detailed the
experiences of a newly-arrived-to-these-shores Jewish woman at the turn of the
century, had special resonance for Silver, whose own family were Russian
immigrants much like the characters in the novel.
No studio would finance what eventually was
brought to the screen as
Hester Street
(the consensus was that it was “a lovely film, but for a Jewish audience”), so
Silver’s husband Raphael raised $400,000 to shoot the movie under the auspices
of their company, Midwest Film Productions.
Hester Street would wind up
grossing $5 million in the U.S., and not only nabbed lead actress Carol Kane a
Best Actress Oscar nomination but garnered Silver a Writers Guild nomination
for best screenplay.
(It was also placed
on the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2011.)
Despite the success of
Hester
Street, the Silvers still couldn’t get any studio to back their next
project, a 1977 comedy-drama entitled
Between
the Lines.
So the couple were once
again forced to fend for themselves.
Lines tells several stories behind the
scenes of a fictional Boston alternative newspaper,
The Back Bay Mainline, inspired by screenwriter Fred
Barron’s earlier experiences at both the real-life
The Boston Phoenix and
The
Real Paper.
(Director Silver had
also worked at one time for
The
Village Voice—though that publication is considerably more upscale than
the paper in the movie.)
It’s a timeworn
movie cliché, I know—but
Lines is
one of those “best movies you’ve never seen”; an engaging vehicle that mixes
solid acting with first-rate scripting, and spotlights an impressive cast of
folks who would go on to bigger and better things.
A character in Lines
describes The Back Bay Mainline—which
began life as a “radical underground” rag before changing with the times to reflect
on the counterculture—as a “way station”; it’s staffed by people on their way
up and on their way down. Belonging to
the former group is Michael (Stephen Collins), a frustrated novelist who’s been
accused by at least one Mainline
staffer of sponging off his girlfriend Laura (Gwen Welles) while he waits for a
publisher to buy his book. (Laura not
only writes for the paper, she works a second job so that the two of them can
keep body and soul together.) Michael
eventually gets an advance from a company who’s going to publish his book, and
he expects Laura to go with him to New York.
She, however, would rather stay in Boston, where her job and friends
are.
Harry Lucas (John Heard) is one of the paper’s veterans; a
talented investigative reporter, he sadly lacks Michael’s determination to better
himself by also writing a book, and his on-again-off-again relationship with
girlfriend Abbie (Lindsay Crouse) is sailing troubled waters.
Abbie, the paper’s photographer, is fiercely independent
(and damn good at her job), refusing to settle for a life where Harry writes
and she “bakes bread” all day; she demonstrates this individuality in one scene
where Harry is interviewing a dancer (Marilu Henner) in a strip club.
Abbie develops an instant journalistic
rapport with the woman known as “Danielle,” something Harry (who’s writing an
investigative piece) clearly resents.
Other staffers on the paper include David Entwhistle (Bruno
Kirby), in charge of the
Mainline’s personal
ads but harboring a burning desire to be a reporter.
He gets a tip from music columnist Max Arloft
(Jeff Goldblum) that a gentleman running for city council, Kevin “The Duck”
Austin (Guy Boyd), is actually the man behind a major record bootlegging
operation in town—and David risks being worked over by a pair of Austin’s
goombahs to get the story.
Tipster Max
is one of the paper’s most colorful personages; he’s always broke and cadging
loans from the other employees including receptionist-typist Lynn (Jill
Eikenberry), who functions as the surrogate mother of the group.
Lynn will turn out to be the most principled member of the
Mainline staff.
There are rampant rumors that the paper’s
publisher, Stuart Wheeler (Richard Cox), is planning to sell the
Mainline to a rival publisher
named Roy Walsh (Lane Smith), who specializes in buying up alternatives and
transforming them into more mainstream publications.
In an early scene in the film set at a local
restaurant, several of the paper’s employees discuss this possibility and vow
to quit should it come to pass.
But when
Walsh does get his hands on the paper, Lynn is the only employee who resigns in
protest after Walsh orders editor Frank (Jon Korkes) to fire Harry for
insubordination.
(In a marvelous scene,
Walsh apologizes to her for not knowing her name while he’s asking her to
perform some mundane task, and she tells him: “You don’t
have to learn my name…because I quit.”)
 |
| One of my favorite scenes in Between the Lines features a little impromptu dancing from Lindsay Crouse (L), Gwen Welles (M) and Jill Eikenberry (R). |
Though the period fashions of
Between the Lines will no doubt induce a few giggles from those
curious to check out the movie, the feature itself doesn’t seem at all dated:
its themes of corporate rapaciousness in the journalism business and whether or
not to compromise one’s idealism (“selling out” or “cashing in”?) will still
resonate with audiences today.
