In between playing the stewardess in the trend-setting if dumb disaster movie, Airport, and giving a well-received performance in the occultic horror-film The Mephisto Waltz, Jacqueline Bisset starred in this aimless yet over-plotted film. It's 1970; we've entered possibly the only decade when this thing would have been greenlit.

Bisset, then 27, plays 19-year-old Christine from small town British Columbia who thumbs her way to L.A. to meet her boyfriend, who works at a California bank. En route she takes a detour through Las Vegas, where she meets several important people. Unable to sustain a relationship with her staid boyfriend, the adventurous Christine hops back to Vegas, where she gets a job as a chorus girl after flashing the casino boss.

Over the next three years, she becomes involved with various Vegas types, including some reasonably well-portrayed queer folk. Yes, these scenes feature exploitation, stereotype, and slurs, but the gay characters prove among the most likeable in the film. For 1970, the representation is stellar. And The Grasshopper is a product of the era, with frequent drug use, casual sex, near and brief nudity, and the gang settling down for a TV kaiju marathon. Perhaps the highlight, the scene features various people making out while the monster movie tosses lines like, "don't go down there!" and "dive into his mouth!"

Yeah, I said highlight.

Christine's new gay best friend introduces her to a terrible rock band called the Ice Pack who have "the tightest pants." The casino boss introduces her to a corrupt and vile businessman (Joseph Cotten) who "likes 'em young." His regular girlfriend, a 17-year-old who acts about 13, gets played for laughs, because people back then thought the sexual use of minors was hilarious. Christine also falls in love with ex-football star Tommy Marcott (Jim Brown), and they join in ill-fated matrimony.

Christine makes her way from ingenue to semi-nude dancer to call girl, and then....

Is this movie, then, a good movie? Well, no. But, as Jacqueline Bisset opined, it has some "good bits." Former NFL star Brown proves once again that he was, in the words of one reviewer, a "serviceable actor." The film really needed to focus on something for more than ten minutes. The tension between its heroine's decadent but supportive friends and her respectability-seeking lover/husband might have made a good choice, since those "bits" feature the most credible characterizations and interactions.

If you're really into the films and ethos of the 1970s, you might find The Grasshopper interesting in places. As a bonus, Penny Marshall makes a pre-Laverne and Shirley appearance as a Plaster Caster. Overall, however, it earns its status as a forgotten film.

Director: Jerry Paris
Writers: Jerry Belson, Garry Marshall, based on the novel The Passing of Evil by Mark McShane (Best-known for Seance on a Wet Afternoon)

Bonus Seventies Movie Check-list: The Grasshopper


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