Clay Pigeon (1971) User Reviews (6)

Sluggish Narco Thriller with Tom Stern Caught Between Telly Savalas and Robert Vaughn

[zardoz-13 · 5/10 · 1 June 2016]

Co-directors Tom Stern and Lane Slate's "Clay Pidgeon" qualifies as a grim but lethargic crime thriller about the Los Angeles heroin trade. Telly Savalas, after "The Dirty Dozen" but before "Kojack," co-stars in this activist-oriented, anti-drug, message picture. Savalas plays an unscrupulous FBI agent who bends the rules so he can play the game his way. Robert Vaughn, in one of his worst performances, is cast as the villainous Mr. Big of the heroin trade. Vaughn postures and shouts threats throughout this 97-minute, R-rated, movie about murder and mayhem. He slaps around vulnerable, helpless young women, while his henchmen do far worse. Tom Stern looks like Steve McQueen in a bushy beard with long hair, but he isn't a charismatic hero. Indeed, he is a passive hero who does nothing until the villain prompts him into action with their murderous ways. Eventually, the villains get our lackluster hero to react.

Initially, after the authorities arrest for taking a joyride on a motorcycle cop's bike, Ryan turns down a deal from FBI Agent Frank Redford (Savalas) to serve as Redford's uncover agent. Our hero, Joe Ryan (Tom Stern of "The Hallelujah Trail") is a lucky Vietnam veteran whose claim to fame is his risked his life and dived onto a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. As it turned out, the grenade didn't blow up, and Ryan received a Silver Star. Redford ushers Ryan on a tour of a local drug rehab center so he can witness first-hand the shocking effects of heroin. Noted character actor Jeff Corey appears in a cameo as the clinic doctor who supervises hopeless heroin addicts. Of course, the hippie-looking Ryan knows about the drug, loathes its side-effects, but he refuses to accommodate Redford. Ryan believes the wily Neilson will pay off a judge and land a short sentence. Ryan complains about how penniless kids in Texas, Alabama, and elsewhere wind up doing hard time for smoking marijuana.

However, Ryan agrees to tackle Neilson, but he wants to play by his own rules. Instead, the treacherous Redford allows Ryan to walk without prosecution for his joyride. Nevertheless, Redford has Ryan's face plastered across the front page as the mysterious heroin dealer. Predictably, Neilson wants Ryan located and dispatches his two most trusted henchmen, Simon (Ivan Dixon of CBS-TV's "Hogan's Heroes") and Jason (Mario Alcalde) to ferret the reluctant hero out. Basically, Ryan becomes the titular "Clay Pigeon" because Neilson treats him as one. Simon and Jason embark on a killing spree. They shoot-up one of Ryan's heroin junkie friends, Tracy (Belinda Palmer), with enough horse to kill her. Later, Simon murders another heroin junkie, Saddle (Marlene Clark), after she divulges Ryan's whereabouts. Simon puts his gun to her ear and shoots her without a qualm. Neilson and his two henchmen surprise Ryan after he has just awakened. Simon wounds Ryan and they kill Ryan's stripper girlfriend Angeline (one-time only actress Marilyn Akin) and everything boils down to a desperate foot chase to the Hollywood Bowl where Ryan kills both henchmen.

Some of the violence is staged with believable horror, especially to one of the tortured heroin addicts. Meanwhile, Stern pulls his punches in one physical encounter with Savalas. The dune buggy chase is a brighter moment, while Ryan running circles around the cops in their patrol cars in the desert. FBI agent Frank Redford and free-wheeling Mr. Neilson (Robert Vaughn of "Bullitt") represent the Establishment, and they are equally corrupt. Mind you, the local police captain (John Marley of "Love Story") doesn't like Redford. The bittersweet ending has Ryan assaulting Redford after the authorities tear him off Neilson who he is struggling to drown at the Hollywood Bowl. There are a few good lines of dialogue, but "Clay Pigeon" drags on interminably at times when some judicious editing might have accelerated its sluggish pace. The blood looks too bright, but there are a couple of nude scenes. One scene involves Ryan's stripper girlfriend twirling about on a dance floor as naked as she was the day she was born. The second nude scene occurs in a swimming pool when a guy swims with two bare-breasted babes. Again, Stern's righteous-to-anger hero lacks initiative. "Clay Pigeon" amounts to a lame crime thriller. I watched this inert actioneer on TCM.COM.

The pigeon has flown

[kapelusznik18 · 5/10 · 16 May 2016]

****SPOILERS**** Totally forgettable especially by those who are in it 1970's anti establishment movie that has to do with a returning Vietnam veteran Joe Ryan, Tom Stern,who becomes a flower child as well as homeless street person and ends up becoming a Rambo, before anyone ever heard of him,in taking down a drug kingpin Henry Neilson, Robert Vaughn, and his gang single handily. It's Ryan who's being blackmailed by corrupt DEA hot shot Frank Redford, Telly Savalas,to impersonate Neilson in order to get him out in the open. Despite the film's super star power-it was a recession and the actors desperately needed work-it ended up bombing out in the theaters even before word of mouth, in how awful it was, did it in.

