Film Review: THE OUTSIDE MAN (1972, Jacques Doray)

Stars: 4 of 5.

Running Time: 105 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew: Jean Louis Trintignant (THE CONFORMIST, AMOUR, Z, MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S, THE GREAT SILENCE), Ann-Margret (TOMMY, BYE BYE BIRDIE, GRUMPY OLD MEN), Roy Scheider (JAWS, ALL THAT JAZZ), Angie Dickinson (BIG BAD MAMA, THE KILLERS, DRESSED TO KILL), Georgia Engel ("Georgette" on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, THE CARE BEARS MOVIE), Umberto Orsini (THE DAMNED, LUDWIG), Ted de Corsia (THE KILLING, THE NAKED CITY), Jackie Earle Haley (THE BAD NEWS BEARS, LITTLE CHILDREN, WATCHMEN), Michel Constantin (LE TROU, LE DEUXIEME SOUFFLE), Alex Rocco ("Moe Green" in THE GODFATHER, DETROIT 9000, THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE), Talia Shire (THE GODFATHER, ROCKY). Music by Michael Legrand (SUMMER OF '42,   Co-written by Jean Claude Carrière (THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE, BELLE DE JOUR). Cinematography by Silvano Ippoliti (CALIGULA, NAVAJO JOE, SUPER FUZZ) and Terry K. Meade (a camera operator on RIO BRAVO and THE LAST PICTURE SHOW).

Tag-line: "If you kill the most powerful man in organized crime, they've got the rest of your life to get you."

Memorable Quote:  "Paris?! You mean, Paris, France?"

Only now, on the Fourth of July, did it occur to me that I needed THE OUTSIDE MAN in my life. Picture it: a down n' dirty '70s Los Angeles crime flick directed by a Frenchman (Jacques Doray), with a screenplay co-written by surrealist master Jean Claude Carrière, and with the alienating, fatalistic atmosphere of LE SAMOURAI, THE MECHANIC, or DETOUR. You could even compare it to Camus' THE STRANGER or THE PLAGUE.

Our antihero is an "Outside Man," a French hitman (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who arrives in L.A. to kill a mobster. After performing the hit, he finds his passport has been stolen and he is relentlessly pursued by another hitman––the great Roy Scheider in a role that is essentially a jockish, dickish enigma.

(Obviously, Scheider nails it.)

Jean-Louis may be a hitman, but he's a Continental. He's an aesthete. He's on an existential journey. In the States, he's an Outside Man. He's awash, adrift in a consumerist wasteland of highway cloverleafs and frozen food and prefabricated homes and hot pavement and hazy skies. If Jean-Paul Sartre says, "hell is other people," then THE OUTSIDE MAN has a bolder, more nuanced thesis. It says hell is the Sunset Strip on a Wednesday night. Hell is kidnapping a mother-son duo played by Georgia Engel

and Jackie Earle Haley,

and, even though the Outside Man has the power and the gun, he's the true prisoner, eating TV dinners with them and watching STAR TREK reruns.  Hell is Jackie Earle Haley pouring ketchup all over the TV dinner's mockery of boeuf bourguignon.

Hell is dive bar wine.

Is that Ripple?

Hell is hippie hitchhikers who wind up being closet Jesus-freaks. Hell is itchy wigs. Hell is denim jackets in the summer.

Hell is bus stations.

Hell is smoggy sunshine criss-crossed by power lines and palm trees. Hell is storm drains. Hell is living in a storm drain.

Hell is abandoned lots and crispy, brown, dead grass. Hell is diet Coca-Cola. Hell is this apartment building.

Hell is a gum-chewing Roy Scheider hiding in your shower with a gun. Hell is faux-wood paneling. Hell is that bedspread.

Hell is sun-tanning. Hell is shaving in a public restroom. Hell is using a communal razor in a public restroom. Hell is paying to use a communal razor in a public restroom.

Hell is drive-in theaters in the daytime.

Hell is that shade of orange. Hell is diner coffee that's been left in the pot overnight.

