The Grasshopper

Saw this movie when it first came out. Remembered its ending and wanted to see it again. Contemporary of Valley of the Dolls, dated now, but still a good watch. A young Jacqueline Bisset does well in her role. Lot of fun spotting all the old bygone buildings and scenes of an earlier Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

This is a slightly entertaining 1969 tale (directed by Jerry Paris) about a pretty Canadian girl (Jacqueline Bisset) who leaves her small town in BC and heads south to Las Vegas and LA in search of adventure and romance. What she finds instead is a phobia for substance in her life. If you look closer at this film her situations are so crippling they are a major cause of her growing neurosis. So as soon as she lands somewhere like a grasshopper then she will hop away. Until she meets Tommy (Jim Brown). Tommy is more what Christine needs. Stable, ambitious, strong, but in the shadow of his football career. He too lacks substance in his life and he knows it. The two marry in one of the worst Vegas weddings I have ever seen. It is a wasteland of smoke, plastic flowers, and scratchy records. This is of course intentional in framing Christine's growing trouble. Tommy and Christine meet Rosey Decker, a mobster covering as a construction giant. Why Christine goes to Rosey's room dressed in a very flattering dress making sexy conversation and getting herself beaten by a thug is a big flaw in the film. It makes absolutely no sense and any director should have headed off a foolish part of the story. There is no reason she should go to Rosey's private room to talk about Tommy's career when he obviously wants a roll in the hay with one of the cutest ladies in Vegas. Christine should have seen trouble a mile away and she should have spoken to Tommy. Of course this leads to Rosey getting worked over by the powerful Tommy. But because Rosey is a thug, this eventually gets Tommy killed, adding to Christine's misery. The music in the film sounds almost sadistic to me from beginning to end: weak songs with squeaky voices seemingly to mock Christine for her inability to find a compass in her life. Christine takes another step down and is now loosing control. She takes the dive into drugs and prostitution.This movie has faint shadows of the children of the 1960's sometimes called the lost generation, with its defiance, rebellion, counter culture, and drugs. Christine's persona does not include politics, or antiwar activities. Christine does not fit entirely. She has only the presence of worsening discontent that just goes on and on. The last scenes are fun to watch as Christine uses a bit of svengali to get an airplane mechanic to do some skywriting for her. This movie is a downer, but if you're in the mood you'll be OK.

It was a very fine film

Classic 60s period piece. It's not Shakespeare but a trip in time for baby-boomer - a history lesson for Gen Xs and Millennials. Print is very good,.

no comment

"The Grasshopper" from 1970 was directed by the famous sitcom actor and director, Jerry Paris, whose first feature as director was Disney's "Never a Dull Moment" starring Dick Van Dyke in one of the studio's first "adult" pictures before letting out all the stops with their Touchstone company and the public's acceptance of permissiveness by Disney. Disney did get in trouble even earlier when in his film "Bon Voyage" with Fred MacMurray, Disney showed streetwalkers while the family visited in Paris to the complaints of parents back in 1962. "The Grasshopper" was one of Jacqueline Bisset's earlier roles for which she was nominated for a Golden Laurel Award and she does carry the picture along with Jim Brown. Also in the cast are Joseph Cotton and Tim O'Kelley who had the lead opposite Boris Karloff in Peter Bogdanovich's "Targets" and many other recognizable faces but not so well known. The story of the downward path of a nineteen year old girl and ending with her being 22 needs more from the imagination of the film-makers than there is as her peregrinations and her uninvolvement with anybody becomes tiresome and the score attributed to Maurice Jarre must be one of his worst coupled with a lot of rather annoying songs, many helped written by Al Kasha (who won Oscars for his songs for "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno"). The entire film is gratuitous and with ordinary ambitions and only occasionally insightful. Only recommended if one is a fan of Jacqueline Bisset. Movie perhaps was the first to coin the phrases "Why?" and "Why not?"

Saw this movie decades ago and loved it! Jacqueline Bissett was breathtakingly beautiful and Jim Brown was in his physical prime. I was in my teens when I saw it in the theater and it made quite an impression on me. Her tragic trek from one bad situation to another made my heart ache for her. Had not seen it listed as being shown on TV since forever and could not find this film in Netflix or Blockbuster. Glad to have been able to get it thru Amazon.

This movie is about a young lady that cannot seem to settle down with any one guy she just does not know what she wants.The era for this film is the 1970'sThis was the first time I have watched this movie in about 30 years and it appears to have had some scenes edited out since then because I remember things that were in the earlier release that just are not in this one so that does take from the picture.

This movie is not quite as good as I remember it when it was in release, but Jacqeline Bisset is always a wonder to behold.

good stuff!

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