Discovering Brooke Adams circa 1970s

I happen to be on this Donald Sutherland kick at the moment. Sutherland made a bunch of good movies in the 1970s and is an example of just how the film industry has changed the way it thinks of a leading man. Sutherland was a leading man despite his quirky looks because he could act and he relied often on the power of his '70s 'stache. Let's face it, if Sutherland was 35 now (the age he was when he broke out big in M.A.S.H. in 1970) he would be relegated to character roles supporting some grinning fool with a chiseled stomach. He certainly wouldn't be steaming up the screen as he and Julie Christie did in 1973's Don't Look Now. It's a shame really as I'd rather watch good actors with screen presence get the good roles not nitwits with stunning features.

So, while watching Sutherland in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake from 1978 I noticed one of the film's co-stars--the fetching Brooke Adams. I must admit, I have a bit of an eyebrow fetish, and remember loving her performance (and eyebrows!) in Days of Heaven--a film I cherish and have seen many times--but I'd never taken the time to see any of her other films. All I knew about her is that she is now married to Tony Shalhoub aka Monk. That's changed over the past few weeks as my Sutherland kick turned into a Brooke Adams binge with all the Adams netflix had to offer.

I have recently seen Brooke in Cuba (not great), A Man, A Woman and A Bank (silly but fun heist film that reunites her with Sutherland) and Shock Waves. Shock Waves is kind of a bizarre b-horror film that has an odd story that combines zombies with Nazis who love to rise out of the ocean (or any water in general) and drown people. They don't like to eat their victims, they just love to drown them. It's goofy fun and would make a nice midnighter. Brooke gets to do some zombie film screaming in a bikini and does a lot of running in the jungle but I wouldn't say it's her best acting performance but who cares--it's Shock Waves! There is only so much to be expected from a film about a bunch of water loving Nazi zombies.

Sadly, I'm running out of films from the '70s with Adams in them. I'll have to move on I guess, no matter how hard that will be.