The Big Bounce (1969)

Simply Perfect

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

When this film first screened at Warner's 7Arts in Syd, several thought it so cheap and ugly as simply not worth releasing. This was in the days when Australia still had a policy of returning works considered morally (and/or financially) bankrupt - back to their country of origin.The Australian Censor of the day wisely did that for them, so it was packed up with a note:- not wanted in Australia - this decision proved to be of little loss. The film typified a new low grade in movie making that rapidly became the norm in the 60's and 70's, brimming with poorly written, deliberately ugly characters. Ryan O'Neill simply continued his bland character from TV's Peyton Place and was quoted as having said; 'TV is Hamburger, Cinema is Steak' - well, this shoddy offering doesn't even rate as thinly sliced bacon (burn't at that). He's featured staring with his then wife Leigh Taylor-Young, they may have been a hot couple in the social columns but proved Luke warm on screen. Young performed Playboy type nude scenes and indulged in an endless variety of super nasty actions - playing a social vandal come thief/murderess. Her character at one stage is seen kicking the body of the person she had earlier shot multiple times. Nice stuff!Produced, directed and written by a trio of veteran TV makers, who like many others trying to graduate from the small screen seemed to think: if you make a movie in CinemaScope and Technicolor, then add heaps of heavy violence and sexual promiscuity, audiences will begin to take you seriously. How wrong they were... but sadly this trend continued to it's present state. It's not that Cinema 'grew up' (as some try to 'sell' us) it just became more sensationalistic. This movie also features one of the final performances for the great Van Hefflin (he must have needed cash badly) and wastes the talents of the capable Lee Grant in a sad and demeaning role. The best performance, and scene, involved child star Cindy Elibacher (not her sister Lisa, as one reviewer wrongly wrote) playing Grant's daughter. It all serves to prove how difficult it was/is to successfully transfer the writings of Elmore Leonard to the screen ~ some of the better ones were: 3.10 to Yuma in '57 ~ the off-beat 'Valdez is Coming' '71 and to a lesser degree, also in '57 the interesting Randolph Scott film: 'The Tall T'. This film also features one of the most miss-matched music scores ever. Interesting composer/producer Mike Curb gave this a 'beach' movie type sound track with songs better suited to a TV travel commercial. His main-title song "When Somebody Cares for you" is played over a violent opening shot - it's actually a 'nice' song that seemed to have been written for a good Disney family film and is totally wasted in this show.So from being banned in several countries, to now running on TCM with an 'M' rating and no proper warnings of the heavily 'suss' content, this ends up as a barometer - demonstrating how far we've slipped as a non-discerning society. Junk fans may last the distance - others may run for cover....

One of the mysterious young women trying to fill the footsteps left by a fleeing Mia Farrow on ABC-TV's "Peyton Place" was lovely Leigh Taylor-Young. Instead of providing the camera with clues for locating Mia, the coy Ms. Young hooked up with roddy Ryan O'Neal, who had been serving as the town's good-looking hunk for several years. Mr. O'Neal was looking to follow castmate Farrow into movie stardom, and newcomer Young encouraged changes. Call it "The Big Bounce".Alas, millions did not flock to the sinsational new gossiped-about couple on the big screen, although the film featured beautiful California scenery, a very generous helping of Young's naked form, and some brief views of hunky O'Neal's buttocks. The Mike Curb score may be a deterrent, but the movie could grow on you. It's a sexy time capsule, at least. Veteran Van Heflin gets the best of writer Elmore Leonard's lines, and Lee Grant (yet another "Peyton Place" alumni) always helps.**** The Big Bounce (3/5/69) Alex March ~ Ryan O'Neal, Leigh Taylor-Young, Van Heflin, Lee Grant

