Hey, look what’s finally on TV! C.C. and Company (1970)

Joe Namath’s first movie role isn’t a travesty. He has the amiable laid-back vibe you get when non-actors wind up with major movie roles (Willie Nelson, the Beatles) and not much in the way of dialogue (or at least many lines of dialogue strung together) so there’s no need for any emotional heavy lifting.

However, having finally sat through all of C.C. and Company for perhaps the first time confirmed that the first five minutes of the movie are its high point. Namath, playing the cleanest-cut gang member to ever grace a motorcycle movie, pretends to be grocery shopping while actually making a sandwich by stealing food from the shelves (and resealing packages as he goes along – the golden age of product tampering). Joe washes down his sandwich with a stolen pint of milk, then helps himself to a package of Twinkies.

From that point forward, C.C. and Company plays like an R-rated Elvis movie, with Namath as the loner with a chip on his shoulder but a heart of gold, quick with his fists and in making time with the gals. He even gets a cool Elvis character name, C.C. Ryder. And not unlike most Elvis movies, C.C. and Company ends with a climactic motorcycle race because there’s always some big car race/moment of truth where Elvis redeems himself in the eyes of his female costar and wipes the smirk off the face of his male competitor.

The movie was written by Mr. Ann-Margret, Roger Smith, no doubt in an effort to jumpstart his wife’s lagging career. According to IMDB, her last role before C.C. and Company was a guest spot on The Lucy Show (the one where Desi Jr. thinks she’s coming on to him after she shows an interest in a song he wrote, easily one of the longest half-hours in television history). If the idea was to start her movie comeback, why not harken back to Ann-Margret’s best – and already five years ago at this point – cinematic effort, Viva Las Vegas?

So any resemblance to an Elvis movie seems intentional, but there’s no way Presley would have signed on for C.C. and Company. There’s beer guzzling, disrespect for authority, a biker chick skinny-dipping, a couple of blurry nude biker asses and Ann-Margret telling a biker to fuck off. And not that Roger Smith would have welcomed Elvis anyway, as the King and the then-single Ann-Margret had a major thing going during the filming of Viva Las Vegas. Namath, at the time one of the best-known and recognizable people in America, got the call.

After their not-so-cute first meeting (Namath steps in to stop two of his motorcycle buddies from raping Ann-Margret when her limo breaks down in the desert), he quits the gang to court her. They hit a dance club, and to compare Namath with a quarterback contemporary, his dance moves are strictly Johnny Unitas – he stays in the pocket and doesn’t move around much. Ann-Margret, on the other hand, only seems to dance at one speed, a hair-whipping frenzy. Afterwards we cut to the two of them rolling around in a dark room, where it’s safe to say that Namath isn’t wearing his knee brace. Happy to be a Giants fan in 1970, with boring Fran Tarkenton at quarterback.

That’s followed by the “falling in love” montage as they feed ducks and ride a pedal boat as “Today: The Love Theme from C.C. and Company” (according to the credits) and sung by Miss Margret provides a suitable soundtrack. (I’m reasonably sure this isn’t the song Desi Jr. wrote for her). The rest of the movie includes several scenes of the motorcycle gang – in the best biker movie tradition – generally behaving like the monkeys in 2001: A Space Odyssey. There’s an endless moto-cross race with lots of riders wiping out and the big bike race/duel to the death at the end, Namath vs. his former gang.

For as many times as I tried to watch C.C. and Company, I probably did myself a favor by going to bed after the sandwich scene.

Hey, look what’s finally on TV! C.C. and Company used to air often on the CBS 11:30 movie on Friday and Saturday night. It would have taken a Herculean effort to stay up until 1 AM, with commercials, to watch the whole thing. Fittingly, TCM aired it recently late on a Saturday night.