Bronson in THE STONE KILLER finally coming to DVD

It's not the greatest Bronson flick there ever was, but for those desiring cheap thrills and 70's Bronson crime-stomping, THE STONE KILLER sure fits the bill. I wrote a semi-lengthy review of it HERE some time ago, and now it's time to retire the VHS, cause you can get it on DVD-R from the Warner Archive HERE.

Read More

Film Review: CHARLEY VARRICK (1973, Don Siegel)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 111 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Walter Matthau (CHARADE, THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE), Joe Don Baker (WALKING TALL, MITCHELL), John Vernon (SAVAGE STREETS, DIRTY HARRY), Andy Robinson (DIRTY HARRY, HELLRAISER), Sheree North (THE OUTFIT, THE SHOOTIST), Norman Fell (THE GRADUATE, THE KILLERS), Felicia Farr (KOTCH, 3:10 TO YUMA), Craig R. Baxley (also did the stunts and directed ACTION JACKSON and many episodes of THE A-TEAM). Music by Lalo Schifrin (MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, DIRTY HARRY, THE MANITOU). Written by Dean Riesner (DIRTY HARRY, PLAY MISTY FOR ME, FATAL BEAUTY) and Howard Rodman (COOGAN'S BLUFF, MADIGAN), and adapted from the novel THE LOOTERS by John Reese.
Tag-line: "When he runs out of dumb luck he always has genius to fall back on!"
Best one-liner: "Sooner or later, you're gonna tell me everything you know. So why not save yourself a great deal of pain, tell me now."

Don Siegel is the man. And CHARLEY VARRICK just might be his amoral, cutthroat masterpiece. THE KILLERS' hitmen protagonists, DIRTY HARRY's mildly fascist sensibilities, and COOGAN'S BLUFF's hateful 'tude toward the Love Generation were just pit stops on the way.

The late 60's and early 70's were chock full of gritty flicks like this; take-no-prisoners crime films populated by brutal, pistol-whippin', lady-slappin' sons-o-bitches: THE OUTFIT (with VARRICK co-stars Sheree North and Joe Don Baker), POINT BLANK, Bava's KIDNAPPED, PRIME CUT, THE MECHANIC, MEAN STREETS, GET CARTER, THE YAKUZA...I could go on.


Walter Matthau, as 'Charley Varrick,' is a gum-chewing, calculating, mercenary thief. His gang kills cops like some people check their watch, and they're willing to risk it all for a measley couple of grand from a local bank in Buttfuck, New Mexico. The only problem is it just happened to be a mob front, and they've ended up with three-quarters of a million dollars.

(But was it truly coincidence? See if you can determine the answer from Charley's unceasingly indifferent gaze.) But he's not a maniac. Far from it. He's perhaps the most rational being on the planet- completely committed to creating a plan that will ensure his survival during the certainly impending shitstorm. Said storm involves a totally dickish, crooked bank exec (John Vernon, who's played some of the best a-holes of all time):

a blundering gang member (played by Andy Robinson, the simperlingly psychotic 'Scorpio Killer' from DIRTY HARRY):

and the equally amoral but far more vicious "Molly" (Joe Don Baker), who is without a doubt the inspiration for Cormac McCarthy's killing machine, "Anton Chigurh":

(A lot here seems like the direct inspiration for NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.) In fact, this film so openly flouts Hollywood rules and convention, that, as you watch it, you can literally feel its reverberations on American cinema through the years since. Tarantino, the Coen brothers, Christopher Nolan (THE DARK KNIGHT's clown-masked bank theft of mob money opening pays homage), and many others -some openly, and some not- have dug deep into the many layers of VARRICK and extracted little bits here and there for their own purposes. But it’s such an epic, cynical tour-de-force, that no amount of depths-trolling can deaden its punch-in-the-guts impact (or the fact that the finale astonishingly involves a '67 Chrysler Imperial versus a biplane).

Five stars.

-Sean Gill

Read More

Film Review: THE KILLERS (1964, Don Siegel)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 93 minutes.
Tag-line: " There is more than one way to kill a man!"
Notable Cast or Crew: Lee Marvin, Clu Gulager, John Cassavetes, Angie Dickinson, Claude Akins, Norman Fell, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Cassel, Robert Phillips.
Best one-liner: "Lady, I haven't got the time."

