Notes on a Moment in Time

Dr. X posts this from a ledge on the Ambassador Hotel:

"The Barefoot Executive is an interesting little piece of history. Shot in and around L.A. in the early 70s, it's not a good movie, as such, but it sure is interesting.

"Wally Cox, late in life, plays the bumbling chauffeur (same role as Peter Falk's Max in The Great Race) to a sleazy perfection. I haven't seen him in a movie since I was perhaps 12 - and the performance bugged me. Something not right...oh, probably was Brando's lover, ok that's interesting...this article adds further color (and adding to his bitterness was the endless upstaging by Paul Lynde)..

"Apart from Cox's menacing presence, there's a fine turn by the young John Ritter in his film debut, and some enjoyable bits of dialogue:

" 'Executive: I have a simple solution. Destroy the chimp.'
" 'Kurt Russell: I can't be bought! ...Five hundred thousand dollars?!'

"Don't go out of your way to see it obviously. But movies like this are a way to access an interesting lost world - Hollywood in the peculiar cultural air pocket of the early 1970s - a place with no middle, just old talent and young talent, each angry and unrepentant, each convinced of the other's irrelevance.

"For another way, have a look at this, the sort of thing that makes Latouche break out in goose bumps."