Clay Pigeon (1971)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Absolutely Brilliant!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Even when you consider the low point Metro Goldwyn Mayer was finding itself in the 1970s, it's really puzzling why they decided picking up this movie was worth their time. As it turns out, they didn't give it much of a theatrical release. Seeing the movie, it's easy to figure out why MGM eventually realized there wasn't much of a potential audience for it. It's not entirely bad. The acting is pretty competent for the most part, though Robert Vaughn does overact for most of his scenes. And there's an interesting and tuneful soft rock soundtrack by some prominent musicians like Arlo Guthrie. But the movie is a big bore. It takes about half of the running time for the movie to set everything up, and once everything is set up, the movie doesn't pick up much more speed. Only some bouts of graphic violence and bloodshed (and graphic nudity) will prevent viewers from falling asleep, though I think most viewers once the movie reaches the ending will feel that having a nap would have been a more productive use of their time.

****SPOILERS**** Totally forgettable especially by those who are in it 1970's anti establishment movie that has to do with a returning Vietnam veteran Joe Ryan, Tom Stern,who becomes a flower child as well as homeless street person and ends up becoming a Rambo, before anyone ever heard of him,in taking down a drug kingpin Henry Neilson, Robert Vaughn, and his gang single handily. It's Ryan who's being blackmailed by corrupt DEA hot shot Frank Redford, Telly Savalas,to impersonate Neilson in order to get him out in the open. Despite the film's super star power-it was a recession and the actors desperately needed work-it ended up bombing out in the theaters even before word of mouth, in how awful it was, did it in.Ryan who survived getting blown to bits in Vietnam when he jumped on a live grenade with his body felt that it was his fate to save humanity by first trying to save the drug addicted youth in L.A despite himself being hooked on pot. It's when he was arrested for vagrancy as well as stealing and damaging a traffic cop's motorcycle,here he shows no respect for the law, he's confronted by DEA agent Redford to go undercover as a clay pigeon to get the goods on crime boss Neilson, whom no one knows what he looks like, by making believe that he's him? Reluctant at first Rayn goes along with the scheme only to end up losing all his hippie friends including 60 year old junk man Freedom Lovelace, obviously a made up name, played by a ridiculously made up looking-like a hippie-senior citizen Burgess Meredith in the process.***SPOILERS*** In the end Ryan after being shot and left for dead, like he was back in Vietnam, wipes out the powerful and at the same time unknown, in no one ever seeing him in person or in a photo, Neilson's mob that consists of only two persons Simon & Jason played by Ivan Dixon & Mario Alcaide- who died before this turkey of a movie was ever released- before finishing off Neilson in the great water fountain in the Hollowood Bowl. The ending is a lot like the one in "Jacob's Ladder" some 20 years later that seemed to be telling us that this was all some kind of a dream or out of the body experience on Rayn's part! Who in fact never survived the Vietnam war that was still going on when the film was made.

Low-budget thriller features Tom Stern as Vietnam war hero, of late a hippy in L.A. He's set up as the bait by cop Telly Savalas to lure drug lord Robert Vaughn into a trap. Amateurishly directed, despite a talented cast- including Burgess Meredith, John Marley, Ivan Dixon and a (wisely)unbilled Peter Lawford. Director Stern manages to make all of these thespians appear at their worst. The script features endless "hip" dialogue that has dated badly and the production values have all the merit of a porno film. Only the finale staged in the Hollywood Bowl has even a modicum of style and suspense. Vaughn, whose character inexplicably wears a variety of goofy hats, was allegedly paid the (then) sizable sum of $500,000 for his role. This probably exhausted the remaining production budget. There are endless, poorly edited sequences involving dune buggy chases, though the audience might be stirred from their slumber by the frequent nudity. Not out on video in the U.S, but available in the U.K. as "Trip to Kill"

This would be action film is so slow it almost put you to sleep. I can't figure out why MGM picked this film up for release? There are some good moments and if Stern edited a good 10 minutes of this film, it would run very smoothly. Stern plays a vietnam vet who is used by a DEA agent (savalas) to be a clay pigeon for drug kingpin (Vaughn). There is Kris Kristofferson, Arlo Guthrie songs, Doon-Buggie chase, Meredith acting like a hippie, Lawford uncredited, and I don't want to give away the ending, but it's lame. Not recommended.