A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Unsure of where to go after wounding a vengeful local in baseball match and told to flee town, a Vietnam War veteran takes up with the mysterious young mistress of a produce farm owner in this little seen drama starring Ryan O'Neal in his first screen role. It is not the greatest debut for the Oscar nominated actor, but in what was only her second screen performance, Leigh Taylor-Young is excellent as the tantalising mistress. A femme fatale of the post-Production Code era, she plays a seductress like few others before her, revealing lots of skin and boldly parading around in the buff. She is just as effective with her clothes on too as there is an ambiguity as to whether or not she genuinely likes O'Neal or is just using him for a scheme revealed in the film's final third. That said, the scheme comes too late to provide much vigour, and easy as Taylor-Young is on the eyes, there is little else propelling the first hour. Van Heflin has a nice, understated turn as a justice of the peace, and Cindy Eilbacher is adorable, playing a surrogate daughter to O'Neal, but it is not enough to carry the film. The opportunities for more are all too apparent. Why not explore O'Neal's criminal background in further depth or how serving in Vietnam has affected him? Why not establish his desire for a daughter further? By all accounts though, the film was promoted as a vehicle for its two stars (married in real life at the time) and therefore it is easy to see why the filmmakers took a less exciting route. The film is not worthless as some of its dissenters might say, but it sure could have been a lot more.

I'm giving this seven although the terrible music almost makes the picture unwatchable. What is interesting is Leigh Taylor-Young's portrayal of an under-age woman driven mad by being debauched, perverted and corrupted by a string of rich old men to whom she is pimped by her ageing moneybags employer. Dutch Leonard, author of the original novel, got his facts right here, and it gives the movie an underlying force that can't be denied. It's a surprise to find that the principal character is not Ryan O'Neal, who is wooden and sulky as the out-of-place "anglo" farm-worker in rural Monterey, but instead his then-wife and co-star Taylor-Young. Her character has gone over the edge as a result of being seduced by the local Senator at the instigation of her employer and bed-mate, the local landlord. Taylor-Young gets right into it, yipping and chortling as she turns over other cars and pumps bullets into mistaken interlopers. Her plan to rip off her employer for the fortune in his house-safe never comes off (at least not during the picture's action), and she escapes a murder charge, but as Van Heflin's character grimly points out: "Give it a month or ten years: she'll get hers". Worth watching just for Taylor-Young's performance, about one-third of which is in the nude. This film is a rare insight into female psychology, almost in spite of itself.

