The Carey Treatment (1972)

 Sometimes I just like to watch a good early 70s movie that few if any ever talk about much. This isn't the Blake Edwards film from his resume that just comes up in mainstream conversation. I thought "The Carey Treatment", more or less, is a star vehicle for James Coburn. Its his charisma, his obvious star power, the way he coolly approaches others, coolly talks to others, the charming smile, that ease for which he can bring tensions down and broach a difficult situation involving his friend, Dr. Tao (James Hong), accused of killing the daughter of a major surgeon (Dan O'Herlihy) through a very botched abortion. Tao was performing secret abortions so that they would be done correctly, without hackery often associated with backdoor, back alley doctors. So Carey (Coburn) turns amateur sleuth, destined to find the real person responsible, with colleagues at his Boston hospital often aggravated at his "not actually doing the job at the hospital he's hired". Carey is involved with a dietitian at the hospital, Georgia (Jennifer O'Neill), while unyielding in his efforts to rescue Dr. Tao. His cursory investigation brings him to a victim's uncle, while a captain (Pat Hingle) tries to keep him honest about sticking his nose where it might not belong.

Edwards wasn't happy with MGM, to say the least, for "tampering" with his film. While I enjoy this film for its rather laid back, sort of comfortable pacing and characters, I can see why perhaps critics (and Edwards, too) weren't so favorable to the cut the audience got. I think I personally enjoy this for its period in film. I LOVE the late 60s and 70s era and its stars, such as Coburn. He's the kind of actor that walks and talks a certain way, commands the screen a certain way, with very few today who occupy such space with that same kind of effortless poise and confidence. He does make everything he does look easy.

The film surprised me on second viewing since, for whatever reason, I had forgotten about the bloodshed at the end as a practically unhinged Michael Blodgett goes about trying to hack anyone in sight to get to Coburn to protect himself, including Skye Aubrey's nurse (ultimately responsible for the murder, believing it was a pregnancy, when, in fact, it was a tumor). Blodgett nearly kills Coburn after driving his Mustang through the phone booth (there is no phone booth left as glass just explodes everywhere, with a wrecked Coburn crawling all bloodied). Coburn uses the right "medicine" to force Aubrey to confess while Hingle reluctantly allows him to push her only so far. As far as Blodgett goes, he's quite effective as a sunny lifeguard lothario serving as a steam bath masseuse whose work on Coburn gets so intense and nearly even violent as the latter provokes the former to talk about the abortion and his possible involvement.

Abortion as a topical and very political subject drives the film because Hong wanted to help women while the law hamstringed him. There were docs in O'Herily's hospital freely performing abortions, including his brother. There is a particular scene involving Coburn and Robie Porter (O'Herily's brother, also an abortionist) that is quite weird as Porter continues to work on a sauce he's preparing while Coburn becomes increasingly agitated about his dead niece and wanting to find her killer...it turns out to be a dead end. Seeing Coburn converse with Porter, who seems very comfortable avoiding the dead niece and getting an understanding about who Coburn is ("probing" his past, what makes him tick), was captivating to me. The romance between Coburn and O'Neill gets a "here and there" interest. Her husband is off to Aspen (I don't think we ever see her son, despite talk about him), and O'Neill's Georgia seems smitten (and vice versa) with Coburn right off the bat. Good chemistry there, too. O'Neill is gorgeous and classy, tit for tat with Coburn in terms of where their characters go over the course of the film's trajectory. She wants a stable relationship with a man, Coburn is still so focused on getting his friend out of prison that he sort of avoids that topic until his investigation is over. And when it is time to decide if he will commit to her at the end, when that husband comes back, Coburn does the right thing...because that lady is special. 3.5/5

***As a lazy Sunday afternoon 70s flick, "The Carey Treatment" is just perfect to me. It isn't a perfect film in the slightest. But it was easy to watch, Coburn is one of those actors from one of my favorite periods of Hollywood I can follow without a problem, and the cast in this rather forgotten film is excellent. I think it is ripe for rediscovery. There are plenty of these in the Hollywood vaults, I reckon. Find you a MGM vault and what comes out are perhaps not on the tips of tongues of even the classic movie cinephile. Still, Turner Classics showed this really early one morning, dropped when everyone was asleep. I think if slotted right, plenty might like it. ***