Welcome to a new B-Movie Enema review.

You know what? As we rush headlong into the holiday season across most of the world (and, let’s face it, America IS the rest of the world, am I right?), this is a time in which we should be thinking about our loved ones. Are they well? Are they sheltered from the incoming cold weather (stop it, Australia and New Zealand and wherever else… America is the center of the world, okay?)… Can they provide a warm meal or presents to their family during this time of year? You get what I’m saying.

Well, I don’t really know where I’m going with that opening paragraph, aside from some parenthetical American exceptionalism, but I do know that we’re going to be talking about the 1975 drama Best Friends. This movie comes from director Noel Nosseck. Nosseck actually had a decent career despite having no page on Wikipedia. Best Friends would be his first feature film, but prior to this, he worked on educational films about the dangers of heroin, LSD, and VD. He spent the remainder of the 70s after Best Friends doing pretty well for himself and getting some decent work. If you are a fan of the Cinema Snob, you might recognize one of Nosseck’s movies he directed in the 70s, Dreamer, one of the Snob’s Patreon poll winners that happened to be a lame bowling melodrama sort of in the vein of Rocky.

In 1981, Nosseck transitioned to television where he spent the remainder of his career. Most of his work on TV would be TV movies with a handful of episodes for television series. Several of the series he worked on are mostly forgotten. That said, he did direct three episodes of Charmed between 2000 and 2002.

However, for 1975’s Best Friends, he has some interesting names in the cast. Leading the way is Richard Hatch. Hatch was best known as the lead in Battlestar Galactica. In the early 70s, Hatch was known as a face on various episodes of TV series like The Sixth Sense and Barnaby Jones. Best Friends became his first feature. He wouldn’t go back to being in films for six years because he went back to appearing on TV and his lead role as Captain Apollo on Battlestar Galactica would be his defining moment. Later in his career, and before his passing in 2017, Hatch would get involved in unofficial Star Trek fan films and appear at several conventions to talk about Galactica.

Starring along with him are Susanne Benton and Doug Chapin. Benton was nearing the end of her career when she took the role of Kathy. But her final appearance was as Susan Archer in 1982’s The Last Horror Film which we covered here at B-Movie Enema! Another movie I’ve wanted to look at for the site is Benton’s other 1975 leading lady role – A Boy and His Dog. In that, she played Quilla June and starred opposite another up-and-coming hunky star, Don Johnson. As for Doug Chapin, the two most interesting facts about his career are that this is his final acting role and he became a somewhat successful producer. In 1979, he produced When a Stranger Calls, and, later, he was a producer on the Tina Turner biopic, What’s Love Got to Do With It.

But let’s get into this tale of two best friends that go south. The movie opens with a series of these two guys, Jesse and Pat. All the while, we get a country song called “Good Old Days” by Rick Cunha. It’s a fun little song and it does illustrate these guys’ lives as they remained friends throughout the years. It’s kind of one of those wholesome guy pal relationships where they are almost more brothers than just two guys who knew each other and grew up together. It’s a good setup because as the credits come to a close, you see them in their military dress uniforms indicating they were pulled into the Vietnam War.

Jesse has matured, grown up, come home from war, and has met a woman he plans to marry – Kathy. After seeing only pictures of Jesse and Pat in the credits, transitioning out of that to seeing one of the two guys now settled down with a fiance is just a good way of showing passage of time and that growth of maturity. It seems Jesse just recently got discharged from the Army and he is waiting for Pat to fly in after his discharge. Their girlfriends have arrived to meet Pat.

Now, Pat’s girlfriend, Jo Ella, is also very close to Jesse that almost comes off as a sibling relationship but I just think they’ve all known each other for a long time. In fact, we’ll see later that they are definitely NOT siblings. They seem to be just as close as Jesse and Kathy are, but Jo Ella still acts or comes off a little younger than the other three. Pat asks Jesse if he and Kathy have married yet, but Jesse says he waited for him to come home with the idea in mind they would have a double wedding. Because they are all together now, the plan is for the four of them to go, rent a camper, and go on a road trip back to California where they’re all from.

Pat is already showing a little bit of apprehension about things. Jesse sells the idea of taking more time to get back to Stockton, California by saying that if they return this way, it will give them more time as free men before they all get married. Pat says he wants them to drive as slowly as possible. Clearly Pat is not as comfortable with maturity as Jesse is. Pat was excited to see Jesse when he landed after his discharge. He was happy to see the girls, but at the dealership that they got the camper from, he looked unhappy and kind of depressed. Plus, him saying that he wants to take as much time as possible to get back home to delay getting married and really finally growing up is something that Jesse just kind of glosses over without really digging too deep into.

