A Lot Of Water

William Friedkin’s THE FRENCH CONNECTION only seems to get better as the years pass. In contrast John Frankenheimer’s less well-known 1975 followup, FRENCH CONNECTION II, seems pretty much the same. This is not a slam—it’s a good film, very taut, very 70s, but as much as Frankenheimer brought his own expertise (which I’m admittedly a huge fan of) it doesn’t seem to gain as time goes on, maybe because some of it goes a little slack or maybe because of the unavoidable issue that the film didn’t really need to exist to begin with. It’s still pretty damn good at times and considering there may be some people out there who don’t even know it exists they might even be surprised by how genuinely effective some of it is.


Some time after the events of THE FRENCH CONNECTION, Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) arrives in Marseilles attempting to track down Charnier (Fernando Rey) who has presumably proved elusive since getting away at the end of the first film. What Doyle doesn’t know is that both the New York and Marseilles police are actually using him as bait in an attempt to bring Charnier out into the open. Though local cop Barthélémy (Bernard Fresson) has Doyle constantly followed, thing don’t quite go as planned when Charnier, aware his nemesis has shown up, has him captured. When Popeye refuses to answer any of his questions, Charnier has him repeatedly injected with heroin over a long period of time. When Charnier finally believes that Doyle has no useful information, he has him dumped in front of the police station where, fully hooked, he has to go through the agonizing process of cold turkey with little but revenge on his mind.


The setup feels slightly contrived and the way Popeye Doyle just shows up by himself frankly comes off more like something that would happen in a sequel to a big movie than it would in real life—in the aftermath of the real case, attempts to extradite the French Connection never succeeded. Popeye Doyle also came off as so much of his environment in the original that it’s almost hard to believe that he would ever leave the five boroughs willingly (Of course, Charnier himself declares, “Wine will travel. It is people who have difficulty.”) However, the film proceeds almost as if it’s both fully aware and determined to defy this contrivance. In spite of being a direct continuation of the story of the Friedkin film, with various asides like a callback to “pick your feet in Poughkeepsie”, it’s probably best to look at FRENCH CONNECTION II as a stand-alone mid-70s crime film, where Hackman just happens to be appearing as a character he’s played before. Ultimately what’s most interesting about it is that it really does manage to feel like both an American and a French film at the same time and seems to use this battle of styles to its advantage. This is no doubt an influence of director Frankenheimer who was living over in France at this point and may have experienced some of this feeling of being caught between two worlds (even the scenes of Charnier living his life of luxury feel like something Frankenheimer has first-hand knowledge of). His basic aesthetic isn’t too different from Friedkin’s approach but even with certain scenes very obviously shot out among people unaware that there’s a camera nearby, like a lot of the terrific footage of Hackman wandering around Marseilles it feels a little more staged like a normal movie this time, it still is a very effective one with some of the most memorable sequences having little to do with the plot—they’re bits like Hackman playing scenes with actors who obviously speak little or no English and each person is skilled enough to use that to their advantage. When he tries to order a drink without knowing how to say it (“Jack Daniels?” “Jackie?”) his interplay with the bartender is a particularly good bit. What’s most surprising is how, for the most part, the film makes little or no attempt to top the classic action scenes of the original film. That it doesn’t offer its own car chase is not just brave, it’s downright perverse, forcing us to wait for the action that we’re expecting. As good as Hackman is and as strong as the mid-70s French atmosphere holds, FRENCH CONNECTION II lets the tension dissipate a little too often. Friedkin’s film, at 104 minutes, feels cut to the bone—maybe beyond the bone—and it never lets up for a second. FRENCH CONNECTION II is 119 minutes and frankly doesn’t feel like it contains enough plot to warrant that running time. For whatever reason, the story has a feel of being made up as it goes along, something I don’t entirely mean in a good way.


Doyle’s forced addiction and subsequent withdrawal is harrowing in all the right ways but really does go on too long, culminating in a long setpiece between Hackman and Fresson where Doyle tells about his past when he tried out for the Yankees. It’s an interesting scene in the sense that it’s about two people who are genuinely trying to communicate with each other but due to language and cultural barriers they can’t quite get there. But it comes off as a little too much of a showcase for Hackman who, when you think about it, won an Oscar for playing this character in a film that contained no such scenes. For that matter, from when Popeye begins to be on the move again (in a cool jump-cut montage I always look forward to, propelled by Don Ellis’s music) and then begins his rampage of revenge (“Bring some water. A lot of it.”) the movie should never let up for a second but unfortunately it does, particularly with a boatyard shootout scene that goes on way too long. The foot chase climax is pretty terrific though, and the way Frankenheimer assembles the pieces together it feels like it plays as part of the flow of things as opposed to existing for the sake of its own setpiece. It also culminates in one of the absolute great “BOOM. MOVIE’S OVER.” endings of the seventies that makes it feel extremely satisfying in the end, but it just feels like there could have been a little bit of tightening. What we get out of that foot chase is one of the most memorable things in the movie—Popeye Doyle in pain, exhausted, seemingly pushed as far as he can go, but still moving driven by nothing other than his own obsession (a theme that feels very much like Frankenheimer) and determined to finish things once and for all. It would be nice if the whole movie could live up to these moments but what’s there is still pretty good anyway.


There are a variety of interesting French actors in bit roles in addition to that bartender, but this is very much Hackman’s show. The movie may not be as good as the original but everything about him feels more confident onscreen than he was the first time he played Popeye Doyle and something about this makes me think that he had an easier time working with Frankenheimer as well. If I sould like I’m criticizing him when I say that the middle seems too much like a showcase well, there are certainly many things worse than watching this actor deliver a long monologue. One drawback is that Roy Scheider doesn’t reprise his role as Cloudy Russo (working on THE SEVEN UPS? Actually at this point in time he was probably on JAWS). Considering the plot it makes sense to have Doyle all alone in the film but Scheider and his chemistry with Hackman is still missed. Fernando Rey delivers his smarmy elegance in excellent fashion—the shot in the restaurant where he almost expects Popeye Doyle to appear at his table is a very accomplished bit of silent, simple screen acting. Bernard Fresson is very good, particularly as he tries to figure out how to help Doyle during his cold turkey sessions and familiar face Ed Lauter, someone who also seems appropriately out of place in a French setting, plays a Washington contact for Charnier in a few scenes.


Jazz musician Don Ellis, who provided the harsh, dissonant sounds of the original, provides the score for this one as well and, just like the movie, feels a little more conventional—some of the main title even sounds like it’s actually approaching a melody, almost as if it’s announcing Popeye Doyle in his own James Bond-type adventure. But since it’s cool 70s action music this is hardly a bad thing and I always love—LOVE—that pounding percussion which appears when Doyle slams down the receiver on that pay phone and storms toward the hotel with a certain canister in hand always makes me want to stand up and cheer the moment. It has its flaws, but it also has its showcase for Hackman, Frankenheimer using his camera to explore Marseilles and the dynamite climax (including, I’ll say it again, THAT ENDING) and while FRENCH CONNECTION II’s story may be a little thin, the energy it leaves you with feels like more than enough.