Out of curiosity, I rented the 1969 film version of THE BIG BOUNCE from Netflix, and it proved the underrated 2004 edition (which I reviewed elsewhere on the IMDb) to be another example of a remake that's way better than the original! The two versions of TBB are fairly close in plotting, but this year's model captures source author Elmore Leonard's loopy, cynical sense of humor much better, skipping the original film's mawkish asides and heavy-handed attempts at poignancy and psychodrama. For instance, the self-pitying, self-destructive, male-afflicted single mom played by Lee Grant in 1969 is rebooted in the latest edition as a cheerfully coquettish tourist played by Anahit Minasyan, whose fate is much more upbeat than poor Grant's. Also, TBB Mark 2's Hawaiian setting and George S. Clinton's playful score combining rock and Hawaiian-style music appealed to me more than TBB Mark 1's been-there-done-that Los Angeles locales (by the way, I seem to recall that Leonard's book is set in Detroit) and syrupy soft rock by Mike Curb, of all people. Next to The Mike Curb Congregation, The Brady Bunch's album sounds like the Rolling Stones' greatest hits! Even if it didn't sound hilariously dated to early 21st-century ears, Curb's score is still all wrong for a downbeat crime drama like the '69 model (not that the first film is completely humor-free; Van Heflin's eccentrically-decorated home was one of the film's few bright spots). I almost got the feeling Curb originally composed the music for an entirely different kind of film, perhaps some perky, inspirational heart-warmer starring the folks from Up With People which never got off the ground, so someone decided to graft Curb's score onto TBB v. 1 instead of letting it go to waste. While both films have great casts overall (the original includes Heflin, James Daly, and Robert Webber in the roles played this year by Morgan Freeman, Gary Sinise, and Charlie Sheen), in the starring role of ex-con Jack Ryan, Owen Wilson's wisecracking slackertude in TBB Mark 2 is much more engaging than Ryan O'Neal's personality in TBB Mark 1. While I've enjoyed O'Neal in comedies, particularly 1972's WHAT'S UP, DOC?, I've never liked him in dramas. To me, O'Neal has always come across as moist and mewling when he's supposed to be tender and sensitive, and surly and petulant when he's supposed to be tough and hard nosed, and his performance in TBB #1 is no exception. However, both films have terrific leading ladies playing thrill-seeking kept woman Nancy: the current version marks Sara Foster's screen debut, while the original starred the lovely and beguiling Leigh Taylor-Young, then O'Neal's real-life wife and former co-star on TV's PEYTON PLACE. (Fun Fact: Leigh Taylor-Young was nominated for a Laurel Award for Best Female New Face for her performance in TBB.) The chemistry between O'Neal and LT-Y is one of the film's few saving graces; they sure seem to enjoy tearing their clothes off, and they look good doing it, too! :-) Alas, except for the occasional memorable line (for example, here's Heflin slyly commenting on O'Neal's phone chat with LT-Y: "You look like the mouse that got swallowed by the pussy."), Robert Dozier's screenplay can't seem to decide whether Nancy is a victim of callous men, a calculating femme fatal, or a plain old homicidal psycho. The critics who panned TBB Mark 2 obviously never had to suffer through Mark 1! If you've got your heart set on an at-home Elmore Leonard film festival, rent GET SHORTY, OUT OF SIGHT, even the overlong but still exceptional JACKIE BROWN, and include THE BIG BOUNCE -- but unless you lust after Ryan O'Neal and Leigh Taylor-Young in their prime, make sure you get your mitts on the superior 2004 version!

I watched this movie with curiosity rather than interest inasmuch as I'd seen some comments that it had "bombed" when initially released. The ratings in IMDB, where as many people rated it a four as rated it a ten, clearly showed that it elicits a wide range of individual reactions. Personally I thought that it was worth watching but has a number of weaknesses. Jack Ryan (Ryan O'Neal) is a drifter working as a farm field worker. Fired for getting into a fight he escapes trial due to the intervention of the local judge, Sam Mirakian (Van Heflin). Jack is told to leave town by the farm supervisor Bob Rodgers (Robert Webber). However he stays after meeting the farm owner, "pickle king" Ray Ritchie (James Daly) and his secretary/mistress Nancy Barker (Leigh Taylor-Young). Jack takes a job as handyman at a hotel owned by the judge where he also meets a divorced woman, Joanne (Lee Grant), and her daughter. Unfortunately Jack begins to romance Nancy who turns out to be a thrill seeker (nice 1960's exploitation movie term!). Thrills include vandalism, breaking and entering and more (no sense giving away the plot). The movie is not entirely successful. In large part this is because it was taken from a book by Elmore Leonard. His works have a significant element of black comedy but, when played straight as here, it comes off as absurd melodrama. This movie has none of the sense of fun (i.e. Get Shorty) that this nuanced material needs. Fortunately Elmore Leonard's plots are relatively complex and full of incident so the movie keeps going and doesn't sag. The actors, aside from the pleasure of seeing them all so young, are mixed. Ryan O'Neal is best at light comedy which is to say that his performance here is limited. Leigh Taylor-Young displays a far greater range although, from time to time, a little histrionic for my personal taste (but then again I'm not a big Bette Davis fan either). While I've always looked forward to seeing Robert Webber I have to admit that he has only one expression throughout this movie. James Daly is underutilized but does have one extremely nasty scene, in the delicious sense of the word, pimping Nancy ("How would I know, I'm in produce"). The revelation is Van Heflin who is far more avuncular than I've ever seen him. I swear he was "channeling" Brian Keith! Unfortunately he lived only another two years and we lost what could have been a very interesting career as an older "character" man. RIP. The technical credits are fine and the gorgeous California scenery, I suspect the Monterey peninsula, would convince me to move. Overall the movie is worth watching but shows why Elmore Leonard's novels have a reputation for being poorly adapted to the screen.