One thing that does sour the mood a tad bit is when Kathy notices Pat’s right hand that has been badly injured. He talks about doing therapy on his left hand to make it a fist of steel and punches the seat which causes Kathy to jump a little and Jesse looks over as if to ponder if he’s truly doing as well as he says he is. That night, the two couples get in bed with their girlfriends to fool around a bit, but Pat can’t perform. Jo Ella takes that well and is even supportive of her fiance.

The next day after lunch, Pat pulls Jesse out of the diner to make a plea to change Jesse’s life. He points out the motorcycle dealer across the street. He wants the two of them to buy bikes, hit the road, and never come back. Jesse says that he’s got a job waiting for him in Stockton that pays better than any job he’s ever had. Plus, he’s getting married. Pat says there will be plenty of girls and Kathy isn’t the one. In fact, Pat says she ain’t all that special. Disappointed in his friend, he goes back to the girls in the diner.

Pat goes to the dealer to buy a bike.

Jo Ella thinks it’s funny and cute he bought the bike but Jesse is none too pleased. In fact, when they hit the road again, Pat rides the bike out ahead of the camper. Jesse rides behind in the camper and ponders what’s going on with his old best friend.

But fuck all that… We shift to that evening and an Indian bar where a bunch of Native Americans sit around, drink beers, and listen to a band play music for a burlesque dancer to dance to. Now this is America, folks. Sure… Pat may have wanted to hit the open road on a motorbike like he’s Easy Rider, but this Indian saloon is real Americana.

Also, I just like how it seems as though everyone at the bar is kind of bored with the music and the stripper so they just sit around and have their own conversations and drink beers and barely pay any attention to the entertainment.

Aside from the band and the dancer, Jesse, Kathy, Pat, and Jo Ella are definitely the only non-locals and some of the few non-Natives in the bar. They’ve gotten a little tipsy to the point that Kathy suggests maybe she should go on stage and strip with the dancer, but Jo Ella gets up to dance and Pat puts her on the bar where she begins to strip. The crowd likes it, but the dancer on the stage looks a little peeved.

Jesse starts to get a little nervous. He tells Pat that he should probably get her to stop dancing. The crowd is a little too revved up by Jo Ella, plus the dancer on stage threatens to leave if the bar’s owner doesn’t stop her dancing. The owner tries to get her to stop but she won’t and Pat isn’t going to help him stop her either. When he has finally had enough, he tells the band to stop playing. That starts making things pretty awkward for Jo Ella and she starts to get nervous.

A local at the bar asks Jo Ella to come home with her and Pat pushes him away. When he lunges at his friend, Jesse punches the guy and it nearly starts something pretty nasty. The guys start busting bottles to use as weapons. Jesse tries to calm everyone down, but a larger Native American guy comes up from behind and bashes him over the head.

Back at the camper, Pat says he knows what the guy looked like and they can go and get the guy for hitting him, but Jesse and Kathy don’t think that’s a great idea. Pat decides to go take care of the guy himself. Sure enough, he finds the guy and uses a 2×4 to bash the guy in an alley and leaves him knocked out on the ground.

Pat has a lot of pent-up frustration. It really is immaturity. He doesn’t want to follow any rules. He doesn’t seem to want to chill out. It’s like he wants to constantly play games and laugh at life. He doesn’t take anything seriously. He’s drinking a lot. He’s barely paying attention to Jo Ella. He wants to keep Jesse to himself and even suggests he shouldn’t marry Kathy because she’s lame. He’s constantly telling old stories of days gone by he shared with Jesse. He constantly tries to tell Jesse that the good times never have to end. He wants to go on another grand adventure but claims he can’t go without Jesse. Jesse tries to impress upon Pat that for the first time in his life, he feels like he’s doing something important for himself.

After buying Jo Ella an expensive Native American ring she saw at a roadside shop, Pat tells her that he does not want to marry her. He thinks he’s doing her a favor. She’s distraught because she told everyone she was going to meet him when he was released from the army so they could get married. However, Pat does something really underhanded… He tells her that Jesse is always sneaking looks at her. He’s always wanted to make it with Jo Ella. He even has said that he wishes Kathy was more like her.

