THE GRASSHOPPER, a dismal ‘with-it’ drama of a young woman’s self-destruction, was one of 1970s bulging bumper crop of duds and disappointments. Apart from a smidge of the curiosity factor as a period piece, sampling the warbling mores of the day, it’s got one thing going for it, its front & center star, Jacqueline Bisset, 25, ravishingly beautiful,a smart, soulful and unfairly underrated actress. In practically every scene, she’s to-die-for; the rest of it pretty much reeks.

Hopeful and more than a bit naive, ‘Christine Adams’ splits from her boring small town in British Columbia for Los Angeles, where she’ll meet her boyfriend. He turns out to be a snore and restless Christine is soon pulled into the gaudy swirl of Las Vegas. She scores work as a showgirl and lands the attention of a variety of men, mostly jerks: serial unhappiness locks in. She’s her own worst enemy and Vegas is tailor-made for defeat.

The sexy ad campaign drew enough patrons to place 47th at the box office ($6,100,000 according to Cogerson); as a typically randy 15-year-old straight male at the time, a chance to see Bisset undraped (let alone in a shower) made this a hormonal bugle call, yet somehow your abashed scribe never got around to seeing it until being aged enough to appreciate one of the terrible scripts few halfway decent lines: “Christine, I have reached that realistic age when I must choose between fun and a heart attack.”  Okay, har har, already. Back in eyes-wide-open 1970 I would’ve thought this pretty ‘boss’ stuff: now, except for the luminous leading lady, it’s as feeble as it is unpleasant. Most of the ‘frank’ flicks of the era were conjured by cynical middle-aged industry vets trying to glom onto the mod tempo of the youth movement: as with the individuals, few of these then-contemporary movies, the dramas or the comedies, aged gracefully.

Jerry Paris directs with the subtlety of a Vegas comic (like the one played by Vegas comic Corbett Monica—gawd spare us, people thought he was funny?) and the screenplay ralph’d up by Jerry Belson and Garry Marshall (they also co-produced) is a trite stew of pretense, pandering, peekaboo teasing and vulgarity, with ‘humor’ injections that are jarringly out of place. Along with Monica, other males on hand include Jim Brown, uncomfortable, charmless and as animate as a football, and old pro Joseph Cotten, discarding dignity for a paycheck. Most of the rest in support either over-act or can’t act at all. Apart from Brown (despite his glowering his character meant to be a good guy) almost everyone else is a creep of one type or another. The portrayals of the younger people—hippy stoners and a rock band—are especially cringe-worthy. Junk: Valley Of The Dolls without the camp laughs. Check box marked ‘downer’. *

BUT—frame one to finito, there is Jacqueline Bisset. Sam Leavitt’s camera practically proposes to her with searching closeups, and—with a couple of stumbles (script, direction, co-stars and awkward post-dubbing not helping)— she gives the faux-caring, casually exploitative and progressively depressing material her best shot. Though flaky Christine is, frankly, about as deep as a puddle, glowing Bisset is fresh and forthright, her pulse-arresting allure charged with some inner potion quotient of the mysterious.

Best line: “I guess it’s because now matter what I’m doing, or how much fun I’m having, somewhere way back in my head I’m thinking somebody somewhere else is having more fun than I am.”  Well, join one of the larger clubs…

95 minutes that feels twice as long. With Ed Flanders (debut, as a jerk), Ramon Bieri (as a pig times two), Roger Garrett (insufferable as Christine’s flamer pal, an early GBF cliche), Stanley Adams (as a phony), Tim O’Kelly (as a dip), David Ketchum (as a dick), Penny Marshall (one line, as a rock groupie).

* Apart from its class-act leading lady, The Grasshopper is a bug dog but it was hardly the worst of the year; that firmly belongs to the poopstick that is Myra Breckinridge. Something was in the water in 1970—and it clearly wasn’t enough acid. How else to account for Love Story, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, Rio Lobo, Soldier Blue, The Cross And The Switchblade, Scrooge, Dirty Dingus Magee, WUSA, One More Time, The Only Game In Town, C.C. & Company, Watermelon Man, Zabriskie Point, Bloody Mama, Hornets’ Nest, Too Late The Hero, A Man Called Sledge, Trog, Flap, R.P.M., Which Way To The Front?…