A Vision Of A Vanished America

It’s now over ten years since a new film by Michael Cimino played theaters—that was THE SUNCHASER, which barely got any sort of release as it was. But even after all this time, I still don’t quite know what to make of his body of work and that was still the case for me at a recent Cinematheque screening of THE DEER HUNTER, after which I left the Egyptian slightly in awe but also not quite knowing just how to react. Now that I’ve seen THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT, his 1974 directorial debut that he also wrote, the mystery of just what his films are continues for me, even though this one was actually a hugely enjoyable surprise. It’s definitely the most likable of any of his films and made me take notice of a small theme that runs through some of them, one that pays a certain amount of attention to the vast middle of the country with a feel for the landscape, the mountains, as well as a person’s relation to the vast landscape that’s around them. “Let’s see what’s over the next mountain” is a key line here and feels like an idea that he can relate to more than anything.


As he is delivering his sermon, a minister (Clint Eastwood) in a tiny church is ambushed by a gunman. Attempting to flee, he winds up in a car recently stolen by a young drifter named Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges). It us eventually revealed that he is actually a thief in hiding who goes by the name Thunderbolt and the two take off together with no real destination in mind. Though Thunderbolt is hesitant to take him up on his offer of partnership, he sticks close to the kid, aware that a few other members of his old gang are after him. When Thunderbolt attempts to retrieve the money he had hidden in a one-room schoolhouse, he discovers the building gone and when the remaining gang members (George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis) turn up to take care of him, Lightfoot comes up with a new plan for them to team up to rob the same place and this time make sure that they hang onto the money.


The heist plotline makes it feel slightly like a Don Siegel film, but a looser, more idiosyncratic film than that director normally made, with some unusual and at times striking location work out there in Montana. THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT takes it sweet time getting going with much of the first act spent just watching the two leads getting to know each. But something about the easy going nature of the film meant that by fifteen minutes in, for me watching it was like wearing a favorite old comfortable shirt and by the time we got to the heist I was fully invested in these guys. The mechanics of the heist are well put together and clearly defined, with the use of a cannon to break into the vault that a lot of the ad campaign looks to have been centered around (since it’s the early 70s there’s lots of car chase action too) but what’s best about the film is its easygoing, likable nature that feels wedded to the land its set in, with even the bad guys played by Kennedy and Lewis treated in a way that feels a little endearing. Interestingly the only people the film seems to treat as solely comical figures are the various married couples who pop up throughout, with the best laugh involving the mother worried about her daughter who’s ‘just a baby’, almost as if they deserve such treatment for settling down and giving up on the possibility of drifting from one mountain to the next. It’s a very enjoyable movie, no doubt about it, but there’s also a melancholy vibe, as if it’s acknowledging the price that’s paid for spending so much time the road at the expense of settling down. The film never seems to comment on this outside of the terrific Paul Williams song, “Where Do I Go From Here” but it’s there if you’re willing to read between the lines and listen to the pauses in dialogue spoken by Clint Eastwood’s Thunderbolt, who is at first hesitant to get mixed up with Lightfoot’s earnest overtures towards partnership for no reason other than saying, “Kid, you’re ten years too late.” That wistfulness that you could find in so many movies of the seventies that usually aren’t thought of as being anything more than just “fun” is something that really is unfortunately missing from films these days.


Eastwood and Bridges (Oscar nominated for this) are both terrific, with great chemistry and each jumping in from the very beginning with fully realized characterizations for these guys—sure, we’ve often seen Bridges as a likable character but how often has Eastwood been so effortlessly easygoing? Kennedy and Lewis have a surprising Laurel and Hardy vibe to a few of their scenes together (particularly when Lewis works as an ice cream man) but they pull off a perfect balance of making them funny, multi-dimensional and, when it’s necessary, genuinely threatening bad guys. Also sprinkled throughout the film are familiar faces, most of them well-billed in small bits with each giving the feeling that they are important in the worlds they occupy, including Catherine Bach (looking shockingly like Lindsay Lohan), “Garey” Busey, Burton Gilliam, Vic Tayback, Jack Dodson, Bill McKinney, Dub Taylor, Gregory Walcott and June Fairchild of PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW in a very funny scene with Eastwood involving the word “rape” that you could never get away with today. I can’t help but think of all these actors and associate them with a certain sign seen near the end of the film which mentions how something evokes “a vision of a vanished America” and how films today rarely seem to pause for such incidental characters, not to mention how rarely there are such juicy character roles for today’s equivalents of George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis.

The earnest, likable nature of THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT sets it apart from most other films of this type from the early seventies and it seems particularly special as a result. It’s a shame that Michael Cimino never made a film in this type of vein again but as we all know he had a different path in mind. I don’t know where he is in the world right now—who does?—but maybe he’s just out there somewhere looking for what’s over the next mountain.

Getting Stuck With The Problem

One night up in Westchester during the spring of 1992 a friend and I were the only audience members in attendance at the evening’s last showing of the film version of NOISES OFF. I had seen the show on Broadway a number of years earlier so I had an idea what to expect but while my friend wasn’t familiar with it partway through the first section he turned to me and said, “I’m not laughing, but I’m really enjoying this.” By a certain point when the film had clicked into high gear, he had started to laugh. Pretty soon we were both laughing and in near hysterics. There’s something to be said for laughing uproariously with a friend in an empty movie theater. The acclaimed play of the same name had lengthy runs both on the West End and Broadway—it’s even been revived in both places by now. The film directed by Peter Bogdanovich, on the other hand, received mixed-to-negative reviews, did no box office and doesn’t seem to be recalled by many more people than the ones in the Yonkers Central Plaza that night. But watching it now the film still has a large number of genuine laughs and even if it’s not as effective as the stage version—there’s no way it could be, really—I find it hard to believe that if I showed it to people right now that they wouldn’t laugh. Of course, I’ve been wrong before.

Maintaining the three-act structure from the stage version as best it can, NOISES OFF is a farce about a farce—a theatrical company rehearsing a broad, crass British comedy called NOTHING ON, touring with the show through various cities and hopefully on the way to Broadway. The cast of the film includes director Lloyd Fellowes (Michael Caine), the cast of the show (Carol Burnett, Denholm Elliott, Marilu Henner, John Ritter, Christopher Reeve and Nicollette Sheridan) and the backstage crew memebers (Julie Hagerty, Mark-Linn Baker). In the first section (Act One) we meet them as they suffer through a combination dress & tech rehearsal, nowhere near ready for the show that opens the next night, as we get to know each of them and their own small dramas as they intricately go through the show’s first act. During the next part (Act Two) we return to them on the afternoon of a disastrous matinee as we witness that same Act One mostly from the wings as their own lives are beginning to mirror the very show they’re putting on—the stage version turned the set entirely around to allow for this but the film version allows us to jump around more freely. When we return to them once again in the final section (Act Three) we once again view that same act one from the front as we view an even more disastrous performance as the backstage tensions have clearly boiled over and out onto the stage, making the written farce they’re playing into a genuine one.


