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"Coming Home"
Coming Home (1978) brought me immediately back to Southern California, 1967, as a returning Vietnam veteran. I have to say this was not an entirely pleasant experience, as it wasn't at the time. This is part of the greatness of this film. I suppose the greatest message of the film is that everyone came back from Vietnam a cripple in some way. Some were in coffins, some in wheel chairs, some with obvious mental problems, and the rest with deep emotional scars (or ghosts) that ate at them from the inside. It didn't help that, especially in California, you were not a returning hero, but rather a victim of the establishment at best, and guilty of complicity in an immoral war at worst. This film, however, went well beyond the broad issues, and showed several of the minor issues, which I hadn't thought about since the early 70s.
When Bruce Dern leaves for Nam, Fonda is no longer permitted to live on base. "If the Marine Corps would have wanted him to have a wife, they would have issued him one." She did, however, receive a military allotment as a dependant, and therefor didn't have to work. She was to go stay with his mother, doing nothing but wait patiently for his return, but elected rather to stay in the San Diego area, with her friends, live in a beach front apartment, and do volunteer work at the VA hospital. Her friend, and live-in girlfriend of the sergeant who had gone to Nam with Dern, was not entitled to an allotment, as she was not married, so had to work at the VA hospital.
Fonda runs into none other than the captain of her High School football team and heart-throb of every girl on campus (John Voight), who has returned a paraplegic. He has gone past self-pity to rage when she meets him. As they become friends, she helps to give him reason to rise above his circumstances, and find a new life. He now has reason to live, and is soon off the gurney, into a wheel chair, and released from the hospital. He still must fight the personal demons caused by what he did and saw in the war. The relationship with Fonda eventually becomes sexual, but there is much more motivation for her actions than just loneliness. Her husband had sex with her by the numbers, in a good military manor, and while she did her duty and endured it, there was no pleasure for her. After meeting him for R&R in Hong Kong, it was obvious that the war was changing him, and that he was more distant and less intimate than ever. It was after this that her relationship with Jon Voight became sexual. Of course, most of his equipment was inoperative, but he did more for her with his tongue than her husband had ever done with a whole body. This is very much of the time, when women were demanding a career, and their right to sexual pleasure.
When Voight arrives at the hospital too late to keep a friend from committing suicide, he protests by chaining himself to the front gates of a Marine training depot, to make a statement about the war. This sets the FBI on his trail as a commie pinko radical, and they record his relationship with Fonda. This is spot on to what was happening at the time, with the government having more trouble fighting the war at home than the war in Vietnam. Dern, upon his return, learns about Fonda's affair when the FBI confronts him and his commanding officer with the evidence. This, of course, effectively ends his military career, robing him of a chance to gain the hero status he had always so desperately wanted. This was more devastating to him than his wife's infidelity.
Scoop had remembered it as a great film, and saw it this time as a soap opera with a melodramatic ending and bad performances. Though I will admit that life in that era was rather melodramatic, the movie correctly portrayed it. For example, I attended college with another Vietnam vet. Like most vets who returned to school, we worked much harder than the High School grads we attended school with, and were at the top of the class. I had no idea there was anything wrong with him, even after being with him 5 days a week for two semesters, and was shocked to learn that he had put a 45 in his mouth over the summer, and pulled the trigger. Oddly enough, he survived, and eventually emerged from the VA hospital with no visible scars, and enough tools to cope with his inner demons, but is personal example of someone who did attempt suicide because he couldn't cope with what he had done in the war.
As to the performances, both the Academy and Golden Globes were very impressed. Voight was superb. Dern, I thought, nailed a part that didn't allow much in the way of range, with two emotions, first, as a gung ho Semper Fi marine off to fame and glory, and then as a deeply troubled and emotionally numb returning vet. I can't objectively evaluate any performance by Jane Fonda since I met her in 1973. While I was convinced about the sincerity of her humanitarian objections to the Vietnam war, I found her a spoiled and self-absorbed celebrity with no regard whatsoever for actual "real people." I will say that her supposed "first orgasm" looked very real.
Scoring this film is rather difficult. Using a normal rating system, I would give it 3 1/2 stars, as a great film, but I am not sure it would speak in the same way to someone who didn't live what was portrayed in the film, so the correct score is probably C+.
Fonda shows breasts in a poorly lit sex scene, and Penelope Milford shows a nipple peaking through crossed arms after a drunken Go-Go dance.
