The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea (1976) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Scoop's notes in white. Spoilers.

The movie is an adaptation of a Japanese story by the respected author Yukio Mishima. Since the story was about a  uniquely Japanese mind-set, it simply doesn't make the transition into a credible story about Brits and Americans in the 1970's. because the characters are engaged in motivations and behaviors which are unique to a Japanese cultural background.

For example:

A group of adolescent boys is obsessed with the "pure and perfect" order of things. That is a backdrop for some scientific experimentation, and forms the basis of their conversations.

I think you kids who grew up in the US or UK in the 70's will remember similar conversations with your friends.

If slow development and unrealistic situations aren't enough to turn you off, you'll also find that every single character in the film is despicable except Kris Kristofferson as the sailor. The sexually frustrated widow is complete unlikable. Her son's friends are monsters. Her son -  well, he kinda falls in with a bad crowd after his dad dies, and they help him plot some evil against the sailor, who is the first man to enter his mum's life. Now this gang of kids is a really bad crowd. They don't just shoplift and smoke dope, nosireebib. They slip a mickey to a cat and vivisect it. This is shown in gory detail. But of course, this is only a warm-up so they can do the same thing to Kristofferson!

Kristofferson himself is amiable enough in the role of any old everyman American doofus. He basically plays the part of Kris Kristofferson in an ill-fitting sailor hat, but he just doesn't have the acting skills to bring much to the role. His acting basically consists of mumbling in a gravelly voice and staring. On the other hand, perhaps we don't really want get too involved with him, considering his ultimate fate.

To give the devil his due, the photography is both artistically and technically excellent, but that isn't enough to keep you watching because the movie moves so slowly, with no characters to relate to, and the minimal action is unrelentingly morbid and unrealistically motivated. Sarah Miles did a good job with her part, but she appears to be the only professional actor in the movie. To top it all off, the ending is about as unsatisfying as any movie you'll ever see.

This all might have made some sense if the Japanese locale and cultural context had been retained. As it stands, it is just abysmal.

Other notes:

• The film became most famous for the off-screen romantic cavorting of Kristofferson and Miles. I guess Sarah and Kris really enjoyed the sex scenes. They even staged some extra ones for a men's magazine, and then continued when the cameras stopped rolling. Kristofferson was married to Rita Coolidge at the time and she was not amused. Kris has said in interviews that he'd like to take this chapter out of his life. Apparently he and Rita had a pretty good thing going, and he blew it when he had this public affair with Miles, then regretted it too late. Too bad we can't enjoy the sex scenes as much as they did. Unlike other similar examples of when people fell in love on camera, like Wild Orchid, none of that passion appeared on camera in "Sailor"
• Miles, by the way. is now back working again, after virtually disappearing in the late 80's. She is now 60.
• This was the first film Lewis John Carlino ever directed. The last was Class - the film where the prep school kid has an affair with his roommate's mom (Jacqueline Bisset).

• By the way, this title will not work for you in Charades if you play against film buffs or charades buffs. Once you sign "movie", and "nine words", expert players shout out this title before they even receive any clues.