The type of comedy in NOISES OFF seemed like a bit of an anachronism even when it was released and it almost seemed as if the movie was made because producer Frank Marshall owed old friend Bogdanovich a favor. There’s also the issue that this type of comedy just seems more at home in England than here in America. For obvious reasons it’s considerably more bittersweet to watch now considering how a few of the stars (John Ritter, Christopher Reeve and Denholm Elliott in his last film) have since left us prematurely and several of the other familiar faces are rarely if ever seen in films these days. Surprisingly, aside from Caine, the most visible actor in recent years from this film is Nicollette Sheridan, probably not what anyone expected to happen. It’s not meant to be at all backhanded to say that NOISES OFF works about as well as can be expected. The meta-nature of a play within a play is for the most part lost so what we have is a genuinely valiant effort by Bogdanovich to make this type of thing work on film. It’s something he’d done successfully before but it’s still an extremely difficult tone to bring off, at least partly because the very nature of the humor is so British—cleverly the actors in the show all speak with English accents that no one ever mentions but all of which are completely unconvincing. This type of comedy is probably an acquired taste but at the film’s best it works extremely well. Part of what makes the film so enjoyable is Bogdanovich’s confidence to let long stretches play out in single shots to keep that theatrical feel as much as humanly possible. This approach, which helps make it as faithful an adaptation as you could get, is something that was always part of the director’s aesthetic anyway. Taking this approach is especially rewarding when the action of the scene turns into something else mid-shot, like when the rehearsal is interrupted so everyone can very carefully look for a lost contact lens. Since this isn’t ROPE there’s a limit to how long this can be kept up, so the occasions where it cuts in for a close-up (particularly in the middle of the performance) are sometimes distracting and the frenetic pace seems slightly broken up by this. In an attempt to make those three acts hang together as a movie with a full narrative we are given a framing device of a nervous Caine wandering around Times Square during the show’s opening night on Broadway, narrating the flashbacks telling what led them to this point. The actor is actually pretty funny during these bits but it feels unnecessary and it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to recut the film to lose this stuff. It would still work and how invested are we in these people to need to know what happens to them? (Michael Caine wandering through early 90s Times Square, is kind of cool, though) Ultimately it’s a minor point considering how successful the movie is in its comic precision. This is particularly the case during the second act set in the wings as the play is going with the actors forced to act essentially in pantomime for long stretches (Eurocult fans will want to know about the prominence a bottle of J&B plays here). The first act we see of NOTHING ON is so intentionally broad that it’s very easy to pick up on how things go wrong when scenes are later repeated which leads to some very enjoyably delayed responses—as what happened with my friend so long ago the big laughs come later on, after they’ve been carefully set up. After the hysteria of the middle section, the play-within-a-play third act payoff gets a little lost in the translation making it possibly the least effective stretch, but I found myself still laughing nevertheless and ultimately it’s very satisfying.


Everyone in the cast is terrific and it’s a great amount of fun to watch these actors, all very funny and working well together, with some amusing connection to pick out like Caine and Reeve who previously co-starred in DEATHTRAP (another movie based on a play about plays) and Ritter who worked with the director twice before. There’s the genuine feeling that each one of them is energized by the chance to play something so fast and furious. As nuts as they are, the film clearly loves every single one of them and bits during the ‘first act’ like Marilu Henner pausing to mention how much she loves tech rehearsals because “everyone’s always so nice to everyone” and Michael Caine’s soliloquy about how theater as well as life boils down to “doors and sardines” give a likable shine to the whole thing as well as offering an appropriate pause before things begin racing to fast to stop. Caine, of course, is particularly good and Ritter’s old THREE’S COMPANY training obviously comes in handy at certain points. One spectacular pratfall he takes is mostly off screen but heard like in an old Warner Brothers cartoon and then later we get what must be an even more spectacular fall by him that we see in full view. Sheridan, who you’d expect to be the odd one out here, is note-perfect displaying terrific timing as ultra-flaky starlet Brooke Ashton--she gets extra points for playing much of her role in bra and panties without any apparent embarrassment and even takes her own huge fall in that skimpy outfit. L.B. Straten, then married to Bogdanovich, is seen briefly as a stagehand as is Zoe Cassavetes who later directed him as an actor in BROKEN ENGLISH.


I can accept an argument that there’s no way to correctly translate the NOISES OFF the play to film because of how it probably needs to be presented but it’s hard for me to argue with laughter. My own, anyway. There’s no great case to be made for this film except for the fact that I enjoy it and it’s a reminder that this type of comedy still could work if anyone wanted to try it. It’s hidden and will probably stay that way but even if I never get to convince anyone otherwise, at least I’ll still have that fond memory of all those years ago. And remember, when all around is strife and uncertainty, there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned plate of sardines.

“Lloyd, let me just say one thing since we’ve stopped. I’ve worked with a lot of directors, Lloyd, some of them were geniuses, some of them were bastards. But I’ve never met one who was so totally and absolutely…I don’t know.”

“Thank you Gary, I’m very touched. Now will you get off the fucking stage.”

As Long As The Roots Are Not Severed

I’ve been thinking a lot about the films of Hal Ashby lately. Not that I haven’t done that before, but this time just feels different. This current train of thought started a few weeks ago with a screening of HAROLD AND MAUDE at the New Beverly, followed by first-time viewings of THE LANDLORD and COMING HOME. I’ve seen SHAMPOO so many times over the years that for all I know I mutter “George is great” in my sleep so certainly that film is never far from my mind and I just took a look at the new DVD of Ashby’s BEING THERE, my first exposure to that film in who knows how many years. More than anything, looking at these films so close together makes me think of the overriding humanistic feel that runs through them but for a variety of reasons BEING THERE seems to stand out. I don’t know if I think it’s his best film or even some kind of ultimate statement by the director, but it does feel like an achievement in a way beyond what I could really express and as brilliant as Peter Sellers is in the film, it feels like whatever Ashby brought to it has been vastly underappreciated through the years. It might very well be a case of a lead actor being as much of an auteur on a project as the director, but what this director pulled off shouldn’t be discounted. Just as I once said that SORCERER was the most Friedkin of all William Friedkin films, BEING THERE may very well be the most Ashby Hal Ashby film. In some ways it stylistically stands apart from the others but it’s nevertheless hard not to think that maybe everything he ever wanted to say can be found in here.