When Jesse and Kathy come back from a walk, Pat asks Kathy to go for a ride on his bike which leaves Jo Ella and Jesse alone together. Now, either Jesse is an idiot or he is just doing the normal playful stuff he would have always done with Jo Ella, but she’s trying real hard to be playful and flirty with him. She’s throwing leaves on him when he’s trying to lounge on a blanket in this patch of woods, she’s running around and being a tease. Jesse was clearly always close with her and this is likely what he’s doing but this is really becoming a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Jo Ella tells Jesse she and Pat are not getting married. He hugs him and they kiss. Maybe Jesse isn’t so sure about growing up anymore. Elsewhere, Pat and Kathy arrive at a gas station and she asks him why he tried to kiss her. When he asks if it would scare her, she says I don’t know. What the hell is going on here now? Have these characters come down with a major case of the stupids? Jesse and Jo Ella are fucking now on that blanket in the clearing. Kathy isn’t so sure if she’s bothered by Pat trying to kiss her.

I know Pat is an idiot. He’s acting like a child. He’s lied to Jo Ella about how Jesse always liked her. He’s now telling Kathy the following… First, don’t marry Jesse. Second, Jesse is a cheat. Third, he’s looking around now for someone new. Fourth, Kathy isn’t that hot. Fifth, both he and Jesse have had better looking girls than her.

Jesus… This movie is falling apart here. We’re right around the halfway point of this movie. Up to this point, I thought this movie was a mildly interesting take on, on a fairly small scale, how men mature independently and based on their own characteristics and circumstances. You could make the argument that Pat was always looking back while Jesse was always looking forward. There’s all sorts of room to talk about how being drafted into a war could change their outlooks and perception of what’s important. Absolutely there could be room to talk about how generations past who went to war helped or hurt their maturity. Did it force some to grow up faster than they should have? Did getting harmed in battle change how they perceive nostalgia and sentimentality? These are all the things that this movie was making me think about. It wasn’t perfect in doing these things, but I could see where this movie could explore these concepts.

Now, though… all the wheels have fallen off. Pat’s lies have moved this movie in a direction where the people around him now have to fit into those lies. He tells Jo Ella that Jesse always liked her, and now she will do anything to have sex with him. Because of that, now Jesse is willing to have sex with her somewhat surprisingly easily. Jo Ella is cute as hell, but I don’t buy it. Kathy isn’t bothered by Pat’s advances so he now has to tell her that Jesse is a dog who is always on the prowl for new chicks and sexual partners. Now Kathy does try to tell Pat she thinks he’s lying, but the seed is planted and I’m not so sure if it wasn’t for Jesse and Jo Ella having sex, she wouldn’t break up with Jesse anyway.

When Kathy and Pat return to the camper, Jo Ella won’t make eye contact with her. Oh, and Jo Ella is crying. Inside the camper, Jesse is distracted and reading a magazine… an upside-down magazine. Kathy snatches the magazine and turns it right side up before tossing it in Jesse’s lap. Pat comes in and chuckles at the situation and the chaos he’s caused.

He goes outside to tell Kathy, you know, as a friend, to find someone else when they get home.

Kathy comes up with an idea… She wants everyone to have fun! She says none of them have ever been to Arizona or Mexico. So, let’s do a whole goddamn thing! After all, as she says in front of everyone, this will be her and Jesse’s honeymoon. Much to Pat’s dismay, Kathy seems determined to marry Jesse.

The next day, Pat apologizes to Kathy. He says his hand was bothering him and he was saying things he didn’t mean. He asks if she wants to see an amazing view for her to take a picture of and walks her over to a part of this cliff where a rattlesnake he saw earlier is lying in wait. She sees it and freezes asking Pat what she should do. He throws some rocks at it to cause it to slither away. He tells her he saved her life and she asks him if this is a joke to him. She wants to tell Jesse what happened, but Pat says he won’t believe her. After all, HE didn’t put that snake there. She tells him to stay away from her.

Later, while they are on the road, Pat suggests they drive the camper to the ocean and have a beach party. Kathy initially says she’s tired and just wants to go home, but this is one idea of Pat’s that Jesse does like, so they go and enjoy the sunset. I will give this movie one thing… it looks very pretty and is well-shot. There are things about this movie that make you think about days gone by and times spent with friends. This is especially done in how this movie looks. It looks like a memory of a good time or the reminiscing of one last good time you had with a friend.

There was that hiccup with Jo Ella suddenly believing that Jesse loves her and him sleeping with her, then the whole thing with Pat making moves on Kathy. However, the real danger of a person like Pat being involved in this story is starting to present itself in a more realistic and worrisome way. While Jesse is at the store picking up snacks and food, Pat decides to rape Kathy. My presumption is that he does this so she can tell Jesse and he wouldn’t believe her, thus driving the wedge between them so he can get what he wants… Jesse and continued good times.