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Jane Fonda
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Penelope Milford
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"The Coca-Cola Kid"
The Coca-Cola Kid (1985) is an off-beat romantic comedy "as Australian as a chicken wire canoe, as Australian as a shot sandwich." It stars Eric Roberts as a super marketing troubleshooter from the corporate offices in Hotlanta, International division. Australian management is told to not try to understand him, not let him piss them off, and to listen to him, as his visits always result in higher sales. He is assigned a zany secretary played by Greta Scacchi for the duration of his visit, which is to be one month. True to his reputation, he finds an entire region, Anderson Valley, which does not carry Coca-Cola. Turns out there is a good reason. Anderson Valley is virtually owned by T. George McDowell, who owns and operates a soft drink company. He uses methods and equipment that date back to the 20's, squeezes his own juice to make his nine flavors, uses more carbonation than more commercial products -- in short, he makes a superior product. He also settles for low profits ("we are in the black"), and treats his workers well.
Scacchi, of course, is the long estranged daughter of McDowell. The film is a complete farce, and was never meant to show anything about real International marketing, but rather invents conflicts based on that premise to bring together a collection of eccentric and colorful characters. Some of the films moments were side-splitting, such as when McDowell shows up in the Australian corporate offices to negotiate a reciprocal distribution agreement with dancing girls and a portable soda fountain in tow, and a sky writer further emphasizing his message. The inevitable love scene between Scacchi and Roberts is also played for maximum humor, with feathers from a Santa Suit (don't ask) everywhere, and McDowell walking in on them.
Scacchi is very naked from all angles in a long but steamed up shower scene with her daughter, and also shows all three Bs in bed with Roberts in a dark scene. IMDB readers say 6.0 of 10, and the film was nominated for 7 technical awards in Australia, but won none of them. Ebert, like me, enjoyed it and awarded 3 stars, while admitting that the second half of the film was not as good as the first. If you enjoyed the Streisand slapstick comedies like For Pete's Sake, The Owl and the Pussycat, and What's Up Doc, you will probably also enjoy this one. On the other hand, if you dislike quirky romantic comedies with broad humor, this one won't win you over. C.
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Greta Scacchi
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After finishing my images and review of "Coca-Cola Kid", I was chatting with Scoopy, and he mentioned that he had seen decent captures of the shower scene before, and speculated that they had digitally obscured the scene for the DVD release due to the modern paranoia about child nudity. Just on a hunch, I turned the DVD over and checked the 4/3 version, and found far better quality. It looks to me like the film was originally 4/3, and they cropped the top, then enlarged to create the Widescreen aspect ratio. It is possible that the two sides were made from totally different masters, but I think they seriously degraded the quality of the shower scene by cropping then enlarging it. The following images were humidly created, but do give you a much better look at Scacchi.
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Greta Scacchi Full Screen version
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First off, some scans. Some may have appeared before and there's not a lot of nudity.
- Kate Moss. A little see-thru breast exposure in #1.
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Then in the cleavage department, we have...
Next up, the glamour poses...
And finally...the full frontal nudity...
Here are five scans of an unknown nude model by Sydney photographer, Aref Jaroudy. What makes it interesting is the body art and ancient Egypt - very nice.
- Unknown nude model
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"Goodbye Paradise"
Goodbye Paradise is an Australian movie about a group of rednecks determined to overthrow the Queensland government. The most nudity comes from a group of unknown women changing out of their bathers. The credits imply that they are Pets or Hefmates. A group of hippies also runs around topless. There's also some brief topless views of Jay Jay Bailey. Sue Collie is wearing a swimsuit printed with map of the Gold Coast, and Mt Warning is particularly interesting! See-through views of Janet Scrivener and Kareen Michelle. Kris McQuade and Kate Fitzpatrick provide the glamour.
"Posse"
Posse is movie set in the wild, wild west with the premise there were a lot of black cowboys. Vesta shows some boobs and bum. Some whores in a whorehouse are dressed interestingly.
"Satan's School for Girls"
There's some mild pokies by Shannen Doherty in this made for TV movie.
"Mrs Hartley and the Growth Centre"
Pam Ferris is the middle-aged Mrs Hartley in the British movie Mrs Hartley and the Growth Centre. She takes her clothes off when she goes to commune with dolphins in the sea. Only the drooping boobs are
clearly visible.
- Pam Ferris, topless in #2 although it's kinda scary.
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"Laughter of God"
Laughter of God is another British movie. There's some good topless views of the two main actresses Amanda Donohoe and Sharon Cheyne.
- Amanda Donohoe
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- Sharon Cheyne
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"The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish"
An interesting upskirt of Natasha Richardson, although it could be a body double. The brief nudity comes from Jemmy Legros. She stars in a porn film and we see it projected on a theatre screen. So the quality and the best views are not very good.
"Captain Ron"
You can't expect a lot of nudity in the PG-rated Captain Ron. However, Mary Kay Place shows us the briefest of nip-slip when she takes a shower. There's some nice caps of Meadow Sisto, Tanya Soler
and Roselyn Sanchez.
"Tumbleweeds."
Some very nice cleavage of Janet McTeer.
"Sex and Mrs X "
The name of the movie is promising, Sex and Mrs X Unfortunately, no nudity. But there are nice caps of Linda Hamilton.
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