The 1970s were the golden age of Hollywood paranoia -- from The Parallax View to Network to Three Days of the Condor. But as the Reagan years hovered into view, the studios began to lose their nerve. Which, effectively, left the fearless, mind-blown black comedy Winter Kills, released for about two weeks in 1979, an orphan.

Jeff Bridges is the younger brother of a felled president who uncovers the truth about his country and his family. Equally shocking, he also encounters his father, played by…