For a
low-budget independent film,
Lines
sports some powerhouse acting talent.
Stephen Collins is best known as the star of the long-running TV series
7th
Heaven, and Lindsay Crouse would go on to appear in the likes of
The Verdict,
Places in the Heart and
House of Games.
Jill Eikenberry was a cast member on the hit
TV series
L.A. Law while John Heard would star in such movies as
The Milagro Beanfield War,
Big and
The Pelican Brief (he also worked in director Silver’s first studio
feature,
Chilly Scenes of Winter
[1979—later retitled
Head Over Heels]).
But what about the man of the hour—the focus of this here
blogathon?
Goldblum’s Max Arloft is a
charming scoundrel, constantly hitting on women (one of the movie’s highlights
has him lecturing on “Whither Rock ‘n’ Roll?” to a group of female college
students dutifully jotting down his every nonsensical utterance) and complaining about his
$75-a-week salary (he’s forced to sell review copies of albums he’s received to
a used record store for extra cash, a point he brings up in his negotiations
for a raise with the
Mainline’s
publisher).
Max is
Lines’ comic relief; in one scene, the newspaper’s office is
invaded by a self-described performance artist (Raymond J. Barry, in his film
debut) who begins wrecking the joint in an attempt to get attention…and Arloft
joins in, punching holes in the office walls and ripping the shirt off the paper’s
asshole advertising manager (Lewis J. Stadlen).
 |
| Stanley exposed. |
And yet—Max has a serious and even heroic side; realizing
that David’s life may be in danger after tipping him off to “The Duck’s”
activities, he races with Harry and Abbie to where David is supposed to meet
the bootlegger just in time to see his friend receive a serious ass-kicking.
An enraged Max rips off the antenna from his
car and starts brandishing it in a threatening manner in front of Austin’s
goons as Abbie and Harry assist the injured David.
(Goldblum’s invective toward the henchies is
a riot, along the lines of “pernicious ill-shits.”)
In his reference book
Guide
for the Film Fanatic, Danny Peary describes
Between the Lines as “one of those films that I wish would never end.”
He astutely points out how most of the
well-written characters of the film are flesh-and-blood human beings; they
might act nobly in one instance and dickishly in the next, just like the people
we know in real life.
Max is a great
Goldblum character, and Jeff’s performance is in some ways a blueprint for the
jaded journalist he later plays in
The
Big Chill (1983), Michael Gold.
Before
the end of the movie, Goldblum’s Max encounters Harry and Abbie in a bar and
Harry asks him what his plans are.
“Write
a book,” he replies.
“About the loss of
innocence…alienation…corruption…“
(He’s
kidding, by the way.)
The
Chill leitmotif of faded idealism is
quite prevalent in
Lines, as several
of the characters reflect on the fun and good times that they had while working
on the
Mainline in the
past…and how the takeover by the Robert Murdoch-like Walsh (character great
Lane Smith’s Walsh is a douchebag without peer—quite a departure from his
future role as editor Perry White on TV’s
The
Adventures of Lois & Clark) will bring an end to all that.
 |
|
The gentleman who
chats with Collins in an early scene—and then later buys drinks for Goldblum at
the end of the film—is writer-humorist Doug Kenney, co-founder of the National Lampoon…who left this world for
a better one at the age of 33 in a bizarre falling-off-a-cliff incident that
still remains murky today. (Kenney is
the guy who plays “Stork” in National
Lampoon’s Animal House—“Well, what are we s’posed to do, you moron?”)
|
Other future stars in
Lines
include the aforementioned Marilu Henner (who gets to shake her moneymaker as
stripper Danielle), Joe Morton and Robert Constanzo (as one of Austin’s
henchmen), and the ubiquitous Michael J. Pollard appears as “The Hawker,” seen
in the opening credits handing out papers to passersby and people in cars
(there’s an interesting scene where Pollard’s character is shown to be crashing
at the paper’s offices in his off-hours, sleeping under a pinball machine and
using several issues of the
Mainline
as a pillow).
Southside Johnny (Lyon)
and the Asbury Jukes appear as themselves (decked out in leisure suits from
Polyester R Us) and are prominently featured on the soundtrack (
I Don’t Want to Go Home,
Sweeter Than Honey).
Check out a great Jeff Goldblum performance
in
Between the Lines, available on
manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD from MGM/UA.