Hell is having nothing to do but watch TV in a shitty motel room. Hell is kidnap victims being saved by the police but first asking, "where are the television cameras?"

Hell is palm trees covered in garbage. Hell is abandoned boardwalks. Hell is getting a splinter from an abandoned boardwalk.

I guess we could just cut to the chase. We could say: "Hell is L.A." We could even say: "More like 'Hell-A,' amirite?" Hey, guys, I didn't say it, THE OUTSIDE MAN did.

The dual cinematographers––Silvano Ippoliti and Terry K. Meade––definitely present an L.A. that's of a piece with the L.A.s of Don Siegel's THE KILLERS or John Carpenter's THEY LIVE. There is a lot of nice, surreal imagery with a workmanlike finish, even if it's ugly as sin. After watching this film for an hour and forty-five minutes you feel like you've lived your entire life out of anonymous motel rooms with ceilings yellowed by cigarette smoke. You can't remember what air smells like without a soupçon of exhaust fume. You feel like you're in a parked car on a hundred-degree day without A/C: it's suffocating, and smacks of melted plastic.

On this existential journey, we meet a rogue's gallery of 1970s supporting players, including Umberto Orsini as the late mobster's sleazy son and Angie Dickinson as the mobster's wife (who's possibly making a move from père to fils, if you know what I mean).

They have a pool.

There's Alex Rocco (who seemed to have an entire career based on the fact he played "Moe Green" in THE GODFATHER) doing his mobster schtick

and Talia Shire (!)

This is before she moved to Philly to work at a pet store.

as a winsome mortuary attendant who's on screen for about twenty-five seconds. We have the aforementioned wholesome mother-son team of Georgia Engel and Jackie Earle Haley who seem to have stumbled in from a network sitcom (to great effect).

Finally, there's Ann-Margret as an exotic dancer who, through a series of unimportant events, essentially becomes the Outside Man's sidekick.

Here, Ann-Margret's never quite let "off the chain," so to speak, and thus we are denied an orgy of the amazing, over-the-top acting we know she's capable of (because we saw TOMMY). I'd say that, by and large, the performances (with the exception of Roy Scheider, who is permitted a streak of douchey élan)

are, by design, very static and stilted, almost Bressonian, indicative of the director's vision of America as a colorless, prefabricated consumerist wasteland. However, since we never see Europe in the film and are not afforded the contrast, it's sometimes hard to tell if it's "anti-American," or merely "anti-human."

Also, did I forget to mention that this is––in near-entirety––accompanied by whacka-whacka guitar licks throughout, worthy of a basement porno?

Anyhow, it all ends with a shootout at a church funeral, which definitely gives the whole production that nice post-Melville, pre-John Woo vibe.

I liked this quite a bit, even though I can understand the criticism I've heard, detailing it as a kind of dreary, lifeless slog. Which is kind of the point. Hey, it's all part of the Existentialist experience, man!  Four stars. (And happy existential Fourth of July!)

Television Review: WILD PALMS (1993, Kathryn Bigelow, Keith Gordon, Peter Hewitt, & Phil Joanou)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 300 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (STRANGE DAYS, NEAR DARK), Phil Joanou (THREE O'CLOCK HIGH, ENTROPY), Peter Hewitt (BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY, THE BORROWERS), & Keith Gordon (THE CHOCOLATE WAR, WAKING THE DEAD). Written by Bruce Wagner (NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET III: DREAM WARRIORS, SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS), based off of his comic strip of the same name. Produced by Oliver Stone, Bruce Wagner, and Michael Rauch (POINT BREAK, SUPERMAN, LIVE AND LET DIE). Music by Ryuchi Sakamoto (MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE, THE LAST EMPEROR). Starring James Belushi (THE PRINCIPAL, HOMER & EDDIE), Dana Delany (LIGHT SLEEPER, TOMBSTONE), Robert Loggia (LOST HIGHWAY, SCARFACE), Kim Cattrall (MANNEQUIN, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA), Angie Dickinson (THE KILLERS, BIG BAD MAMA), Ernie Hudson (GHOSTBUSTERS, THE CROW), Bebe Neuwirth (THE FACULTY, GREEN CARD), Nick Mancuso (UNDER SIEGE, STINGRAY), David Warner (TIME BANDITS, THE OMEN), Ben Savage (BOY MEETS WORLD, LITTLE MONSTERS), Bob Gunton (DEMOLITION MAN, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION), Brad Dourif (CHILD'S PLAY, WISE BLOOD), François Chau (Dr. Chang on LOST, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE), Charles Hallahan (THE THING, VISION QUEST).
Tag-line: "Your reality is their business."
Best one-liner: "Babylon has fallen. Let's boogie!"