Jesse returns and Pat pulls Kathy’s swimsuit down. When Jesse comes in, Pat says there is no reason to try to explain away what’s going on. Jesse tosses Pat outside onto the beach. Pat says he won’t fight back even if Jesse punches him. Jesse punches him. Pat then says Kathy was asking for it. He says this entire trip, Kathy’s been giving him eyes. Jesse pauses for a second, and Kathy walks away. Jesse decides to go back to beating up Pat.

Jesse punches Pat. Pat kicks Jesse in the face. Jesse eventually tackles Pat and nearly starts choking him out, but Jo Ella stops it. It’s a pretty rough fight. Eventually, the two decide to stop fighting and Pat gets on his bike and drives off. After the fight, Jesse goes to comfort Kathy. She tells Jesse she just wants to go home, but Jesse says he can’t just leave Pat.

I agree with Kathy here. Fuck Pat. Let him ride off on his bike. He’s clearly a douchebag. He seemed cool at first, but then he says he wanted you to not marry Kathy because she’s not that hot. Then, he tried to rape her. Oh, and you also had that tryst with Jo Ella. That’s not even bringing up the whole fight you just got into. Just go, man. Things will either work themselves out or they won’t. The Pat you were friends with probably doesn’t exist anymore. He, I dunno… like, died in Vietnam? I know it’s painful, but, trust me, in the day and age we live in now… you sometimes cut some ties and it’s painful but you gotta do it or you’re going to always be in pain.

Whoa… That got a little real, didn’t it?

Anyway, late that night, they hear Pat’s motorcycle but they don’t find him. Jesse walks through town looking for Pat and eventually finds his bike parked outside a bar. He goes inside and talks with his friend. He tells Pat that he loves Kathy like no one he’s ever loved before. That’s that. He wants to still be friends with this guy he’s known for 13 years. Jesse asks if he’s gonna let a woman come between them. Pat says that’s what he’s been trying to tell Jesse this whole time. They seemingly make up… but I don’t think Jesse understands that he and Pat have different ideas about what the concept of not letting a woman come between them means.

For example, Jesse believes they can all be grown-ups and he can have both Pat as his best friend and Kathy as his wife. Pat, on the other hand, still holds true to Bros before Hoes. He spots two girls sitting at the table in this bar and suggests Jesse, you know, for old times’ sake, go over there to talk to them. He does. The two guys sit with the two girls and the girls claim they are freshmen in college, but they slip up and say they are FRESHMEN IN HIGH SCHOOL. Pat wants to hang out with them but they say they gotta go soon but want to meet up with them later.

Do you wanna know why they gotta go soon? Because their fucking parents are coming to pick them up. These are children that Pat wants to hang out with.

Pat says of course let’s hang out! The girls say they will come back in two hours and meet the guys there. Pat is super excited to “tear up” these freshmen. Jesse says he won’t be there when they come back. He doesn’t care about those two girls. Pat tries to bargain by saying he’ll let Jesse have the pretty one of the two. Pat says if Jesse is willing to truly put Kathy above everything, he wants Jesse to do one thing for him… Give him Kathy. If Pat and Kathy are together, that will make sure she can’t come between them. I do not understand this logic, but it’s not like Pat’s been all that logical at all, so… I guess that sort of makes sense then?

Pat says he’s gonna get her despite Jesse saying absolutely not. Jesse says if Pat keeps trying this and tries to take Kathy from him, he’ll kill him. So, Jesse returns to the camper without Pat and says they’ll leave without him. After Jo Ella goes to bed, Kathy wants to know what Pat said when Jesse found him. Jesse just says they should go to sleep. That night, Pat returns to the camper and opens the door. Jesse looks outside but doesn’t see Pat. He closes and locks the door. Jesse decides they need to go now. He can’t start the camper because the ignition key is missing. Jesse remembers that he can start the camper without a key and goes outside to start it, it’s soon discovered that the tires have been slashed.

When Pat shows up, Kathy believes he’s there to kill her. Jesse thinks that’s ridiculous. He takes the girls back inside the camper while Pat just stays outside with his motorcycle’s headlight shining at them. Later, Pat breaks the window and peers inside laughing. Jesse grabs a gun and runs outside to tell Pat to face him man-to-man.