Written by Jerzy Kosinski from his novel, the story of the simple-minded, television obsessed Chance the Gardner (Peter Sellers) and his entrance by chance (ha) into the world of Washington politics doesn’t at first glance contain the amount of plot needed for a 130 minute film. Not all that much really happens during this story that only seems to span a handful of days. In fact, the overall rhythm and style of BEING THERE is slightly different from most of Ashby’s other works. It comes off as less freewheeling, which is honestly the only way I can think to put it. It could be a way to find the correct pace to go with the steadiness of Sellers’ performance, but also the vast amount of medium shots that gives us the correct amount of distance from these people—is there a true close-up in the entire film?--as well as the wide expanses of the almost absurdly huge Rand Estate lends itself to letting this story take its time. And within the satire which is so deadpan it feels like one should come up with a different word for it, it never feels snide or superior to what we’re seeing. I find myself continually trying to read the characters and their responses to Chance—Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas) is of course projecting his own need for peace (and to meet “a reasonable man”) at the end of his life on to him as much as anything, but the film never treats it as a joke, which the brief scene of his sitting up in bed thinking just before the big party scene (a beat which actually does feel like vintage Ashby) makes clear. And even though Rand’s wife Eve (Shirley MacLaine) is part of the most broadly comical scene the film doesn’t treat her needs as a joke either—she tells Chance that “she doesn’t have many friends” in a brief moment that I find rather touching. What is the possible backstory between Ben and Eve, anyway? Of course, there are a number of things we never learn about. Exactly who is ‘the old man’ and what did he think of Chance? Where did Chance really come from? For that matter, why is the use of “Basketball Jones” as Chance first enters the Rand Estate so absolutely perfect? Is it possible that none of the possible answers to any of these questions even matter?


Part of my own response to the film is personal—this recent viewing makes me think that in its own way it’s pretty damn close to being perfect. But I actually have a memory of being taken to see it when I was around eight and maybe the very nature of the film causes me to connect to that memory. Why did my mother take me to see this movie anyway? Still, when you think about it, is it possible that an eight year-old is actually the most appropriate sort of person to see this film? It’s easy to mention the social commentary and how the film seems to anticipate certain elements of culture, to put it mildly. Events in recent months certainly made the fuss over Chance saying he “doesn’t read newspapers” stand out that much more. Coming out just a few weeks before the end of 1979, it almost feels like BEING THERE really is the last film of the seventies. It was the last triumph of Ashby’s career, not to mention Sellers, and it could almost be looked at as the last gasp of the notion of a cinema of possibilities before the Chauncey Gardiners of the world took over….both in Hollywood and elsewhere.

Like each of Ashby’s films, the supporting cast feels like perfection, particularly Melvyn Douglas in his Oscar-winning role but also Shirley MacLaine as Rand's lonely wife, the great Jack Warden as the President, David Clennon (also in COMING HOME) and Fran Brill as the attorneys who give Chance the brush-off and Richard Dysart (he’ll always be Leland Mackenzie to me) as the doctor who becomes genuinely interested in Chance. Even the smallest roles throughout feel perfectly cast.


One thing that occurs to me about Sellers is that in between his second time working for Kubrick in 1964 to the production of BEING THERE in 1979, with the obvious exception of Blake Edwards, the directors he worked with were for the most part journeymen who were never going to put any real stamp on their films. They just simply let him do what he did without trying to hold him back—maybe that’s why so few of those films are remembered today. But whatever went on between Sellers and Ashby on BEING THERE seems to be an ideal fusion of two minds coming together to create this character—it’s impossible to imagine somebody like Sellers in THE LAST DETAIL or SHAMPOO but these minds from two worlds collide here in a way that is beautiful. One thing that is missing from this new DVD is any discussion of the controversial decision to include outtakes of Sellers breaking character and laughing through some dialogue. Such a choice was certainly more unorthodox in those pre-CANNONBALL RUN days, but it seems odd even now considering it’s not the sort of wacky comedy that something like that usually is attached to. Sellers by all accounts hated this choice, angrily exclaiming that “It breaks the spell!” in a letter to the producers and felt that it may have resulted in his losing the Best Actor Oscar to Dustin Hoffman for KRAMER VS. KRAMER (Roy Scheider was also nominated for ALL THAT JAZZ—hey, it was a tough year). Whatever Ashby’s motivations were, to me it honestly feels like it does break the spell. Coming after that completely transcendent final shot, by all accounts an inspiration of Ashby’s during production (the music here couldn’t be more perfect) it feels like maybe the film should have just left us there at that point, forcing us to ponder what we’ve just seen on our own without any distractions.

“Life is a state of mind.”


That ending also makes me think of the closing moments of COMING HOME—if feels like there’s a line to draw from Bruce Dern’s last scene to the final time we see Chance. What that link is, I don’t know but the provocative nature of both of them are as if Ashby himself is saying, this is all you need to know. Make of this what you will. Less than a year after BEING THERE was released, Sellers died from a massive heart attack at the age of 54. It wasn’t his final screen performance—we don’t need to go into that film right now—but the way he leaves us here is like the way he left us in life. Gazing in wonderment, bafflement and trying to decide what we’re supposed to make of any of it. Ashby directed a few other films before his premature death in 1988, none with any significant acclaim. I still need to see a few of those films, but if there is anything to the idea that BEING THERE really was a personal statement for him, then maybe it’s the last one that really matters. It doesn’t really make any difference what I say about the film—just like anyone who encounters Chance, it’s designed for anyone to take from it what they wish. That’s part of what makes it so brilliant.

“And you really are a gardener, aren’t you.”

Getting Even

It’s not a title I was familiar with up until a week ago, but Alan Rudolph’s 1978 film REMEMBER MY NAME is a fascinating find, an anti-thriller thriller that contains a genuinely memorable lead character and performance, as well as an off-kilter tone that helps make it truly unique. With Robert Altman producing, as he did many of Rudolph’s films, it does indeed have the feel of a thriller directed by Altman himself but it also provides us with a fascinating look at lead actress Geraldine Chaplin. She’s not someone I would have ever expected to see in a role like this, just as some of the other casting, to put it mildly, feels a little unorthodox. And she’s absolutely astonishing. Shown by Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre with Truffaut’s THE STORY OF ADELE H. (remarkable) on a ‘female stalker’ double bill, REMEMBER MY NAME has never been released on video in any format, reportedly due to music rights. It’s a shame because though it doesn’t deliver what one might expect from its set-up, it’s nevertheless a haunting, darkly funny look at obsession that in its own mundane way is consistently surprising.


A woman named Emily (Geraldine Chaplin), recently released from prison, drifts into a bland southern California setting and after talking her way into a job at a five-and-dime begins following and messing with the lives of construction worker Neil Curry (Anthony Perkins) and wife Barbara (Perkins’ real-life wife Berry Berenson), who are already going through marital troubles as the film begins. What she does starts simply from tearing up their garden and fiddling with the wife’s car, but soon graduates to throwing a rock through their window at night to finally just opening up their door and walking in as Barbara prepares dinner. And as Neil realizes the identity of this person stalking them, Emily’s plan for revenge begins to take full effect.