WILD PALMS is a lurid soap opera, an epic Greek tragedy, and a mesmerizing techno-prophecy, mingled and wired into a jerry-built cyber-apparatus posing as a mini-series. Audiences weren't ready for this in 1993, and they're not ready for it now.




It presents a world in transition– religions, corporations, and governments gradually coalesce into a single body; human brains, oversaturated with sheer data, begin to lose their capacity for an emotional response; pop cultural references become out only 'shared experience' as a society- and our only means of expression. The concept of childhood becomes meaningless- if you want a shot at becoming apuppet master instead of just a puppet, you'd better burst forth from the womb and hit the ground running.

It's the little details that lend the series' vision of the future verisimilitude– male formal wear has reverted to the Nineteenth Century, sixties rock is back in style (the rights to all these songs must have cost a fortune!), and digital fixes (consisting of a steady diet of images) have become the addiction-of-the-month. The brainchild of Robert Wagner, Oliver Stone, and Michael Rauch, and featuring direction from Kathryn Bigelow and Phil Joanou , among others, the series draws equal doses of inspiration from of William Gibson (who appears in a cameo!), TWIN PEAKS, Sophocles, and the Church of Scientology- and somehow emerges with singular, unexpected vision and actual emotional stakes.

The cast is a marvelous, chilling ensemble– James Belushi lends a dazed weight to the proceedings as our overwhelmed hero; a suave Kim Cattrall is done up like Audrey Horne;

Belushi chats with Audrey Horn– I mean, Kim Cattrall.

Robert Loggia exudes teeth-baring vehemence (“They’re trying TO RAPE ME, Harry!”);

Robert Loggia provokes yet another pants-shitting.

a likable Ernie Hudson hallucinates cathedrals, a soothing David Warner sprays Uzi fire; a somber, bedridden Brad Dourif wears a (virtual) powdered wig;

David Warner comforts Brad Dourif.

a bitchy Angie Dickinson delivers believable beatdowns worthy of Joan Crawford;

Angie Dickinson takes it to the next level.

and a pre- BOY MEETS WORLD Ben Savage is a gleeful, sociopathic kiddie. The icing on the cake is a Ryuichi Sakamoto score which you’ll at first deem corny, then magical, and ultimately, bewitchingly, poetic. WILD PALMS is some of the boldest, most expressionistic work television has ever offered and I must wholeheartedly recommend it.


-Sean Gill

Film Review: THE KILLERS (1964, Don Siegel)

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

Loosely- very loosely- based on the Ernest Hemingway short story of the same name, Don Siegel's THE KILLERS was the third filmic adaptation of the work (following in the footsteps of Robert Siodmak and Andrei Tarkovsky), and was intended to be the very first made-for-television movie. Due in part to wanton violence directed toward women, the blind, and the defenseless, THE KILLERS instead made its debut theatrically. Much lambasted by critics- at least in comparison to Siodmak's '46 version- I'm here to give you 16 reasons why THE KILLERS is one of my all-time favorite movies, and is the only one that I can think of where the father of American independent film punches out Ronald Reagan over the honor of the star of BIG BAD MAMA. So without further ado–

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

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

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


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


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



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

More on Clu in a bit.

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

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

LEE MARVIN MIGHT LICK YOUR EAR

Which kind of leads us to–

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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



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


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


And the camera tracks out to reveal:

Gulager and Marvin: bored as shit.

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


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


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


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

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





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


He should've been a school principal.

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


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



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

Amen.

-Sean Gill