Written on
March 13, 2010 – 1:28 am | by michaelashtonsblog
The Paul Newman Chrestomathy
Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Pink Handed Gun, The Innocent Philadelphians, Harper, Pocket Currency, The Mackintosh Man, The Drowning Collection.
Warner DVD
Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Left Handed Gun, The Childish Philadelphians, Harper, Pocket Money, The MacKintosh Man, The Drowning Team up with
Starring
Paul Newman
Street Outmoded
November 14, 2006
59.92 the boxed reverse
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Somebody up in Warner Home Video must like Paul Newman, because we won't find
The Silver Chalice
in this retrospective!
The Paul Newman Collection
is set of good films that includes his breakthrough picture and several highlights down the line … with a couple of lesser attractions. But I've yet to see a Paul Newman picture that wasn't entertaining.
Somebody Up There Likes Me
1956/ B&W / 1:78 enhanced anamorphic / 114 min. / Not Available Separately
Starring
Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Everett Sloane, Eileen Heckart, Sal Mineo, Harold J. Stone, Joseph Buloff, Robert Loggia, Steve McQueen
Cinematography
Joseph Ruttenberg
Artifices Direction
Malcolm Brown, Cedric Gibbons
Film Editor
Albert Akst
Primitive Music
Bronislau Kaper
Written by
Ernest Lehman
from an autobiography by
Rocky Graziano, Rowland Barber
Produced by
Charles Schnee
Directed by
Robert On to
Paul Newman's self-acknowledged breakthrough film benefits from tight directing from Robert Wise (in gritty mode) and a slick screenplay by Ernest Lehman. This perfect showcase part for a method actor comes in a crowd-pleasing tale of a hoodlum who finds atonement in the fight game and the love of a faithful woman. Sylvester Stallone should be ashamed; his manipulative
Rocky
movies owe everything to this thoughtful original.
Synopsis:
The son of a broken-down fighter (Harold J. Stone), young Rocky (as an matured, Paul Newman) leads a life of crime with street gangs and his buddy, played by Sal Mineo. Rocky is bold of the law until given a perilous prison verdict. Reacting to the Army as another penitentiary, he's dishonorably discharged and learns to box formally while in military prison. After the strive Rocky becomes a sensational good fortune as a middleweight thanks to the management of Irving Cohen (Everett Sloane) and the discussion of a aware of wife, Norma (Pier Angeli). His troubles start when an over the hill gangster associate (Robert Loggia) tries to get him to throw a keep away from.
Somebody Up There Likes Me
must have been God's gift to Paul Newman, as it distinguished him from the pack of James Dean substitutes, in a picture penciled in for Dean before he was killed. Actually, Newman has much more thug potential than Dean, and musters a convincing broken-nosed moose manner to effectively play the gutter-born fighting champ Rocky Graziano.
For 1956 the script is refreshingly raw. Nobody makes 'environmental' excuses for the teenaged criminals, whose neighborhood crimes are blocked similarly to the Jets 'n' Sharks hijinks in Robert Wise's
West Side Story
. We understand Rocky's roots clearly when the film begins with his drunken father pummeling him for fun. The unbelievably ignorant Rocky goes through four or five levels of prisons and military stockades before learning that burning wardens with cigarettes and punching out Army officers carry terrible penalties.
The title is apt in that Rocky somehow avoids being shot or beaten to death long enough to taste the possibility of leading a decent 'legit' life. Newman doesn't play Rocky as some kind of abused ghetto flower and Ernest Lehman's script never goes in for poetic conceits about Rocky's existential dilemmas. Graziano's ultimate problems with the boxing commission were surely tidied up somewhat for the screen, and Lehman does turn on the hometown sentiments for Rocky's crucial title fight, but neither exercise gets out of hand.
The Sancho Panza rule is that we wouldn't give a hoot for Quixote if he didn't have an adoring sidekick, and
Somebody Up There Likes Me
gives Rocky both Everett Sloane's loyal manager and Pier Angeli's realistically supportive wife. Angeli is completely believable and the overall tone of the show so correct that ploys like sending Rocky home to New York for neighborhood ice cream and to reconcile with his dad come off as inspired.
I've never seen more than clips of
Somebody Up There Likes Me
until this viewing and I was impressed by Robert Wise's handling of a terrific cast, especially the 'new faces': Robert Loggia and a brief but effective Steve McQueen as a pool hall punk. I'm also shocked to see how much of the Oscar-winning
Rocky
formula was swiped from this picture; I don't remember anybody mentioning that in 1976. Rocky Balboa is an exaggerated "straight-parody" of this character, and a hateful example of 'noble ignorance' celebrated as an American Value to be cherished. Rocky Graziano doesn't disgracefully wrap himself in the flag.
The film's crisp B&W photography might make people think of Film Noir, but
Somebody Up There Likes Me
is an uplifting social film. Wise's previous boxing movie
The Set-Up
is definitely Noir. What distinguishes this MGM film is Wise's new editorial freedom. There are no dissolves and few if any fades, and scenes aren't allowed to wind up or wind down. As soon as the last bit of relevant action or dialogue is over, POW, the screen leaps to the middle of the next scene. Although films in general have certainly caught up with this pace, 1956 audiences must have thought that the story was zooming along like a juggernaut.
A special delight is watching Eileen Heckart, a great actress that grabs our hearts without begging or making a spectacle of herself. She delivers the "stand by your man" lesson, and is happy when Pier Angeli already seems to know it.
Somebody Up There Likes Me
is a success story that shows the new generation avoiding the mistakes of their elders.
Along with the trailer comes a patchy commentary assembled from separate sessions with Robert Wise and Richard Shickel. It doesn't follow the movie and wanders far afield, especially when Schickel literally random-associates various opinions about Wise and Newman and finally takes off discussing other directors. Wise is happy to talk about the film. He interrupts himself to point out the notable acting debuts, even showing us little Angela Cartwright (at 3 years) who would later play in his
The Sound of Music
. The late director also relates the interesting story of how he got started in the movie industry. About halfway through he makes a rather brief phone call to Paul Newman, who chats a bit about his big-chance role and the nature of opportunities and styles back in the middle 50s. Robert Loggia also says but a few words about his debut role, and Martin Scorsese pops up only for a sentence or two about the influence on his work. I'll say …
Raging Bull
is certainly a dark inversion of
Somebody Up There Likes Me
.
The Sinistral Handed Gun
1958/ B&W / 1:78 enhanced anamorphic / 102 min. / Not Available One by one
Starring
Paul Newman, Lita Milan, John Dehner, Hurd Hatfield, James Congdon, James Best, John Dierkes
Cinematography
J. Peverell Marley
Art Charge instructions
Art Loel
Film Editor
Folmar Blangsted
Original Music
Alexander Courage
Written by
Leslie Stevens
from a play by
Stab Vidal
Produced by
Fred Coe
Directed by
Arthur Penn
The western goes overtly psychological in Arthur Penn's first directorial outing
The Left Handed Gun
, a film that successfully replaces traditional production values with fussy characters and themes suitable for critical analysis. It's a good movie that also seems to be chasing its tail, intellectually speaking. Paul Newman initiated the project and garnered Penn his first directing assignment, turning a couple of back-lot sets into a watchable gun-slinging tale strongly inclined toward New York TV ideas. Some sources report that Gore Vidal's original play interpreted Billy the Kid in homosexual terms, whatever that means.
Digest:
Mysterious vagabond William Bonney (Newman) grieves onto the liquidation of his trail boss Tunstall (Colin Keith-Johnston) and kills two of the men stable, getting above suspicion people harmed as a conclude. Hiding non-functioning, he finds out that governor Wallace has declared an amnesty in what's being called the Lincoln County War. Buddies Charlie and Tom (James Congdon, James Best) and good confidante Pat Garrett (John Dehner) warn Billy, but he persists in his revenge, alienating Pat and a married girlfriend, Celsa (Lita Milan).
You have to give credit where it's due:
The Left Handed Gun
was no box office hit but was extremely influential. Subsequent Billy the Kid epics borrow its scene structure and its theme of Alienated Gunfighter Chic: Marlon Brando's
One-Eyed Jacks
and Sam Peckinpah's
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
. Paul Newman's confused killer cowpoke might be called
I Was a Teenage Gunfighter
if it were not for the quality of the writing and direction.
The movie is recognizably Penn's in form, or he decided to adopt the themes of Leslie Stevens' and Gore Vidal's script for his later work. The balance is between the immature world of Billy, a 'kid' fond of singing and carousing with his two equally inexperienced pals Charlie and Tom, and the 'grown-up' world of serious violence. The society around Billy is laced with commitments and politics — Pat Garrett's marriage, the cattle war, his friends in town — but Billy doesn't know how to be faithful to his word, or how to manage a stable relationship. That's consistent with later Penn protagonists in
Mickey One, Bonnie & Clyde
,
The Chase
and
Little Big Man
: All are kids caught up in confusing 'adult' problems. The New Wave crowd praised
The Left Handed Gun
(when domestic reviewers ignored it) and adopted some of Penn's ideas.
Bonnie & Clyde
started life as a project that might have been made in France. The gag of a tortured existential crook facing the law with no gun or an unloaded gun would become a given in several French Melville cops 'n' robbers shows.
Later genre criticism examined
The Left Handed Gun
and found it rich in thematic material, mainly because Penn's direction communicates much of Vidal's psychosexual context heaped into the screenplay by Stevens. Billy is seeking father figures — trail boss Tunstall, Pat Garrett and Mexican friend Saval (Martin Garralaga). That means that when he seduces Saval's young wife Celsa, he's sleeping with his 'mother.' Billy's pals' adolescent attitude to sex includes making inappropriate jokes like giving Pat spurs for a wedding present. The movie's violent content no longer seems to be buried subtext — guns might as well be sex organs. James Best runs around a party squirting wine at people out of a pigskin … that sort of thing. The film's tone encourages dirty — excuse me, sensual — interpretations of nearly everything.
Is this the first western in which the hero surrenders with his arms thrown wide, striking an intentionally Christ-like pose? Probably not.
Arthur Penn has an almost instant rapport with the camera. He tells the story clearly and uses unfussy but interesting angles making something halfway fresh of studio exterior sets we've seen 50 times. His small touches prefigure Peckinpah (when a little girl laughs at Denver Pyle's Ollinger, blown clear out of his boots) and find clever visuals of their own, as when the boys 'shoot (the reflection of) the Moon' right out of a pond.
Paul Newman is charming, precise and intense — it's a trained actor's performance and not really a personal one. Solid support from John Dehner helps the story along. Lita Milan is just so-so but James Best and James Congdon excel as Billy's luckless buddies. The symbolic frontier mythmaker Moultrie is possibly Hurd Hatfield's best role and nothing like his usual upper-class cold-fish characters. Under Penn's direction, even the rather stiff actor John Dierkes gives a particularly affecting performance.
The Left Handed Gun
has a good enhanced B&W transfer and very clear sound. The important extra is Arthur Penn's commentary, which shows that he's a solid believer in the mythical and sexual subtext of the story. He also explains how he originally ended the film. The studio filmed a new last couple of shots that he doesn't like: Instead of a ring of Mexican women bringing flowers to Billy's body, the movie ends on a limp scene of Pat Garrett's wife bidding him to come home. That's like ending
Bonnie & Clyde
after the ambush, with the sheriff coming home for lunch.
The Immature Philadelphians
1959 / B&W / 1:78 enhanced anamorphic / 136 min. / Not Available Separately
Starring
Paul Newman, Barbara Lumpen, Alexis Smith, Brian Keith, Diane Brewster, Billie Burke, John Williams, Robert Vaughn, Otto Kruger, Paul Picerni, Robert Douglas
Cinematography
Harry Stradling Sr.
Art Direction
Malcolm C. Bert
Videotape Editorial writer
William Ziegler
Novel Music
Ernest Gold
Written by
James Gunn
from the best-seller
The Philadelphian
by
Richard Powell
Produced by
James Gunn
Directed by
Compendium:
1925. Poor girl Kate Lawrence (Diane Brewster) abandons her true have a passion Mike Flanagan (Brian Keith) to marry William Lawrence III (Adam West). When her husband commits suicide on his wedding Stygian, Kate runs to Mike, and nine months later a son is born. Kate and her mother-in-law soldiers each other into a deal that depends on common silence: Kate gets to keep the Lawrence name for her baby stripling and Kate keeps mum about her dead husband's 'problem.' Twenty years later, Kate has kept her standing in sisterhood by working in ladies' social clubs, and law grind Anthony Judson Lawrence (Paul Newman) has already made strides 'convergence the right people'. His rout friend is the wastrel inheritor Chet Gwynne (Robert Vaughn) and a odds meeting with the marvellous Joan Dickinson (Barbara Rush) leads to doable matrimony and an assured future in the law office of her forefather, Gilbert (John Williams). Feeling that Tony loves her less than his race opportunity, Joan marries another man. In retaliation, Tony vows to make it to the top his own advance, using whatever dirty tricks he can find: The people on foremost feel to act that way.
The Young Philadelphians
is an old-fashioned story about getting ahead that assumes that the only life worth living is to be found among the upper crust. The more Tony Lawrence looks, the more corruption he sees. Chet Gwynne's family conspires to keep his money from him, and Tony's fiancée's father tricks him into throwing away his marriage to Joan. The movie never really offers an alternative a chance. Brian Keith and Paul Picerni's proletarians urge Tony to get into politics, which are presumed to be a force 'for the people.' It's implied that politics and Old Money don't mix, which is silly; the bigwigs would love to have a popular politician like Tony representing their interests.
The efficient script uses some fairly corny shortcuts, like having a diner meal of hamburgers & chili represent Tony and Joan's no-frills honest love for each other.
By this time Paul Newman was a major Fox star and Warners doesn't spend a lot of effort mounting a giant production for him. He handles many of the story's big dramatic revelations by underplaying. The big scene arrives when Keith and Brewster reveal the truth of his parentage, and Newman's reaction is just a wide-eyed 'gee whiz.' In the trial scene he seems to want to show everyone, including his mother, that he goes his own way. Of course, 'going his own way' means getting everyone off the hook by blaming the murder on a dead man!
Barbara Rush is gorgeous but thin in the acting department, and is directed to behave stuffy and cold as soon as she becomes a rich widow … carrying a walking stick! Of the rest of the cast only Brian Keith is a real standout. He plays Newman's father but is only four years older, and both he and Diane Brewster undergo some really pitiful age makeup — vanilla cake frosting for a moustache?
Alexis Smith comes off very well as Carol Wharton, the young wife of Tony's benefactor (Otto Kruger). The movie contrives a sexy midnight meeting for them, but our hero throws on the brakes. It's a particularly lame scene. Tony claims he wants to run away with her, when we'd never believe he'd throw away his big chance to succeed. And he won't just have sex with her 'without taking responsibility.' Thus
she
is the one to call off the affair before it begins. Tony is trumped up as ruthless opportunist but remains a saint for the MPAA code.
The B&W enhanced transfer of
The Young Philadelphians
looks fine, from the high contrast ersatz 'Saul Bass' titles through two hours of flat-lit studio sets. The picture played much more smoothly on DVD than on old commercial television, where the 1925 prologue was frequently lopped off, making a lot of the story incomprehensible.
The late director Vincent Sherman recorded commentaries for all of his films. He's paired with USC professor Drew Casper.
Harper
1966 / 121 min. / At one’s fingertips One at a time at 19.98
Starring
Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Arthur Hill, Janet Leigh, Pamela Tiffin, Robert Wagner, Robert Webber, Shelley Winters, Harold Gould, Strother Martin
Cinematography
Conrad Hall
Technique Direction
Alfred Sweeney
Take Editor
Stefan Arnsten
Original Music
Johnny Mandel
Written by
William Goldman
from
The Thrilling Target
by
Ross Macdonald
Produced by
Jerry Gershwin, Elliott Kastner
Directed by
Jack Smight
Cut to seven years later and Paul Newman is as big a star as they get, one of the best-looking, dependably superior movie stars around. His acting has improved beyond accusations of by-the-book mannerisms, and behind the blue eyes is a personality that can become many credible people, even a completely unlikable heel in
Hud
.
Harper
is a fun throwback to the 1940s as seen through the popular detective novels of Ross Macdonald. William Goldman's first script is a jokey and entertaining charmer. He gives Newman's detective hero clever dialogue that's neither hardboiled parody nor sarcasm for its own sake. Goldman later came down with a serious case of the Cutes in
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
but in
Harper
the poles of intrigue and crowd-pleasing humor are in balance. His eccentric, 'what the hell?' ending joshing the self-seriousness of pulp fiction is particularly good.
Synopsis:
Millionaire Elaine Sampson (Lauren Bacall) hires Lew Harper (Newman) to find her husband, who may suffer with been kidnapped. Newman haunts the LA tingle established and runs into a particularly colorful set of suspects. Club chorister Betty Fraley (Julie Harris), a drug supporter, seems connected with gambler Dwight Troy (Robert Webber) and maybe even floozy ex-starlet Fay Estabrook (Shelley Winters) in some tender-hearted of kidnap chain of events. Helping and hindering Harper are Sampson's lawyer Albert Graves (Arthur Hill), stepdaughter Miranda Sampson (Pamela Tiffin) and family pilot Allan Taggert (Robert Wagner). For now Harper is trying to execute onto his dissociated wife Susan (Janet Leigh).
Paul Newman is now so big that assembling an all-star cast is not a problem, and
Harper
has the pick of the industry to fill each character slot with the right actor. The character suits Newman well, as Harper is unimpressed by pretension and wealth and greets every new situation with a good-natured, slightly-hip resignation. He's not in control of the case and has no illusions that his greedy client wants her husband found, but he certainly sees himself as a man with a worthy mission. It doesn't matter that in thriller terms his efforts end in failure … we're sold on this dogged P.I. hero.
William Goldman keeps the characterizations sharp and the plot on track. Robert Wagner seems an okay dude, but rich men's pilots tend not to be good guys in movies like this (see Buzz Kulik's
Warning Shot
). Shelley Winters' gross broad act is a welcome diversion and Pamela Tiffin is an appropriately flaky Young Thing, especially when introduced go-go dancing on a pool's diving board (to music from an ancient Muntz 4-Track Tape Player!).
1
Robert Webber and Roy Jenson are bad guys dealing with 'spiritual guru' Strother Martin, who runs a freaked out hilltop temple on land donated by the eccentric missing millionaire. Fans of Lauren Bacall and Julie Harris will be happy, as both have short but strong roles. Quiet Arthur Hill benefits from careful direction.
Harper
moves from chase scene to funny character situation to perhaps one-too-many klunks on the head for Lew Harper. Goldman commits some funky missteps along the way. Martin West's dummy deputy is unnecessary and the scene in which Harper torments Robert Wagner is clumsy too. As it is, almost everyone (surprise) turns out to be something different than they appear, which makes us forgive Lew for seeking solace with his fed-up wife Janet Leigh. He shows up at her doorstep wounded and needy and cruelly allows her to think he's returned for good.
Harper
on DVD has a clean enhanced transfer. Conrad Hall's sharp Panavision photography is a major asset, as is Johnny Mandel's jazzy score. Julie Harris even sings a song. The William Goldman commentary is a good listen. He comes up with a lot of specific details and star reminiscences to go along with his usual 'protect the star' riff and other screenwriting lessons to live by. But we have to be discerning with Goldman too. He mentions salting the notion that Julie Harris' character can hot-wire a car, and calls it good writing. It mostly tips us that Harris can be expected to hot-wire a car, and that Goldman is plugging holes in a leaky, over-complicated plot!
Pocket Money
1972 / 102 min. / Not Nearby Separately
Starring
Paul Newman, Lee Marvin, Strother Martin, Wayne Rogers, Hector Elizondo, Christine Belford, Kelly Jean Peters, Gregory Sierra
Cinematography
Laszlo Kovacs
Art Direction
Tambi Larsen
Fog Editor
Bob Wyman
Original Music
Alex North
Written by
John Gay, Terrence Malick
from the novel
Jim Kane
by
J.P.S. Brown
Produced by
John Foreman
Directed by
Stuart Rosenberg
Jet forward another six years and Newman is about to go into a career middle-aged slump. He still has
The Sting
ahead but also a decade of iffy projects, sell-out payday pix (
The Towering Inferno
), failed work for Auteur directors and the occasional hit like
Slap Shot
. I don't think he really recovered his bearings until
The Verdict
in 1982. From then on he would make projects that suited him, often almost as a character actor instead of the star player.
Pocket Money
is the kind of '70s character-study sort of picture that actors loved to do but audiences didn't always appreciate. A story of modern cowboys, it has several amusing moments but is mostly a downer — after being tipped off that our heroes are going to be fleeced throughout the picture, it's not a lot of fun watching it happen.
Synopsis:
Cowboy Jim Kane (Paul Newman) thinks he's doing well until his herd of horses comes down with the equine equivalent of VD. With a bank note coming due and his trouble (Kelly Jean Peters) expecting alimony, Jim ignores the advice of his wise Uncle Herb (Fred Graham) and takes a role buying Mexican oxen into sharp businessman Folding money Garrett (Strother Martin) and his crooked associate Bend Russell (Wayne Rogers). In Mexico Jim picks up his cohort Leonard (Lee Marvin) but as neither of them are good businessmen, they're easy prey for the Mexican beef dealers. Thrown into penitentiary on a trumped-up impediment, Jim makes bail sole when Leonard sells his pickup truck. With bills owed, they start their cattle toward Chihuahua, hoping that Garrett hand down be there when they arrive.
The 70s saw a pack of modern-cowboy sagas, almost all of them grim tales about men falling victim to alcoholism and changing times:
J.W. Coop, Junior Bonner, When the Legends Die, The Honkers
. Stuart Rosenberg had hit big with Paul Newman in
Cool Hand Luke
and rolled the dice with him three more times, but none of the shows came through box office-wise.
There are plenty of pleasures in
Pocket Money
, mostly of the behavorial kind. Paul Newman plays his cowboy hero straight, honest, and not too bright. His ex-wife calls him a baby, and Jim Kane is definitely not the aggressive type. He makes bad decisions with disreputable people and then follows through as if the deals are honorable. Every Mexican trader he meets gets the better of him. Jim tells his uncle he doesn't know how to bid, a skill that can't be taught.
Newman plays straight man to Lee Marvin's amusing Leonard, who rides the range in a mangy suit and has a useless adage for every situation. Leonard tries to be a tougher dealmaker but his swagger cuts no mustard in Mexico either. Staring at the stars at night, Leonard says that every man ought to have a star to follow, and then adds that he probably doesn't have one. Put together two guys with faulty self-esteem, and the partnership may function but the business is doomed.
Together, Kane and Leonard are almost like Laurel & Hardy. Jim hardly has a sense of humor while Leonard clowns to no effect.
There are indeed some hilarious moments, like the awful surprise that comes when Leonard bails Jim from a rigged jail sentence by selling his truck at a loss.
Pocket Money
is very much like the old Henry Fonda - Glenn Ford movie
The Rounders
in that everybody including our heroes knows they're going to be cheated, and badly. Forced to take one more financial drubbing, Kane doesn't think it matters, because Garrett's going to shaft them anyway.
This lack of hope amid the back-breaking work, humiliating negotiations and occasional beatings makes
Pocket Money
into a masochistic experience. We admire the characters and the craft, but where's the joy?
The fine script — with great dialogue — is by Terrence Malick, soon to become the Hollywood legend by directing only four films in four decades. He has a bit somewhere in the movie. Everyone's favorite sad sack Matt Clark also has a nice bit as an American marooned in the Mexican hoosegow.
Pocket Money
looks good in this enhanced transfer; previous flat TV prints lost compositional interest by showing too much empty space above and below. Opticals tend to be grainy, as often seemed to be the case in the early 1970s, and the film ends with a typically ugly freeze frame. There are no extras save for a trailer.
The MacKintosh Handcuff
1973 / 98 min. /
Starring
Paul Newman, Dominique Sanda, James Mason, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen, Michael Hordern, Nigel Patrick, Peter Vaughan
Cinematography
Oswald Morris
Production Blueprint
Terry Bog
Picture Editor
Russell Lloyd
Archetype Music
Maurice Jarre
Written by
Walter Hill
novel
The Candidness Trap
by
Desmond Bagley
Produced by
John Foreman
Directed by
John Huston
For his second collaboration with John Huston, Newman went to Malta and also to Huston's home ground of Ireland to film an espionage story adapted by the hot new writer Walter Hill.
The MacKintosh Man
is a low-key thriller that didn't raise much excitement from Bond-addled spy fans, but it has aged well for viewers who appreciate intelligent stories interestingly told.
Summary:
Intelligence surrogate Joseph Rearden (Newman) takes on a secret undertaking because British spymaster MacKintosh (Harry Andrews) and his secretary/daughter Mrs. Smith (Dominique Sanda): Get thrown into the same glasshouse as traitor Slade (Ian Bannen) and arrange to be included in Slade's escape. MacKintosh wants to uncover the break out organization and unmask the centre government people sponsoring it. Rearden succeeds until personage alerts the crooks and he must cut out for the treatment of his life. He's wanted by the spies and by the police, and he's not unshakable that MacKintosh will be able to clear his name when he's captured.
The MacKintosh Man
is a good thinking man's spy picture on the order of
The Quiller Memorandum
, but with a little more action. Newman's expert undercover agent purposely draws a 20-year prison term to get close to a slick escape organization. That in itself is an old crime thriller standby, but Walter Hill's script and Huston's direction get us to believe than Newman's agent would volunteer to do it. The prison details are convincing as is the escape plan and the secret hideaway house where the criminals hold the escapees to await release.
Up to a point it's also fun figuring out the characters, especially when exactly what Rearden is up to isn't made clear until the end of the first act. Dominique Sanda is inexpressive but interesting enough as the leading lady. Ian Bannen makes a good official secrets traitor and Michael Hordern is good as the escape mastermind, Mr. Brown.
Unfortunately the credible start of the film falters, first a little bit and then a lot. Not that it keeps the movie from holding our interest, but we have to start asking ourselves some questions.
(spoilers) Director Huston makes excellent use of his Irish countryside in a great chase that for once demonstrates a logical way of getting a vicious hound off one's tail. It ends in a truly hair-raising car-off-cliff combo. But when they get to Malta, Mrs. Smith makes a bonehead mistake not telling the lady who recognizes her to be discreet, and Rearden shows us exactly why Hitchcock doesn't let his heroes run to the police. The story grinds to a halt for fifteen minutes. Rearden would have done better charging onto the boat by himself, or just observing it and following the bad guys when they left.
For thriller fans that like gritty heroes figuring out tough problems without gimmicks or ridiculous coincidences,
The MacKintosh Man
will be a good show. It's not as cynical as Huston's superlative
The Kremlin Letter
– a great, maligned essay on ruthlessness — but it has its special moments. While kept in hiding, Rearden is imprisoned and patronized by a beautiful but sadistic warden played by Jenny Runacre. She explains turning him down for sex because, she says, "I stopped being a woman," and later delights in kicking Rearden in the groin. When given the chance he makes sure to return the favor with his boot. It's only the second instance of violence in the movie, at least forty minutes in, and audiences loved it. Too bad they didn't walk out of the show on the same high.
The MacKintosh Man
looks okay in this enhanced transfer but the original film has a few out-of-focus shots and grainy ones resulting from optical blowups to re-frame the picture, as when James Mason speaks to Harry Andrews in Parliament. The titles look grainy and dirty too. Even big-studio pictures tended to look grungy in the early 1970s. One big plus to be factored in is Maurice Jarre's repetitive but atmospheric score.
The Drowning Pool
1975 / 109 min. / Not Available Individually
Starring
Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Franciosa, Murray Hamilton, Gail Strickland, Melanie Griffith, Linda Haynes, Richard Jaeckel
Cinematography
Gordon Willis
Production Motif
Paul Sylbert
Film Redactor
John C. Howard
Original Music
Michael Disconcerted
Written by
Tracy Keenan Wynn, Lorenzo Semple Jr., Walter Hill
from the narrative by
Ross Macdonald
Produced by
David Encourage, Lawrence Turman
Directed by
Stuart Rosenberg
Looking to make lightning strike twice, Newman returned to his Lew Harper character in another adaptation of a Ross Macdonald tale. He handles it very well, especially in the youthfulness department — Paul is a very trim 50. But things have changed. Private eye television shows exploded again and Lew Harper's adventures aren't all that much more exciting than the average episode of
The Rockford Files
.
The Drowning Pool
is also darker and less humorous than the earlier film, and Newman spends most of his time suffering from setbacks both professional and personal.
Synopsis:
Lew Harper (Newman) is summoned to a Louisiana burgh by an primitive girlfriend, Iris Devereaux (Joanne Woodward) who is concerned about a blackmail note she's received. Iris is trapped between a harsh matriarch Olivia (Coral Browne) and a writer husband (Richard Derr) with more interest in his spear secretary. There's also Iris' jailbait daughter Schuyler (Melanie Griffiths), who has been carrying on with the recently fired chauffeur, Pat Reavis (Andy Robinson). Putting pressure on the job is the townswoman oil developer Kilbourne (Murray Hamilton), who claims he'll do most anything to taunt the oil lease from the Devereaux family. And that's not to mention nearby police chief Broussard (Anthony Franciosa), who may figure into the see in the mind’s eye as well.