Most of the other comments on here are pretty accurate. This movie really showed the loosening up of Hollywood as far as female nudity went. We get to see the beautiful Leigh Taylor-Young in various stages of nudity and looking good dressed too. Ryan never looked better. Lee Grant perfected the role of a perpetually uptight woman in Valley of The Dolls and this seems to be a continuation. The only actress in this movie that really shined was Cindy Eilbacher who could act rings around any other child actor of this or later era. Her few scenes really stand out and almost seem to be from another movie. Loved the cars, the clothes, the great character actors and YES I did love the music but it was all wrong for this movie. I think this music was meant for Dean Martin's last Matt Helm movie with Sharon Tate that never got made. It was lush orchestrated loungy pop music but was all wrong for a crime-noir movie. It really threw me off but I enjoyed hearing it from another room when I wasn't watching the screen. This also has some really great campy lines mainly from Van Heflin calling Leigh a "Quiff" in one scene and various other vague vulgarities. I really enjoyed watching Van go near the edge of camp and then pull back a bit. James Daly was perfect as a high class sleazebag. Look for Ryan's brother Kevin as the passenger in the dune buggy scene.Overall much better than the horrendous remake, especially if you like movies that are so bad they are good.

Out of curiosity, I rented the 1969 film version of THE BIG BOUNCE from Netflix, and it proved the underrated 2004 edition (which I reviewed elsewhere on the IMDb) to be another example of a remake that's way better than the original! The two versions of TBB are fairly close in plotting, but this year's model captures source author Elmore Leonard's loopy, cynical sense of humor much better, skipping the original film's mawkish asides and heavy-handed attempts at poignancy and psychodrama. For instance, the self-pitying, self-destructive, male-afflicted single mom played by Lee Grant in 1969 is rebooted in the latest edition as a cheerfully coquettish tourist played by Anahit Minasyan, whose fate is much more upbeat than poor Grant's. Also, TBB Mark 2's Hawaiian setting and George S. Clinton's playful score combining rock and Hawaiian-style music appealed to me more than TBB Mark 1's been-there-done-that Los Angeles locales (by the way, I seem to recall that Leonard's book is set in Detroit) and syrupy soft rock by Mike Curb, of all people. Next to The Mike Curb Congregation, The Brady Bunch's album sounds like the Rolling Stones' greatest hits! Even if it didn't sound hilariously dated to early 21st-century ears, Curb's score is still all wrong for a downbeat crime drama like the '69 model (not that the first film is completely humor-free; Van Heflin's eccentrically-decorated home was one of the film's few bright spots). I almost got the feeling Curb originally composed the music for an entirely different kind of film, perhaps some perky, inspirational heart-warmer starring the folks from Up With People which never got off the ground, so someone decided to graft Curb's score onto TBB v. 1 instead of letting it go to waste. While both films have great casts overall (the original includes Heflin, James Daly, and Robert Webber in the roles played this year by Morgan Freeman, Gary Sinise, and Charlie Sheen), in the starring role of ex-con Jack Ryan, Owen Wilson's wisecracking slackertude in TBB Mark 2 is much more engaging than Ryan O'Neal's personality in TBB Mark 1. While I've enjoyed O'Neal in comedies, particularly 1972's WHAT'S UP, DOC?, I've never liked him in dramas. To me, O'Neal has always come across as moist and mewling when he's supposed to be tender and sensitive, and surly and petulant when he's supposed to be tough and hard nosed, and his performance in TBB #1 is no exception. However, both films have terrific leading ladies playing thrill-seeking kept woman Nancy: the current version marks Sara Foster's screen debut, while the original starred the lovely and beguiling Leigh Taylor-Young, then O'Neal's real-life wife and former co-star on TV's PEYTON PLACE. (Fun Fact: Leigh Taylor-Young was nominated for a Laurel Award for Best Female New Face for her performance in TBB.) The chemistry between O'Neal and LT-Y is one of the film's few saving graces; they sure seem to enjoy tearing their clothes off, and they look good doing it, too! :-) Alas, except for the occasional memorable line (for example, here's Heflin slyly commenting on O'Neal's phone chat with LT-Y: "You look like the mouse that got swallowed by the pussy."), Robert Dozier's screenplay can't seem to decide whether Nancy is a victim of callous men, a calculating femme fatal, or a plain old homicidal psycho. The critics who panned TBB Mark 2 obviously never had to suffer through Mark 1! If you've got your heart set on an at-home Elmore Leonard film festival, rent GET SHORTY, OUT OF SIGHT, even the overlong but still exceptional JACKIE BROWN, and include THE BIG BOUNCE -- but unless you lust after Ryan O'Neal and Leigh Taylor-Young in their prime, make sure you get your mitts on the superior 2004 version!