Though made years earlier, REMEMBER MY NAME could almost be read as a comment on thrillers made in the post-FATAL ATTRACTION/blank-from-hell era (typical for Altman, the comment is made years before anyone asks for it), detailing the process of what this woman does in the most matter-of-fact way that at times manages to be genuinely chilling yet at times weirdly funny, keeping us continually off guard (one of my favorite things about the movie is how it introduces us to Emily by showing the registration tags on her windshield, making it clear that she’s from New York). The extended sequence where the character enters the married couple’s home while Berenson makes dinner is almost anti-Hitchcock in its approach, yet the way it builds suspense to the point where her reveal genuinely startles us is a masterful moment. The film presents Emily not as a criminal mastermind but as a genuinely disturbed person who is also completely determined in what she is going for, even if it could never possibly make any sense to anyone but herself. Her plan doesn’t involve violence but certain actions make it clear that she has no problem resorting to that. Fittingly, the most graphic thing in the movie is presented in a way that makes it not clear exactly what has happened at first, just as if we were watching the same event ourselves from across the street. The film’s refusal to deliver the shocks that we would expect from this basic premise causes it to continually subvert our own expectations, taking it down a number of unexpected paths. By the final half-hour it feels like the world of the film is closing in on the main characters as they give into who they really are, after a long time denying that. As an Altman-like punctuation, throughout we continually hear news reports on TVs about the devastating death tolls coming from an earthquake in Hungary, as well as general commentary about the state of modern life. No one ever pays much attention to it, probably because they are no more equipped to do anything about what they hear on TV than they are to fix what is going on right in front of them. In its own idiosyncratic 70s sort of way, the film is about characters in a world where everyone is trying to get even for something attempting to make sense of their lives and choices as they approach middle age but have no idea how to admit certain truths to themselves. One of the most enjoyable sequences where this really comes out involves Chaplin and Perkins in a Mexican restaurant finally loosening up with each other and proceeding to order every drink on the menu. It’s probably one of the most strangely endearing sequences in all of Rudolph's films and it’s also just what we need to know about two people who are falling from anger right back into how they always behaved with each other. After everything we’ve seen, the ending makes sense but it feels like a beat is missing—as it is, it’s not entirely satisfying but I feel like that’s going to matter less as time goes on and what the movie really is will stay with me. The film even provides another level to the Alan Rudolph joke in Altman’s THE PLAYER (“Hey, you’re Martin Scorsese!” “No, but I know Harvey Keitel.” “I know you do. Hey, I loved CAPE FEAR!”) and I couldn’t help but notice that the short, blonde hair worn by Berry Berenson is actually identical to how Jessica Lange’s looks in the Scorsese film. It’s probably all a coincidence, but it still seems worth mentioning—REMEMBER MY NAME is very much the anti-CAPE FEAR.


Tiny, pixieish Geraldine Chaplin, smoking cigarettes almost every second she's onscreen, would never be someone I could imagine picturing in this type of role, but she is truly astonishing and comes off as genuinely, believably dangerous. However she pulls it off, she understands this character and maybe the fact that she isn’t traditional casting makes her even more of an unpredictable live wire. The most unfortunate thing about this film’s obscurity is that her brilliant work here remains underappreciated. Anthony Perkins was probably never anyone’s idea of a contruction worker (although he does appear to have worked out before shooting), but he maintains a strong presence throughout and the fact that we know he’s holding something back makes his own behavior unpredictable as well. He delivers some very strong, atypical work here. Also appearing in the film’s strong cast are Moses Gunn as the security guard who Emily endears herself to, Jeff Goldblum (looking so thin that a strong wind could probably blow him over) as the store manager of the five-and-dime, Tim Thomerson (credited as ‘Timothy’) as one of Neil’s fellow construction workers and Alfre Woodard, making a strong impression in her first film as the assistant manager who Emily butts heads with instantly. The songs, apparently the reason for the film being MIA on video, are all performed by blues legend Alberta Hunter, fitting perfectly with the theme of the movie and making it seem as if the story we’re watching is just one long blues song as well.


The beautiful Berry Berenson, who made only a few other film appearances, is extremely good as the odd one out, never fully aware of what is going on. The very evident fear and confusion on her face as she holds a knife on the woman who won’t leave her kitchen makes her a fully believable character, yet unpredictable in her own right. She’s of course remembered today as Perkins’ widow, but also sadly for being on one of the planes that were crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11. It’s something that brings additional resonance to a moment late in the film where she sits watching a TV that is droning on about the meaning of all the lives lost in that earthquake in Budapest—names which, to go along with the title, will never be remembered. If anything, it just adds another layer of resonance to the film and the excellent performances by the three leads, two of which left us under enormously tragic circumstances. It’s unfortunate that REMEMBER MY NAME will continue to be essentially unknown because of the music rights issue, because a film this good deserves better than to languish in obscurity.

Feeling Cheap

It’s hard for there not to be at least a little bit of mystery around a film that has never been released on video in any format, especially one that has the reputation of being a disaster. Why did the film flop? Why is it being withheld? Is it a lousy movie or is there something genuinely interesting about it? I’m reaching here—I knew there probably wasn’t going to be anything good about MOMENT BY MOMENT. You probably know that too. But The Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre was showing it and…well, I just couldn’t resist. I mean really, it’s the legendary romantic pairing of Lily Tomlin and John Travolta, after all. Coming out in December 1978, Travolta had just starred in both SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and GREASE. Tomlin had been Oscar nominated for NASHVILLE a few years earlier and had just starred in Robert Benton’s THE LATE SHOW. The disastrous reception the film received caused Travolta’s then-exploding stardom to screech to a halt, the first real sign of the downturn his career would take during the 80s and was at least partly responsible for him dropping out of AMERICAN GIGOLO. Tomlin certainly never starred in a role like this again, although the smash success of 9 TO 5 just a few years later certainly helped bury the stench of this failure. Even an airing on ABC in June of 1984 that wound up as one of the Top Ten shows of the week—well, it was June—couldn’t do anything about the film’s miserable rep. That even Travolta’s name could never get this released on VHS seems to say something about how embarrassing it is for certain people so getting to see a 35mm Scope print of it was certainly a rare occasion. At the very least it would be fascinating to try to figure out what was intended here. And I suppose it was, if fascination and falling asleep are one and the same. But seriously, let’s not spend too much time on this.