Loosely- very loosely- based on the Ernest Hemingway short story of the same name, Don Siegel's THE KILLERS was the third filmic adaptation of the work (following in the footsteps of Robert Siodmak and Andrei Tarkovsky), and was intended to be the very first made-for-television movie. Due in part to wanton violence directed toward women, the blind, and the defenseless, THE KILLERS instead made its debut theatrically. Much lambasted by critics- at least in comparison to Siodmak's '46 version- I'm here to give you 17 reasons why THE KILLERS is one of my all-time favorite movies, and is the only one that I can think of where the father of American independent film punches out Ronald Reagan over the honor of the star of BIG BAD MAMA. So without further ado–

#1. Clu Gulager. Well, actually, a lot of these will be Clu Gulager-related, but I just wanted to get the main thrust out of the way. This is the movie that turned me into a bona fide Gulager fanatic.

After I first saw it, I ran screaming into the streets, singing the praises of Mr. Gulager to nearly anyone who would listen. I researched his career. I saw the mainstream stuff like RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, THE HIDDEN, MCQ, and THE GAMBLER. I hunted down movies of his that exist only on VHS, from WONDERLAND COVE to HUNTER'S BLOOD to AMBUSH AT WACO: IN THE LINE OF DUTY. I checked out thirty or so of his guest appearances on television from AIRWOLF to MAGNUM, P.I. to IRONSIDE to KNIGHT RIDER to HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL to MURDER, SHE WROTE, where he played three different characters in three different episodes. I saw the Lázló Kovács-lensed short film that Clu directed which played at Cannes (A DAY WITH THE BOYS- presently available on the Criterion DVD of GEORGE WASHINGTON). I've awaited, with bated-breath, the decades-in-the-making Gulager family project FUCKING TULSA- AN EXCURSION INTO CRUELTY. In fact, all of you should read this piece about the Gulager clan (Clu, his wife Miram Byrd-Nethery (R.I.P.), his sons Tom and John, and daughter-in-law Diane Ayala) which first appeared in L.A. Weekly in 1997.

Anyway- back to the film at hand. As Lee, one of the eponymous 'Killers,' Clu cements his reputation as one of the premier character actors, his smarmy vicious calm etching him forever on the map of badasses in cinema. He's brutal, he's hilarious, and he's improvising up a storm. One could even say he's notable for being the only actor to hold his own aside Lee Marvin besides Gene Hackman in PRIME CUT, Mifune in HELL IN THE PACIFIC, and maybe that rocket launcher in DELTA FORCE. And so much of Gulager's business is happening in the background, drawing your attention in a should-have-been-star-making way, á la Steve McQueen's shenanigans in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.


Clu performs a blindness aptitude test on a visually impaired woman.


Clu swabs his dirty sunglasses with sweat from Norman Fell's dampened head.



Clu takes a swig of Claude Akins' third-rate hooch, then, in a dick move, looks for a place on the floor to spit it out. (In real life Clu was a teetotaler.)

More on Clu in a bit.

#2. Lee Marvin. A.K.A. The Terrifying Intimate Verbal Sadism of Lee Marvin.

Lee really knows how to get in your personal space. Not many actors do. In the contemporary era, Rutger Hauer and Jimmy Smits come to mind, and perhaps a few others, but I think this is a filmmaking technique/acting skill which has sadly gone by the wayside. He's not your garden-variety sadist. Somehow, Lee Marvin taps into that primal element– that basic human relationship between child and adult– and translates it in a manner which cements his status as an adult in a world that is somehow now solely populated by mere children. Take heed: perhaps if you do as he says, he will not dismantle your body with his bare hands.

LEE MARVIN MIGHT LICK YOUR EAR

Which kind of leads us to–

#3. The Shit-Eating Grins of Lee Marvin.

He is one of the few purveyors of shit-eating grins that doesn't draw one's ire. Generally, a shit-eating grin elicits contempt from an audience. Lee's shit-eating grins elicit a certain degree of respect and a great deal of fright. And speaking of grins–

#4. The way that ex-NFL player Bob Phillips clenches his teeth whenever he's doing something violent.


