“You know what NAACP means, don’t you?”
Damn, this is why the Playlist is in desperate need of a DVD column — consider this an open call for those that are interested — somehow Hal Ashby’s excellent and underseen 1970 debut film, “The Landlord” was finally issued on DVD and no one told us about it (and we honestly don’t remember the usual suspects Jeff Wells or David Kehr writing about it, though yes, we may have missed it).
So earlier this month on May 3, MGM helped the excellent picture (which is Criterion-worthy, trust us), quietly limp onto DVD in what appears to be a very bare bones edition (yes, it’s MGM, they’re up the creek right now).
Need we remind you that in the 1970s, after “The Landlord,” Ashby delivered the seemingly relentless attack of amazing pictures that includes, “Harold and Maude” (1971), “The Last Detail” (1973), “Shampoo” (1975), “Bound for Glory” (1976), “Coming Home” (1978) and “Being There” (1979).
Yes, the 1980s were not kind to the shaggy dog, laid-back and amiable director, but he essentially owned the ’70s and was on fire the entire decade.
Cribbing from ourselves in an old 2008 post, we wrote, “a funny, sharp and incisive look at racism, white guilt and miscegenation, the film stars Beau Bridges in perhaps his finest performance ever as a privileged and affluent New Yorker, who tries to strike out on his own far away from his WASPY-wealthy family by buying a brownstone in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood which he plans to soup up luxury style once he’s kicked out all the inner-city planning tenants (the film also stars the great Lee Grant in a delicious performance as Bridge’s overbearing mother, and Lou Gosset Jr. as an unhinged and deservedly jealous tenant).”
Also, if you live anywhere remotely around Park Slope in Brooklyn, you’ll get a massive kick out of seeing very memorable spots in the dilapidated ’70s.
Norman Jewison produced it, Academy Award-nominated “Prince of Darkness” cinematographer Gordon Willis lensed it (“The Godfather,” many a classic Woody Allen film), Bob Dylan’s old keyboardist Al Kooper wrote the score and the movie also features some amazing, amazing soul cuts by Lorraine Ellison and the Staple Sisters.
It is a grand, must-see film, that’s adventurous, funny, cutting-edge for it’s time and still relevant today. Folks like Wes Anderson, Judd Apatow, Alexander Payne, Jason Schwartzman and David O. Russell are avowed fans of Ashby’s work and if you aren’t, you need to ask yourself why (and perhaps shake yourself fiercely). Also a must-read or good entry point is the recent biography, “Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel” — one of the great, what-if anecdotes is the fact that Neil Young was supposed to score all of “The Landlord,” but their collaboration fell through (evidently Neil did write music for the film and it’s probably stuck in his massive archives somewhere).
Anyhow, yes, “The Landlord” is on DVD, albeit in what appears like the most basic, basic of versions. Still, we’re thankful others can finally discover it (and we might as well toss our dusty old VHS copy now). It’s a mere $15.99 on Amazon which is nothing compared to how much of a lost gem this picture is/was.
For more, read this great blog post on the Focus Features site by Nick Dawson, the author of the aforementioned biography. Here’s something that we always return to when discussing Hal Ashby: the segment in the excellent 2003 IFC documentary, “A Decade Under The Influence” with the ’70s Hollywood elite lauding the departed filmmaker. The part with Jon Voight being moved to tears is really, well, moving. And below is a scene from the film.