Pat keeps riding his motorcycle around in the dark and Jesse, enraged, starts firing his gun. Meanwhile, Kathy has taken off into the night as well. Jo Ella tries to get Kathy to come back. As the sky starts to lighten, Jesse discovers Jo Ella sobbing over the dead body of Kathy who was shot by Jesse in the chaos while Pat rode away.

When morning comes, Pat returns, like an absolute dipshit, to the camper. He sees Kathy’s dead body and asks Jesse “What happened?” like he wasn’t just a crazed asshole the night before. Neither Jesse nor Jo Ella respond. Pat says whatever Jesse wants to do is what they’ll do. Pat will no longer argue, he just wants to know what to do. When Jo Ella steps closer to the two of them, Pat starts throwing sand at her and yells at her to get away from them.

And now Pat has what he wants… Jesse all to himself. He starts telling stories about their past. Jesse starts laughing at some of the stories until he begins to cry. He drops the gun in his hands and sobs while Pat just tries to tell more stories. And that’s how the movie ends. Not with Jesse taking that gun, ramming it up his asshole friend’s… erm… asshole and pulling the trigger until it goes click. No… Pat, like a catatonic Batman villain just keeps telling stories about the past while Jesse ponders if his life has turned into an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Boy… Best Friends should have been a whole lot better. To say this movie is not great is absolutely true. However, to also say this movie has a lot of what it takes to be great is also true. There are, most certainly, things to like about this movie. I liked the idea of two friends on two different paths in life. One planning for the future. The other is unable to let go of the past. Gosh… that’s got something that could be fucking great. It’s a good-looking movie. Like I said previously… This movie, at times, LOOKS like a memory of a good time from the past. The idealized memory of that one splendid moment with a friend.

As a sentimental person who is careful how much I let nostalgia control memories of my past, I love that I am sentimental. I love knowing I can not gloss over things with rose-tinted shades, but appreciate that I had a good time with a loved one or a friend. It’s okay to be sentimental and get maybe a little teary-eyed that you were once young and without a great deal of responsibility so you got to just experience something in a pretty pure form. It’s not okay to wrap yourself up in that past or those moments and never move forward. Jesse learned that lesson himself just from being able to mature. Pat never could.

There are absolutely opportunities to explore all that. Maturity, the role of a man in that era, what it means to be a man, and what it means to take on responsibility and feel emotions you never felt before… these are all excellent things to build a movie on. It’s sort of there, but none of those things are explored in too much depth. Maybe if the personalities of the characters could have been enhanced to learn more about why these two guys are the way they are at this stage in their lives, that could have made a difference.

The bonds formed between guys (I’m sorry I can’t speak about bonds created between girls because I only have the experience of being a guy) are a curious and sometimes exceptional thing. Men can form almost brotherly bonds that become so tight and so important to them that it can lead to one of the guys becoming jealous of a romantic relationship coming into play with the other. Best Friends is trying to play with that, but it can’t quite grasp enough of the subject to really make it work. There are scenes that could be cut out that would have given the space for more of the character building necessary to make this one of the forgotten great ones. It’s a shame because I can see all the bones there, but the full package just doesn’t build anything with them. Certainly, there are four strong performances here at the heart of this movie that are also in the positive column.

One last thing I do want to call out… The marketing for his movie is totally fucked. This isn’t Vinegar Syndrome’s fault. They used mostly the same materials that were available for the movie in 1975. The promo materials say things like “They were BEST FRIENDS until… they crossed the wrong border!” Or “She became the ravaged victim of a century of revenge!” What the fuck does that mean? It also portrays Kathy in two very weird ways. First, she’s a sexpot out front of the other characters as if she wormed her way in between friends when that’s not what was going on at all. Second, it shows her as a little girl almost coaxing a little boy away from… something. Probably coaxing him away from playing war with his friend. The most egregious thing on the posters and home video releases are the use of the Native American men who make it seem like they did something that would lead to the best friends doing something in revenge. It’s bad. This is a straight drama with a touch of thriller. Whatever you see on the box, don’t buy it for that. It’s not salacious at all.

Well… that does it for this week. Speaking of bonds and speaking of girls, next week, since it’s Thanksgiving weekend here in the United States, I’ve got a real feast for everyone. Yeah, I gotta do it. I’m going to cover 2024’s bomb that was Madame Web. Much like with Cats back in 2019, it was a movie that as I sat there watching it in the theater I knew it was B-Movie Enema fodder. So! Let’s do it.

Meanwhile, guys… Don’t go busting up your friends’ happiness, okay? It ain’t cool.