Trisha Rawlings (Lily Tomlin) is a wealthy Beverly Hills housewife going through a divorce with her philandering husband. As we first see her during the opening credits she is walking through the streets of Beverly Hills, then we see her going into Schwab’s Drugstore on the Sunset Strip next to Hamburger Hamlet (that’s one hell of a walk). When she unsuccessfully tries to get her prescription for sleeping pills renewed she is recognized by a young guy named Strip (John Travolta—and yes, I said Strip) who remembers working as a valet parker at a party she once threw. Obviously (and weirdly) showing an interest, he tries to strike up a conversation but she quickly brushes him off. Soon after (about twenty seconds after for us) at her Malibu beach house Strip shows up on the sand with some reds, once again trying to engage her in conversation. As Trisha begins to learn more about Strip and his bad luck (car broken down, friend disappeared) her icy façade soon starts to melt and their older woman-younger man affair begins full throttle when Trish tries to zzzzzzzzzzzz………


Sorry, I nodded off just thinking about it. A few hours before seeing MOMENT BY MOMENT I attended an event in Echo Park where somebody who heard I was going to see it (great to finally meet you, Emily!) pointed out to me the unmistakable resemblance between Lily Tomlin and John Travolta’s older sister Ellen. Naturally, I wasn’t able to watch the film without thinking about this. To put it simply, MOMENT BY MOMENT is such a completely wrongheaded, misguided, awful film that it’s tough to know where to begin in describing it. Written and directed by Tomlin’s partner Jane Wagner I can only imagine that it’s meant to be a showcase for the actress, displaying what she could do away from comedy. But it goes so far in this direction that it becomes stifling—there literally isn’t a single lighthearted or funny moment during the entire running time (not intentionally so anyway) which almost seems purposely designed to drain away any charm or likeability from its two leads as the endless score of a wailing sax that feels left over from a short-lived ABC drama of the time drones on and on. Pretty quickly it feels like the whole thing is unfurling in a late 70s daze of pills and Chardonnay, both of which seems to be consumed continually throughout the picture. The Silent Movie Theatre actually provided glasses of white wine for the screening which was appropriate and very generous of them but seriously, it felt like we needed something considerably stronger. Even minor scenes seem to take about twice as long as they should and though the running time is only around 100 minutes, it feels considerably longer than that. The entire film is filled with overly literal dialogue written by Wagner—“I’m sorry you found out about my affair with Elaine the way you did,” as well as the strangely laugh-inducing “Are you a member of the automobile club?” or just Tomlin mournfully stating, “Oh, Strip,” when she learns of her new guy’s troubles. Travolta is presented as a gentle, innocent soul who is always bursting into tears, latching onto her like a boy who wants his mommy. But, you see, because he’s more innocent (an innocent runaway, yet) he’s also wiser and more excited about the world. Whenever a bottle of wine is finished he places a note inside and hurls it out into the water, not revealing what he has written inside (He tosses it from the deck of the house and I couldn’t help but imagine hearing a loud “Ow!” from below). He also insists on being told by Tomlin that she loves him saying, “Cheap sex leaves me feeling cheap.” And in the category of you’ll-never-wipe-this-from-your-brain is the infamous hot tub scene where Tomlin motions for Travolta to remove the rest of his clothes and join her followed by gravely intoning, “Let’s smoke some pot.” Along with this are several (as in, more than one) love scenes that don’t feature any actual nudity, but let’s just say that they go further than you’d ever expect them to. Seriously, beyond that you don’t want to know. No, really, you don’t want to know.


Of course, Lily Tomlin has never been anyone’s idea of a sex symbol—although the film, as well as the character of Strip seems to think she is—but the overly serious, zoned-out approach drains away any appeal she’s ever had. We never see any reason why Travolta’s Strip goes after her so hard so fast since she displays no personality whatsoever unless she looks like his mother, which certainly seems possible. We also never get any indication why she’s so interested in Strip, unless she’s enamored by someone who acts like a mental ten year-old who asks how she cooks her chicken. Maybe she just wants to be a mother to him—her character does actually have a son, but it doesn’t matter because we never see him, just as her husband is dispensed with in just a few short scenes. Not only is it bad, there’s very little relief from most of the monotony. The majority of the film takes place in the beach house and the cast is so small that no one else is even billed during the opening credits. Trish’s best friend, introduced on the phone getting her legs waxed, is played by an actress named Andra Akers, who looks like someone who gets revealed as the bad guy at the end of an episode of “Charlie’s Angels” and that’s as good as it gets but at least it’s somebody. There’s also a subplot involving Strip’s missing friend who we never meet turning up dead that implies some mob connections but it never seems to affect anything and is eventually dropped. It’s very obvious that Strip is supposed to be ‘The Girl’ in this scenario and the movie is doing a spin on the sexual expectations, but ultimately it’s a case of so what? Is it just a fantasy for 1978 women who looked like Lily Tomlin? It certainly doesn’t seem like it would have appealed to his teenage fans back then. If you know anybody who was a teenage girl in 1978 feel free to ask them. I suppose it’s possible to read all this as a very, very deadpan satire of Malibu lifestyles—and there might actually be something in that approach--but it’s pretty clear that this all supposed to be taken seriously. At one point Strip runs away in tears when Trish tries to pass him off as the delivery boy so she and her best friend go looking for him all around the then-seedier Hollywood Boulevard. It’s a completely stupid, incomprehensible sequence but at least we get to see what the area looked like back then—JAWS 2 is playing at the Egyptian and DAMIEN—OMEN II is at the Vogue. Neither film is great, but it was hard not to think how preferable it would have been to be seeing either one at that point in time. Actually, hitting my hand with a hammer might have been preferable as well.


MOMENT BY MOMENT, though distributed by Universal, was produced by Robert Stigwood’s RSO films (everyone probably remembers the RSO logo) which was also responsible for SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and GREASE, but in 1978 also gave the world SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEART’S CLUB BAND and the notion of pairing that with MOMENT could be one of the most painful ideas for a double bill imaginable. Which probably means somebody will play it one of these days. John Travolta has made enough terrible films (TWO OF A KIND, BATTLEFIELD EARTH, BE COOL—time will tell about that TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE remake) that it’s tough to say if this is the absolute worst but it’s certainly near the very top of that list. Maybe there’s more to say about this film but really, I just can’t do it. So for anyone who actually has seen MOMENT TO MOMENT, they’ll understand when I close this by simply saying...What a world.

Our Universal Language

The Oscars are over and I’m not sure what else there is to say about them. Frankly, I would have written this last night but when the show ended I was just so worn down by the whole thing that I didn’t have the energy. Very early on during my long evening in front of the TV I realized how much I didn’t care about certain things. I think there were five separate channels doing red carpet pre-shows, each seemingly containing an on-camera personality more idiotic than the previous one and none of it interested me in the least. Somebody named Randolph Duke commenting on fashion? I don’t know who that is, but I know that it’s not a real person. It’s a character in TRADING PLACES. Ralph Bellamy was more enjoyable to watch back then anyway. Hell, he’s probably more enjoyable to watch now. I also don’t care about harping on the camera cutting to Brad & Angelina when Jennifer comes out to present. Angelina’s made some bad movies but she’ll always be more interesting and seriously, I don’t care. But a day later gives me the perspective that the show was neither a hugely successful reinvention of the format nor did it make me want to run from the room screaming. Well, I wanted to run from the room a few times but not continually. It wasn’t the best or the worst. The heavens did not open up, the sky is not falling. If anything, it felt like what was really missing was a celebration of the movies. Sure, it was a celebration of Hollywood and all that represents, especially its celebrities, but that’s not the same thing. But the movies themselves seemed to be minimized whether they were the best of this year or, especially, the classics. Even the clips of actors winning in past award shows were more a celebration of the people who won, not what they were winning for. This lack of attention to those older films was made most clear during the interminable musical number staged by Baz Lurrmann and the insulting Montage of Death when the clips were mostly seen in a tiny screen at the back of the stage. The message was clear. These films are in the distance. These films are the past. These films no longer matter.