Is it intentional? Your guess is as good as mine. "Oh, he's doing it as he commits crimes so that his victims will not recognize him," you say. Well, no- because in the first photograph, he's in private- in the company of thieves, if you will. But it doesn't really matter. Suffice it to say- I like it.

#5. The bored, perpetually droning racetrack announcer. He just goes on and on. I guess it's background chatter for the whole scene and was probably designed as the 'glue' which holds together disconnected shots of stock footage, but it's so dull, ambling, and emotionless that it becomes... comedy gold.

Yes, we've got some great cars out here today. Some great cars. Great cars.

#6. The most simplistic heist map in film history. 'We'll go over it again– and again!" snarls Reagan, but when we finally see the map, it's this beaut:

As a side note on the heist– it involves setting up a detour for an armored truck, hiding the detour after it takes the isolated country road, passing the truck on said road, and meeting up with a faked car wreck further on down which makes the armored truck stop so that it can be easily robbed. A key plot element involves racer Johnny North (John Cassavetes) recruited as the driver, because only he can drive fast enough to pass the truck on the bumpy path . But I ask– why does it have to pass the truck? Isn't the staged wreck on the secluded route enough? Nevermind– this is getting too complicated. Let's go over it again. May I refer you to the map above?

#7. Rear-projection Go-Kart Madness! This one kinda speaks for itself.



#8. The hilarious dynamic between Gulager and Marvin. Their colorless banter– "I always liked Miami." –"Yeah, it's a nice place." The fact that Gulager is a hand-gripper-squeezin', push-up doin', carrot-juice swiggin', milk-quaffin' health nut and that Marvin is a heavy boozin', darkly broodin', shirt starchin' hardass. They don't have a whole lot going on in their lives. Being a hit man's not exactly for enterprising, visionary-types. But you believe that Gulager enjoys his work and that Marvin is tired. And that's all you need to believe.


#9. Claude Akins, who proves himself yet again to be one hell of an actor, finishes his sob story. Real fuckin' tears stream down his grimy, disconsolate grease-monkey's face.


And the camera tracks out to reveal:

Gulager and Marvin: bored as shit.

#10. The fusion of artsy, 60's cinematography and a world of stock, prefabricated sets. It's an odd juxtaposition, and for the most part, the film looks like ubiquitous 60's American studio TV work. But every once in a while, DP Richard L. Rawlings (DYNASTY, CHARLIE'S ANGELS) pulls out something worthy of Antonioni. Did Siegel set up these shots himself?


#11. A bit, wordless role by John Cassavetes crony Seymour Cassel (possibly best known now for his work with Wes Anderson).


#12. During the 'ole steam room torture' scene, Clu concludes things by stating the classic, groan-inducing one-liner, "Then there's no sweat, Mickey."


#13. The way Lee Marvin says "YOU WAIT!" Just wait for it, and you'll see what I mean.

#14. Ronald Reagan Eyebrow Action. The man is throwing around more eyebrows than Nicholson and Slater combined. It's all he does. Each eyebrow toss is worth a thousand words. Every single one of them is gold.





These freeze frames likely represent about 5% of the actual eyebrow action that Reagan delivers. He even raises some brow carpet at Gulager, as he pretends to crash cars on Reagan's scale model of a real estate development.


He should've been a school principal.

#15. The big punch out scene which I referenced earlier. It's probably the most premeditated slap I've ever seen. Angie Dickinson is going on about how she'd prefer to stick around near Cassavetes. "I like it here," she says. Reagan arches an eyebrow, exchanges a look with his buddies and announces, "Well, I can change that in a hurry!" He stands, winds up, and delivers a slap so hearty that I hit 'instant replay' at least half a dozen times.


But it's not over– Cassavetes gets into the fray, stage-punching Reagan, who, in the few moments prior to getting ghost-hit contorts his face into something resembling a background character from L'IL ABNER or at the very least, DICK TRACY. They don't make 'em like they used to.


