IT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM SHELF!

With the collapse of the production code at the end of the 1960s, Hollywood entered an era of independence and creativity unseen since the late 1920s; and many critics consider the 1970s as the greatest decade in the history of American filmmaking.  One of the brightest lights of this era was Hal Ashby, who directed an unbroken series of critically revered and audience loved favorites with Harold and Maude (1971), The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975), Bound for Glory (1976), Coming Home (1978), and Being There (1979).  However, before all of those hits was Ashby’s lesser-known first feature, The Landlord (1970), which displays all of the promise for the directorial career that was to come.

Ashby began his career as an editor, working primarily for director Norman Jewison on movies including The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, and In the Heat of the Night (1967), for which he took home the Oscar.  At Jewison’s prompting, Ashby agreed to helm his first film, The Landlord, a complex cocktail of a story that mined culture clashes, involving race, class, income, and inner city gentrification, for satiric comedy and serious drama.

Based on a novel by Kristen Hunter, the film stars Beau Bridges as Elgar Enders, a clueless, spoiled, rich kid from a WASPy, racist family.  On a whim, Elgar decides to leave his estate, and he purchases a rundown, inner-city tenement building in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  His plan is to evict the black residents and rehab the building into the ultimate bachelor pad.  However, he is soon charmed by the tenants, including Marge (Pearl Bailey), the slightly larcenous mother hen of the building, and Fanny (Diana Sands), the jaded, married, former “Miss Sepia 1957.”  Things take an even more complex turn when Elgar begins dating a mixed race go-go dancer (Marki Bey) and his mother (Lee Grant) shows up to help him fix up the building.

The Landlord has all the hallmarks that one expects from a Hal Ashby film — strong characters; sharp, satiric comedy; emotional drama; a loose, “slice of life” narrative; and most of all, a big-hearted, humanistic worldview.  Unlike many “first films,” it is anything but a lesser effort.

For his first film in the director’s chair, Ashby chose to tackle the thorny subject of race relations and the divide between rich and poor, and he brought a surprising sweetness to the subject.  In Ashby’s world there are no white saviors.  Elgar is an occasionally well-meaning doofus, who up-ends the lives of everyone he encounters, with equally good and bad results.  The film also contains no angelic black martyrs.  Elgar’s tenants are untrustworthy, easily agitated, and manipulative.  Even the kids regularly strip Elgar’s VW convertible for salable parts.  At the same time, there are no true villains.  The poor tenants scam to get by, and even Elgar’s family is more clueless in their racism than truly evil.

Ashby’s directorial touch is evident from the first frame, and he is especially adept at wringing engaging, naturalistic performances from his cast.  The performances are excellent across the board, but Lee Grant, as Elgar’s loopy, self-obsessed mother, and Diana Sands, as the most complex of Elgar’s tenants, are real standouts.  The script by Bill Gunn is sharp, satiric, and complex, but it never feels overwritten.  And all of it is captured by the cinematography by Gordon Willis (The Godfather, Zelig), which is beautiful, whether focused on manicured lawns or urban squalor.

The film isn’t perfect.  It is a tad over-edited and the story meanders a bit more than necessary, but these are small quibbles.  The Landlord is one of the most accomplished “first films” ever made.  It is an excellent beginning to both an exceptional directorial career and an unparalleled decade of personal filmmaking.

US/C-110m./Dir: Hal Ashby/Wr: Bill Gunn (based on a novel by Kristin Hunter)/Cast: Beau Bridges, Lee Grant, Diana Sands, Pearl Bailey, Marki Bey, Louis Gossett Jr., Walter Brooke, Mel Stuart, Susan Anspach, Robert Klein, Will Mackenzie

For Fans of: If you love Hal Ashby’s better-known humanistic, comedy/dramas, I have no doubt that you will love The Landlord as well.

Video: Kino Lorber Studio Classics will premiere The Landlord on Blu-ray on May 14th from a new 2K remaster of the film.  The video is sharper and more colorful than previously presented on home video, and the image is free of debris and scratches.  The lossless audio is perfectly clear.  The disc is rounded out with a nice collection of extras:

• The Racial Gap – A new 25-minute interview with star Beau Bridges, in which he shares his recollections while wearing a significant shirt that he saved from the film.
• Reflections – A new 26-minute interview with star Lee Grant
• Norman Jewison and Hal Ashby – Style and Substance: A new 29-minute interview with producer Norman Jewison
• Theatrical Trailer
• Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature

Streaming: At the time this review was written, The Landlord was not available through any streaming service.

More to Explore: All of Hal Ashby’s 1970s output is now available on Blu-ray, including Harold and Maude (1971), The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975), Bound for Glory (1976), Coming Home (1978), and Being There (1979).  All of them are highly recommended.

Trivia: Hal Ashby makes a brief cameo in the film, in that the film’s opening shot is actually a home movie of Ashby’s wedding to Joan Marshall, with Beau Bridges acting as his Best Man.

For More Info: Ashby’s life and career was chronicled in the book Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel by Nick Dawson and in the documentary Hal (2018) by Amy Scott.