Ryan who survived getting blown to bits in Vietnam when he jumped on a live grenade with his body felt that it was his fate to save humanity by first trying to save the drug addicted youth in L.A despite himself being hooked on pot. It's when he was arrested for vagrancy as well as stealing and damaging a traffic cop's motorcycle,here he shows no respect for the law, he's confronted by DEA agent Redford to go undercover as a clay pigeon to get the goods on crime boss Neilson, whom no one knows what he looks like, by making believe that he's him? Reluctant at first Rayn goes along with the scheme only to end up losing all his hippie friends including 60 year old junk man Freedom Lovelace, obviously a made up name, played by a ridiculously made up looking-like a hippie-senior citizen Burgess Meredith in the process.

***SPOILERS*** In the end Ryan after being shot and left for dead, like he was back in Vietnam, wipes out the powerful and at the same time unknown, in no one ever seeing him in person or in a photo, Neilson's mob that consists of only two persons Simon & Jason played by Ivan Dixon & Mario Alcaide- who died before this turkey of a movie was ever released- before finishing off Neilson in the great water fountain in the Hollowood Bowl. The ending is a lot like the one in "Jacob's Ladder" some 20 years later that seemed to be telling us that this was all some kind of a dream or out of the body experience on Rayn's part! Who in fact never survived the Vietnam war that was still going on when the film was made.

Complete Misfire Despite Talented Cast

[Auric2003 · 8 September 2003]

Low-budget thriller features Tom Stern as Vietnam war hero, of late a hippy in L.A. He's set up as the bait by cop Telly Savalas to lure drug lord Robert Vaughn into a trap. Amateurishly directed, despite a talented cast- including Burgess Meredith, John Marley, Ivan Dixon and a (wisely)unbilled Peter Lawford. Director Stern manages to make all of these thespians appear at their worst. The script features endless "hip" dialogue that has dated badly and the production values have all the merit of a porno film. Only the finale staged in the Hollywood Bowl has even a modicum of style and suspense. Vaughn, whose character inexplicably wears a variety of goofy hats, was allegedly paid the (then) sizable sum of $500,000 for his role. This probably exhausted the remaining production budget. There are endless, poorly edited sequences involving dune buggy chases, though the audience might be stirred from their slumber by the frequent nudity. Not out on video in the U.S, but available in the U.K. as "Trip to Kill"

Sex, Drugs, Viet-Nam and Hats

[angelsunchained · 8/10 · 14 May 2020]

This is a throwback to the psychedelic films of the 1960s and early 1970s. Tom Stern gives his best on screen performance as a disillusioned war hero who drops out and becomes a peace loving hippie who digs go-go dancers and hippie runaways. Robert Vaughn has a bizarre role as a big time drug dealer who wears a series of weird hats and hangs out with parrots. Lots of nudity and bloody violence. Some cameo performances by Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, Telly Savalos, and Ivan Dixon makes this an entertaining enough throwback film.

Dull and slow

[Wizard-8 · 27 May 2016]

Even when you consider the low point Metro Goldwyn Mayer was finding itself in the 1970s, it's really puzzling why they decided picking up this movie was worth their time. As it turns out, they didn't give it much of a theatrical release. Seeing the movie, it's easy to figure out why MGM eventually realized there wasn't much of a potential audience for it. It's not entirely bad. The acting is pretty competent for the most part, though Robert Vaughn does overact for most of his scenes. And there's an interesting and tuneful soft rock soundtrack by some prominent musicians like Arlo Guthrie. But the movie is a big bore. It takes about half of the running time for the movie to set everything up, and once everything is set up, the movie doesn't pick up much more speed. Only some bouts of graphic violence and bloodshed (and graphic nudity) will prevent viewers from falling asleep, though I think most viewers once the movie reaches the ending will feel that having a nap would have been a more productive use of their time.

Tom Stern's vanity production!

[Serpent-5 · 16 November 1999]

This would be action film is so slow it almost put you to sleep. I can't figure out why MGM picked this film up for release? There are some good moments and if Stern edited a good 10 minutes of this film, it would run very smoothly. Stern plays a vietnam vet who is used by a DEA agent (savalas) to be a clay pigeon for drug kingpin (Vaughn). There is Kris Kristofferson, Arlo Guthrie songs, Doon-Buggie chase, Meredith acting like a hippie, Lawford uncredited, and I don't want to give away the ending, but it's lame. Not recommended.