#16. Gulager and Marvin's gleeful torture of Angie Dickinson. Now this little item reflects, hopefully, more on the exquisite bitchiness of Dickinson's character and less on some deeply buried misogynism, but I defy you not to be having a blast while it's happening. "Don't bruise her, Charlie– she's got a lotta class."





#17. According to Clu Gulager, Lee Marvin was completely and utterly shitfaced when he filmed his final scenes. Of course, he still nailed his performance, and, if you believe Clu, which I always do, it's one of the greatest scenes in film history. And it never fails to evoke applause.

Amen.

-Sean Gill

Read More

Film Review: THE END (1978, Burt Reynolds)

Stars: 2 of 5.

Running Time: 100 minutes.

Tag-line: "Are there laughs before death?" Apparently not.

Notable Cast or Crew: Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Sally Field, Norman Fell (THE STONE KILLER, THE KILLERS), Joanne Woodward (THE THREE FACES OF EVE, THE FUGITIVE KIND), Myrna Loy (THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, THE THIN MAN), Carl Reiner (THE JERK, SUMMER SCHOOL), Strother Martin (COOL HAND LUKE, THE WILD BUNCH), Kristy McNichol (WHITE DOG, THE PIRATE MOVIE).

Best one-liner: "That man's nuts! Grab 'em!"

Oh, no. Tell me this isn't happening. I love Burt. The giggle, the goosing, the impetuous smarm. I love Dom even more. The chubby cheeks, the playful demeanor (never has someone been quite so mischievous without an ounce of malice), and the unfettered optimism, even in the wake of getting slapped by Burt, nonstop. Put 'em together, and you've got gold.

Well....I hate to break America's collective heart, but not always. Let me lay it all out for you. It's a tale of terminal illness and suicide. Burt directs, and Burt stars. The director seems to be playing it straight. The star is playin' it strictly for laffs. Allow me to reiterate: THEY ARE THE SAME PERSON.

Why the disparate agendas? Burt's got the beard, and Dom's clean-shaven. That's gotta throw some people off, but forget about that for a second. The problems are fivefold:

#1. The pacing. The pacing is HORRIBLE. It is excruciating. Simple scenes that don't advance the plot, don't develop character, and don't contain laffs should not be lasting in excess of ten minutes.

#2. Where is Dom? Dom doesn't even appear until around the half-way mark. Even after that, he's only really a supporting character.

DOM IS GOLD. YOU DO NOT WASTE GOLD. I thought you knew this, Burt! Dom gives it his all. If Dom were onscreen the whole time, this might have been a fine film.

#3. Stop playing with your chest hair, Burt. I'm, trying to eat a snack. I like it better when you're –schwink– goosing Loni.

#4. Groan-inducing jokes. Burt insinuates that his last meal might be Sally Field's–

MEOWWWW!, her cat interjects. Simply rib-tickling. On the Laff-O-Meter, I'm reminded of the near necrophilia from STROKER ACE. Then there's the slew of racial gags– from Burt pulling out the old derogatory chestnut, "beaner," to the stock 'Asian-style' music that accompanies the whacky gardener, the movie's full of wince-worthy would-be knee-slappers. And now, since I've used the phrase "wince-worthy would-be knee-slappers," I am as big a douche as Burt was for making this movie.

Burt Reynolds in a ladies' housecoat, drinkin' a Coors is not in and of itself, funny. Sure, it could LEAD to something funny, but that would require some form of additional effort.

#5. Wasting legends. Aside from Dom, there's stars like Myrna Loy, Joanne Woodward, and Norman Fell.

(Now Norman Fell's not a legend, per sé, but acting alongside the likes of Lee Marvin, Clu Gulager, and Charles Bronson has certainly made him more endearing.)

Myrna Loy: "I acted with William Powell, I drank martinis with William Powell. William Powell was a friend of mine. And you, Burt, are no William Powell."

Give these actors something to do, dammit! Kristy McNichol, on the other hand, acquits herself with twee charm.

In fact, her brief scene with daddy Burt is probably one of the best parts of the film.

Whew. How to end such a film? Well, Burt could always end with a weak FROM HERE TO ETERNITY parody, some sped-up footage inspired by Benny Hill, and call it a day.....

...Annnnnd he does. Two stars.

-Sean Gill

Read More