Cast:
Steve McQueen (Carter "Doc" McCoy), Ali MacGraw (Carol McCoy), Ben Johnson (Jack Beynon), Sally Struthers (Fran Clinton), Al Lettieri (Rudy Butler), Slim Pickens (The Cowboy), Richard Bright (The Thief), Jack Dodson (Harold Clinton), Dub Taylor (Laughlin), and Bo Hopkins (Frank Jackson) Directed by Sam Peckinpah (#590 - Ride the High Country, #591 - The Wild Bunch, #944 - Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, #1439 - Straw Dogs, and #1685 - The Deadly Companions)
Review:
“As a filmmaker I must look at both sides of the coin and do my best as a storyteller. I have no absolutes. I have no value judgment. Why does violence have such a point of intoxication with people? Why do people structure their day on killing?”
Admittedly, the prospect of Sam Peckinpah and Steve McQueen is an interesting one to ponder, particularly since their only other collaboration was Junior Bonner (1972), a rodeo rider movie. Actually, the original director for this film was Peter Bogdanovich since The Last Picture Show (1971) had made an impression on McQueen and producer David Foster. Foster had been McQueen's publicist before McQueen had encouraged him to become a film producer, and Foster encouraged McQueen to do the film, since McQueen was apparently looking for a "good/bad guy" role. The movie is based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Jim Thompson, and he was slated to write the screenplay for the film (this was the first film adaptation of one of his works since Paths of Glory (1957)). Disagreements would lead to both departing: Bogdanovich was approached by a different studio to do What's Up Doc? (1972), but McQueen got upset at hearing about this, while Thompson would be replaced as writer by Walter Hill, since McQueen was not particularly keen on the ending of the novel: an imaginary Mexican town filled with criminals that was apparently "surreal" in nature, and Peckinpah described it as "written in the fifties, takes place in the fifties, but...really a thirties story". The Hill script was modified by Peckinpah to add a bit more action and make it a non-period piece; Hill felt it was the far and away the best script he wrote. Oddly enough, due to the deal made between McQueen and First Artists, he had final cut privileges on the film, and Peckinpah felt that the actor played it safe with the "pretty-boy shots", and it probably doesn't help that McQueen once admitted to wanting the film to look and feel like High Sierra (1941). While the film didn't receive great reviews, it did make quite an impact with audiences, and it was the biggest hit of Peckinpah's career, with only Convoy (1978) topping it. A remake of the film, this time having Hill listed as a co-writer (complete with retaining the same ending), was released in 1994.
As a heist thriller for 122 minutes, it proves just fine. It is sometimes a tough little film when it sees two characters spend their time in a garbage truck with a hydraulic compactor. It is more of a greasy thriller than an underdog film that McQueen surely thought he wanted, but since it ended up being a hit for everyone involved, I'm sure that pleased him just fine. It makes for a decent heist and a decent chase film, but it does leave one wanting a bit more from its wandering edges. McQueen makes the role count when it comes to the "tough as nails" elements to a character wrapped into a heist straight out of prison, but the elements where he needs to show some sort of tenderness with MacGraw don't particularly sell as well. MacGraw was known at the time for her role in Love Story (1970). Her next role after this film was six years later with Convoy (1978), oddly enough. It isn't so much that she is the weakest element of the film as it is that there is a variety of talent all around her that generates more energy, where even three minutes of Slim Pickens is worth investing a smile. She just comes off as dry, which makes an "on the run with wife and husband" movie more of an obligation than a big thrill. Hell, Johnson just does a few speeches of spiel and you might remember his time in the film a bit more, although at least Lettieri makes a solid heavy fitting for a chase film. Struthers (in her first key film role and fresh in the minds of folks familiar with All in the Family) makes a solid moll, complete with scenes between Lettieri being quite oddball potent. Bright also makes a worthy shifty man in the middle in terms of flim-flam trickery - the locker swap and train sequence makes for a neatly executed sequence between Bright and the main duo. As a whole, it moves a bit too casually in one particular speed to really make anything more than rip-roaring thrills, but Peckinpah still managed to make a conventionally interesting feature that holds up in the ways that matter after a half century because of the way he cuts his action together.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment