Stay Hungry

What can you say about a movie with a cast that boasts the likes of Jeff Bridges and Sally Field... and the best acting is done by Arnold Schwarzenegger?

"Stay Hungry" is a mess. Released in 1976 (and now again on a nice looking Blu-ray from Olive Films), this mishmash of stale tropes and awkward direction pulls in a generally comedic direction but has no clear vision about tone or even storyline.

Stylistically, too, the movie veers around. The film is bookended by letters read in voiceover (starting with a missive from a concerned uncle, Albert -- played by Woodrow Parfrey -- to his wayward nephew, Craig, played by Bridges, and ending with a reassuring letter from a now-reformed Craig to Albert). But the relationship between the pen pals is hardly explored. (When Uncle Albert does show up in person, briefly, it's to give some earthy advice to Craig.) For a while, it seems that this might be a crime drama since Craig is mixed up with some lowlifes who seem to think of themselves as real estate mobsters.

Eventually, Craig finds his way to the "Olympic" gym, a small outfit the real estate sharks are looking to buy as part of their plot to snap up all the property in a decrepit neighborhood and then re-sell it at a profit to developers. It's here that the movie's mix of romance, drama, and comedy sets in, and the cliches get going. Craig joins the gym's cadre of serious bodybuilders, makes friends with Mr. universe contender Joe (Schwarzenegger), falls in love with yoga instructor Mary (Field) -- who is also Joe's ex -- and establishes a tenuous relationship with the drunken owner of the place, a guy who calls himself Thor (R.G. Armstrong). Deciding that these hard-working people with plain manners and a certain directness of manner are more to his liking than the society folks he's grown up around, Craig throws in with them and abandons his lowlife friends. In turn, they get nasty about their plans to acquire the gym.

Craig acts clownish throughout, his exploits ranging from the criminal (he boldly marches into a bank president's office to steal a print off his wall, purely on a whim) to the declasse (his rutting antics with Mary so offend the sensibilities of the family servant William, played by Scotsman Crothers, that he quits in a huff of righteous indignation). It's not until the movie descends into completely tone-deaf cartoonishness -- a herd of barely-clad musclemen running riot through downtown Birmingham, Alabama even as a drug-crazed Thor sexually assaults Mary -- that Craig seems to find his footing. Until that time what we get are random parties in the backwoods in which fiddles are sawed and moonshine swilled, swank parties at antebellum mansions, cheap hoodlums trashing the gym, and Schwarzenegger's character picking up and dropping women in order not to get too settled. As Joe puts it, "I like to stay hungry."

Yes, and we might like this movie to turn into something coherent, but we're left to work with what we have. There are some delights to be found; Robert Englund has a pre-Freddy Kruger role as Thor's energetic, and somewhat feckless, assistant. And a scene involving a pair of hookers becomes hilariously surreal when another of Thor's employees turns out to be... well, if not gay, then certainly less interested in women than in the niceties of skincare (and the not-quite-so niceties of bondage). Schwarzenegger -- whom the credits claim to "introduce" to film audiences this role despite his having appeared two years earlier in the TV movie "Happy Anniversary and Goodbye" and starred as the title character in 1970's "Hercules in New York") -- has a natural onscreen charm and charisma, and seeing him in this early role is a saving grace.

Unintentionally funny are the arguments between Craig and Mary, which result from their different social classes and backgrounds. The film colors strictly within the lines of these prefab roles and the dialogue follows suit.

B-movie enthusiasts and gym bunnies may cotton to this flick, but it's not really anyone else's cup of tea.

This Blu-ray reissue offers no extras.

"Stay Hungry"
Blu-ray
$21.99
https://olivefilms.com/product/stay-hungry