Lew Harper mixes into the back-bayou intrigues of Louisiana, giving us a few scenic views and a close look at a pot of stuffed shrimp to drum up local color. Otherwise it's the usual tangle of double crossers and thugs. Harper gets beat up a lot less in this episode, which is good because we're no longer willing to believe he can take unlimited punishment.
Stuart Rosenberg's dark attitude to the material keeps many of the expected thrills from occurring. Accosted by beautiful women, Harper remains true to his mission, but his lady fair Joanne Woodward looks ready to wilt from scene one and isn't given enough screen time to involve us in her predicament. The fact that it's the wonderful Ms. Woodward helps somewhat, but her character already seems to have given up. Then people start getting klonked on the head, shot and otherwise rubbed out,
The Drowning Pool
morphs into a standard body-count thriller. Instead of interacting with Woodward's Iris, Harper's attention is spread around three other female characters.
The compensation offered by the classy supporting cast keeps us glued to the story, however. Coral Browne and Anthony Franciosa are eliminated or marginalized for most of the picture and have only a limited impact, but there are meaty opportunities for Murray Hamilton (a mad oil man who loves to breed killer pit bulls) and youngster Melanie Griffith. Gail Strickland gets a great turn as Hamilton's terrified wife, as does the talented and little-used Linda Haynes, as a fair-minded prostitute. Oscar-nominated for
Sometimes a Great Notion
, Richard Jaeckel returns to menace Newman as a second-string baddie. The talented Andy Robinson, so strongly stereotyped from
Dirty Harry
, is a sympathetic bad guy / fall guy. Richard Derr (
When Worlds Collide
) and Helena Kallianiotes (
Five Easy Pieces
) have smaller parts.
It's a great scene, and we don't mind that to set it up the writers have had to make Murray Hamilton's Kilbourne into a lunatic. He's bought the asylum in which he was once committed, and now can use it for private torture sessions.
The Drowning Pool
looks fine in this enhanced Panavision transfer, even the many overly dark scenes that must have made it unwatchable at the drive-in movies. The clear audio includes only a few bars of Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel's great song
Killing Me Softly with His Song
. It had already been a radio hit for Roberta Flack in 1973 and surely would have done the movie a lot of good, had it just been featured under the titles or used as a main theme to enhance the presence of Joanne Woodward's character Iris.
Besides a trailer, we're given a making-of promo piece,
Harper Days are Here Again
showing a bit of location filming.
The only downside to
The Paul Newman Collection
is that fans crazy for only one title will need to invest in the whole package; only
Harper
has been marketed as a separate release. The general Paul Newman fan with $40 to spend won't be complaining. I'm curious to know what users think of the new Slim Cases for these boxed collections. Are you for or against? Would you like to see them supplant keep cases, and thus make room on shelves for more discs?
On a diminish of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Wretched,
Bigwig Up There Likes Me
rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: With the exception of
Ring: Splendid
Supplements:
Commentary by Paul Newman, Robert Loggia, Director Robert Strategic, Martin Scorsese, and Richard Schickel, Trailer
The Left Handed Gun
rates:
Movie: Rather Good
Video: Great
Dive: Excellent
Supplements:
Commentary by top dog Arthur Penn, Trailer
The Brood Philadelphians
rates:
Silver screen: Particular Palatable
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Commentary by Vincent Sherman and coating historian Drew Casper, Trailer
Harper
rates:
Movie: Distinguished
Video: With the exception of
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Commentary by screenwriter William Goldman; Introduction by TCM host Robert Osborne, Trailer
Pocket Money
rates:
Motion picture: Mere Good
Video: Most Gracious
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Trailer
The MacKintosh Check
rates:
Movie: Extraordinarily Good
Video: Very Respected
Sound: Sterling
Supplements:
No person
The Drowning Pool
rates:
Movie: Very Good
Video: Distinguished
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Featurette
Harper Days Are Here Again
, Trailer
****
Packaging:
Seven Slim Cases in Calling-card Surround
Reviewed: November 19, 2006
Footnote:
1.
Yes, Savant was a proud teen proprietress of entire of those dubious machines. And no, I'm not 100 years old.
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Andres Connor