Some Call It Loving

The somnolent Tisa Farrow and Zalman King in Some Call It Loving

James B. Harris' Some Call It Loving, from 1973, is a curious mish-mash of art and exploitation tropes. The results are stillborn, but betray a personal vision lacking in Harris' directorial debut, the routine Cold War thriller The Bedford Incident. The lead performances by Zalman King and Tisa Farrow are extremely wooden, but fit within the somnambulant nature of this post-feminist retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Richard Pryor offers a jagged portrayal of a junked out jazz fan who, seemingly, is saxophonist King's only friend. Cinematographer Mario Tosi does outstanding work here. He also does fine work in Hearts of the West, Carrie, and The Stunt Man, but then suddenly disappeared from the film world.

I was moved to view the film after reading Jonathan Rosenbaum's review. I can't say I found this as intriguing as he did, but chalked it up as an interesting failure. That is pretty much my verdict on Harris, whose subsequent potboilers (Fast-Walking, Cop, and Boiling Point) I have seen. Overall, his films have interesting moments, but none are fully satisfying entities.