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| Pop Culture Explosion Poster for FUZZ Year: 1972 Rating: ** |
Since Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch couldn't stand each other on the set of 100 RIFLES, when they wound up in FUZZ... a funky-scored blaxploitation-style wannabe but for mostly white cops... she demanded they share no screen-time together, which almost comes true...
In one scene inside the usual dingy precinct, a woman tells Welch's newbie detective character about an attack... cutting to Burt and affable sidekick Jack Weston eavesdropping... then when Welch is shown again you can hear an early version of Burt's signature chortle... after which, they're in the same frame: twice, quickly...
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Burt Reynolds and Jack Weston in FUZZ with Neile Adams
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Pretty much summing up FUZZ since none of the detectives have much to do with each other, supposedly a comedy but only because these crime-fighters... being so riddled with workday trauma... laugh off serious things: which also happens in severe police-crime dramas...
Except one dire sequence where Burt's character (and the real Burt) is set on fire... then while recovering, he talks to his deaf wife while melodramatic music plays in the background: after all, this is from Ed McBain's 87th PRECINCT books and TV-series,
where one of the cops has a deaf wife... only here it's awkward and
unnecessary...
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| Burt Reynolds and Jack Weston in FUZZ |
Meanwhile all the characters appear inside and outside, in random arguments or stakeout vignettes (like Burt and Jack dressed as nuns), ultimately connected by one grand extortion scheme...
That's when anticipated antagonist Yul Brynner appears... yet he really adds nothing short of a menacing scowl as his overall plan's both simplistic and complicated...
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| Tom Skerritt in FUZZ |
With lady's-man cop Tom Skerritt almost romancing Rachel Welch on one side, and James McEachin dealing with two obnoxious precinct painters on another, FUZZ... an attempt to combine the offbeat ensemble of MASH with the edginess of THE FRENCH CONNECTION... is a jigsaw puzzle without enough pieces to present a clear image.... seeming more a scatterbrained television pilot than coherent big-screen feature...
But it's the poster that explains everything: Burt Reynolds' iconic almost-nude Cosmopolitan layout; Rachel Welch in a bikini; Brynner's mellow moll Tamara Dobson in vibrant CLEOPATRA JONES garb... none of these elements presented in the movie, promoting only the actors and, even on their own, Burt and Raquel have hardly enough input here for FUZZ to be a genuine vehicle for either.
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Raquel Welch in FUZZ
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| Raquel Welch in FUZZ |
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| Jack Weston and Burt Reynolds in FUZZ |
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Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch in FUZZ with Jack Weston
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| Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch in FUZZ with Jack Weston |
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Jack Weston in FUZZ
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| Burt Reynolds in FUZZ |
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| Yul Brynner in FUZZ |
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| Tamara Dobzon in FUZZ |
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| Opening Credits from FUZZ |
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| Opening Credits from FUZZ |
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| Jack Weston and Burt Reynolds in FUZZ |
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| Raquel Welch in FUZZ |
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