I went for a walk trying to think of what to say about Hugh Jackman and didn’t come up with very much. He was fine. He was charming. I can’t remember much of what he said. A great deal of his effort seemed to go towards an opening number that for me was so-so at best and a mid-show number involving some special guest appearances that for me exemplified the worst of what I had feared. When Jackman told the crowd that Baz Luhrmann was responsible at the end I got a strong whiff of “On the bass—Derek Smalls. He wrote this.” If “The musical is back!” then they needed something better than this to prove it. Jackman also seemed to be absent for long stretches which limited his effectiveness. What was he doing during these periods? He presumably wasn’t conferring with joke writers. Was he out back grabbing a smoke? Did he take off to grab a quick bite at Canter’s? That’s a bit of a drive but I think he could have made it.

The conceit of having past acting winners speak to the nominees was at least different but it still needs some tweaking. For one thing, they must have decided that including clips of these performances would have made the segments too unwieldy--I can understand that viewpoint but it would have given people the chance to get a glimpse of the performances by unknowns like Melissa Leo and Michael Shannon so they could get an idea of why they were there. It wasn’t a total wipeout—DeNiro talking to friend Sean Penn was a nice moment and when Shirley MacLaine, speaking what truly seemed to be her own words, offered praise to a visibly moved Anne Hathaway it became one of the most genuinely emotional moments of the night. It made me hope that Hathaway would win. In comparison, seeing Melissa Leo a moment later praised by Halle Berry (I almost wrote “praised by a second-rate Bond girl” but I won’t get that snarky) didn’t have quite the same power. There’s probably a good magazine article in the shell game of how they arrived at the five in each category. I think we can all think of people who may have been alive and willing that we would have liked to see. Maybe they were hopeful this would work and didn’t want to blow their wad the first time out. Still, how great would it have been to see Ernest Borgnine up there with DeNiro and Brody?


Steve Martin and Tina Fey were the funniest part of the night. Martin’s timing was particularly on target.

Ben Stiller (with Natalie Portman) was pretty funny as well. For that matter, so was the entire Judd Apatow film.

Am I mistaken or is the SLUMDOG cinematography win the first time it has happened with a movie mostly shot digitally? And isn’t it the first time such a film has won Best Picture? This seems significant. I don’t think anyone else cares.

Why did the vampire dude spend his entire time up on stage making goofy faces? Is that part of his shtick? What am I not getting?

The Tribute-to-Genre montages seemed unnecessary and not very well done. And what was really the point of it? The whole controversy surrounding the snub of THE DARK KNIGHT aside, isn’t the point of the Oscars that they acknowledge movies that actually have ambition? If you do this, aren’t we heading into IDIOCRACY land? As a result, the likes of SPACE CHIMPS and Brendan Fraser’s third MUMMY movie had more of a presence on the show than LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, W., CHE and probably others I could think of. On the other hand, there was something useful about these montages—for example, all it took was a 5 second clip from WANTED to remind me how much I hated that film.

Will Smith said “Boom Goes the Dynamite!” Now I get that. Thank you, Keith Olbermann.

Werner Herzog at the Oscars, appearing to have a good time? There are some things you never expect to see. For that matter, Sean Penn could be seen enjoying himself even before he won. Who are these people?


Did anyone else catch MAN ON WIRE Philippe Petit glancing upward when he was onstage? Was he wondering what he could possibly pull off in that theater?

Penelope Cruz. I love her.

Beyonce—Please go away.

I don’t care if Alan Arkin flubs a name, I still love him anyway. And it was particularly nice to see guys like Christopher Walken and Joel Grey up there as well.


Jerry Lewis seemed somewhat weak, possibly choosing to simply say “Thank you” and get offstage without letting anything muddy the waters. But unfortunately the film package used to precede his appearance seemed perfunctory. I know, he was being honored more for his humanitarian work but all we really got was “Jerry Lewis was a comedian and then he did telethons!” Couldn’t they have spent a few minutes to cover things like his partnership with Dean Martin, becoming a director, the invention of the video assist, THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, Jerry-as-Auteur, with maybe some on-camera testimonials from people like Scorsese leading up to the MDA so we could offer a more complete look at the legend? But it certainly wasn’t an insult to him and it wasn’t as bad as certain other tributes in the past.

Sophia Loren looks good and all that, but was she casting a spell on Meryl Streep?

Kate Winslet is wonderful. Even if I still wish that she had won this award for something else.

Since Peter Gabriel declined to sing his song from WALL-E when they cut his time down to a minute, was anybody else hoping that they would bring in Ann Reinking as a replacement? (I hope somebody got that.)

I like Queen Latifah a lot but her presence onstage to sing over the Montage of Death felt unnecessary. Not to mention that keeping much of it on a screen at the rear of the stage which couldn’t always be seen well on television was a bad idea and, frankly, not a little insulting to the people that were supposedly being honored. I’m sure someone’s come up with a list of people who were snubbed but some of the names I’ve heard bandied about (Patrick McGoohan, Harvey Korman) may have been considered more famous in television. John Phillip Law was certainly someone who seemed to be missing. Still, I’ll give them points for including the likes of Vampira and actor Robert DoQui, two people I would never have expected to see here. But really, the format used for it was an embarrassing botch.

Did I miss something with the Foreign Language nominees? It didn’t seem like they actually read the titles. This was very puzzling.


I freely admit that I was rooting for Mickey Rourke. For that matter, I was rooting for WALL-E to win Original Screenplay. This isn’t a slam against MILK—actually, that was my favorite of the five nominated for Best Picture. It’s just the way the chips fell on this one and I can’t help but picture anyone who wasn’t pulling for Mickey Rourke as being the sort of person who tells kids that there’s no Santa Claus. That said, the two wins for MILK resulted in the most heartfelt acceptance speeches of the night. Penn and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black each lived up to the responsibility of their respective moments and both men were extremely eloquent. Plus, Penn mentioned Rourke, which made it even more special.

Since the show wasn’t paying much attention to the actual history of movies, it was left to orchestra leader Michael Giacchino to provide some of it with his music choices. Among the selections heard were THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN as the lineup of Best Actors came out, his own awesome overture from CLOVERFIELD and, maybe most bizarrely, Jerry Goldsmith’s main title to ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES, heard as the show was going to commercial after the romance montage. If he was trying to amuse himself and maybe a few other people, I guess it worked. The thing is, you can’t please everyone with the Oscars. Maybe there’s a way you could keep all the fashion and glamour and still somehow make it a real celebration of the movies and everything they represent—the universal language that Penelope Cruz spoke of—as well. Of course, it’s possible that I’m wrong and people who want to watch the Oscars really don’t care about that stuff which would be something else altogether. But I’m unconvinced. For now, I freely admit that I can’t get “Jai Ho” out of my head, which at least proves that I didn’t hate all the musical numbers of the night. So all that’s left to be said right now is we’ll just wait and see what happens next year.

One Of Those Long, Lingering Things

At times a truly striking collision of cultures in plot, character and style, THE OUTSIDE MAN has to be one of the oddest yet most engaging crime films of the early 70s. With its brutal action, oddball humor and unique look at life in Southern California, you’d think the film would have achieved a considerable following by now, but it seems practically unknown and has never been released on DVD. I’d never even heard so much as a mention of the title until I saw a clip of the film in the documentary LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF a few years ago and the last time it played at the American Cinematheque I wound up not going. It was my loss. The next time something like GET CARTER or THE LIMEY plays, this would be an ideal choice to pair with them.


French hitman Lucien Ballon (Jean-Louis Trintignant) arrives in L.A. to perform a hit. After checking in at the Beverly Hilton, he heads to the Beverly Hills address in question where, shortly after meeting the man’s wife (Angie Dickinson) does exactly what he went there to do. He leaves the property without incident but when he returns to the hotel, finds that he has been checked out. With his belongings gone (including, most importantly, his passport) he soon finds himself on the run from another hired killer (Roy Scheider) and heads off into the strange city of L.A. where he must seek out the mysterious woman (Ann-Margret) who may be the only person who can help him.


It seems significant that the opening credits of THE OUTSIDE MAN play over a helicopter shot of downtown L.A., taken from a vantage point that I at first couldn’t quite place. Yet as the shot continued it eventually settled on a part of the freeway that I instantly recognized from driving through countless times. That pretty much states in a nutshell the Los Angeles that is presented here—unrecognizable, yet completely familiar once you really start to look at it. Directed by Jacques Deray and written by Deray, Jean-Claude Carrière and Ian McLellan Hunter, it’s mostly in English and features a number of recognizable American actors but it would still probably be correct to think of this as a French film that just happens to be set in America, but that’s not to say that it’s some kind of existential art piece. It just feels somehow different, even in ways that you can’t entirely put into words and it’s very much shown to us through eyes that are unfamiliar with this landscape, with moments that seem to pause as we and the main character take in these unusual surroundings. It fits right in with Antonioni’s ZABRISKIE POINT and Jacques Demy’s MODEL SHOP as movies with a unique viewpoint made by foreigners about L.A. But unlike those, as well as a few others, THE OUTSIDE MAN doesn’t feels like it’s passing any sort of judgement on the city, good or bad, instead looking at the city as a completely alien landscape for our hero. He doesn’t understand this terrain one bit, but he has to navigate it somehow if he’s ever going to get away. Though it would be correct to describe it as a French crime film shot in L.A., it’s not some kind of POINT BLANK-type existential art piece. It just feels somehow different, with an odd look at the landscape that leads to some truly unique L.A. location shooting, from the streets of Beverly Hills to the bars of downtown to the tiny apartments of Venice, leading to a foot chase that ends in the abandoned and dilapidated Pacific Ocean Park. One of the oddest little bits involves Ballon using a coin-operated razor in a public restroom—it’s hard to imagine that such a think once existed. It’s such a striking look at what the town was back then that I can imagine the film almost being an emotional experience for somebody who grew up in the city during this period. In one sequence Trintignant’s character, looking for a place to hide, carjacks a woman played by Georgia Engel (already an odd casting choice for this kind of film) and has her take him to her apartment on the Sunset Strip in the building that used to be located next to Tower Records (which I don’t think was ever residential) where we meet her son played by a very young Jackie Earle Haley and the hitman winds up on their couch watching “Star Trek” with them--about as odd a juxtaposition of personalities as I could possibly imagine. The film is filled with odd touches like that within the tension of the hitman plotline and many of the bit roles almost seem deliberately cast with people who might have been appearing in sitcoms around this time, such as John Hillerman’s department store manager who consoles widow Angie Dickinson on her husband’s violent death by bizarrely saying that “At least it wasn’t one of those long, lingering things.” The line readings by many of these personalities and how it clashes with Trintignant’s deadpan lead means that things feel consistently off—as if it’s the director’s own take on what Angelenos, or maybe just Americans in general, are like. It’s interesting that THE OUTSIDE MAN adds these touches yet still manages to come off very much as a no-nonsense crime film, albeit an odd one, with extremely well-done action and chase scenes, unusual characters and a badass score by Michel Legrand (what other times have badass and Michel Legrand ever gone together?) as well as a surprising amount of sleaze.


Jean-Louis Trinitignant, star of THE CONFORMIST and Kieslowski’s THREE COLORS: RED, is a steady, composed screen presence that gets us to continually wonder what he could possibly be thinking as he takes in the bizarre sights in front of him. In this context, he’s as unfamiliar to us as this American landscape is unfamiliar to him and it makes for a unique identification with a lead character, even one who is a killer. Roy Scheider, in that period between THE FRENCH CONNECTION and THE SEVEN-UPS, is ultra-ultra-cool as the opposing hitman, with relatively few lines spread throughout the picture and the way he plays certain scenes feel consistently unexpected. For any fan of Scheider’s out there who hasn’t seen this, this performance would come has a huge surprise. Ann-Margret, given a memorable introduction wearing a tiny, very low-cut white dress while sporting a white wig is fairly stunning and just about as good as I’ve ever seen her. She also says “shit” an awful lot which is kind of surprising, as is the scene where she gets violently roughed up by Scheider—they’d play husband and wife over a decade later in 52 PICK-UP. Angie Dickinson, looking like she’s about to enter her POLICE WOMAN phase, doesn’t have as good a role and comes off as pretty stiff at times, but she does provide an appropriate connection to POINT BLANK and has one terrific moment where she sees a certain person in an unexpected place and has absolutely no idea what to do about it. In addition to the familiar faces mentioned above, Alex Rocco also appears in a key role as does Talia Shire, who is unrecognizable but it’s obvious who it is the second she begins to speak. Connie Kreski, once a Playboy playmate, makes a memorable appearance as a streetwalker who says to Trinitignant, “I’m sorry we didn’t make it. I like your accent.” The cool title song that plays over the opening credits is sung by Joe Morton, presumably the actor of the same name. At the very least, it sounds like him.


THE OUTSIDE MAN doesn’t quite hold up until the very end—the climax set in a funeral home involving the corpse that is positioned upright probably sounded more interesting in concept, with a shootout that isn’t very well blocked out along with an end which feels like it’s striving for an existential significance that it hasn’t quite earned. It still works as an extremely satisfying crime thriller nevertheless but more important than that it’s just…kind of weird. The plot always keeps the viewer on its toes, never entirely letting on which way it’s going to go next. There aren’t many other crime films quite like THE OUTSIDE MAN. If the Cinematheque shows it again, I’ll be there. And I’ll bring people with me so they can see it too.