Between The Kremlin Letter and Judge Roy Bean -- This?

John Huston was an interesting director.

On the one hand, from way back in the forties and on through the fifties, he developed an "auteur's" reputation that was guaranteed for the ages(and linked to Humphrey Bogart):

The Maltese Falcon
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The African Queen

That's enough right there to be a "great director," but Huston kept on trucking through the fifties(Beat the Devil, Moulin Rouge, Moby Dick) to the sixties(THE Unforgiven, Freud, The List of Adrian Messenger, Reflections in a Golden Eye), on to the seventies(The Kremlin Letter, Fat City, The Man Who Would Be King) and then, in some sort of literary final burst of "back to basics" filmmaking, the eighties , in which Huston could be "a hack for hire"(Annie, Victory) and "an auteur in winter" (Prizzi's Honor, Under the Volcano, The Dead.)

1972's "Fat City" is from a rather fallow period for Huston. He was working steadily but seen as "out of it." I recall "Fat City" getting some great reviews, but a cursory review of the subject matter(down and out boxers in grimy Stockton California) showed that the storyline was depressing indeed. Its about two boxers -- one heading down(Stacey Keach) and one heading up(Jeff Bridges) but neither heading anywhere successful.

I've finally seen "Fat City" 47 years after its release and yeah...its as depressing as advertised. The performance of a rather scary-faced and bizarre actress (Oscar-nommed for this) name Susan Tyrell rather runs the movie...yes, she has some humanity and yes she is sympathetic enough but ultimately she so ringingly transmits the concept of a "alcoholic loser" on screen that you want to look away, even as macho Stacy Keach tries to maintain a loving relationship with her. (An often DRUNK loving relationship, but they arent mean drunks, they're sad drunks.)

Young Jeff Bridges is in it, too. His young boxer is in as depressing a state as Keach's old boxer but I tell you: its almost as if Jeff Bridges doesn't BELONG in this movie; his career was already in great shape as a young man and now we know how successful he has been for decades and he just doesn't "compute" as the Young Loser who will replace Keach's Old Loser(who is pegged at age 30!)

As to my OP...I have great regard for the movie that John Huston made before this one -- by two years, but it was the "one before" -- which was the all-star Kremlin Letter, with boisterous Richard Boone leading a team of merciless " over the hill gang" spies who would stop at nothing in their quest for intelligence data. The Kremlin Letter in its own way is as grim as Fat City.. but its "own way" includes gorgeous widescreen Cinemascope views of European locales, a cast of wily talents(Boone, Orson Welles, George Sanders, Nigel Green) and a certain weird "big movie" feeling even if the content is heavily downbeat.

With "Fat City," John Huston became a chameleon and traded in the "big movie" cinematography of The Kremlin Letter for "standard issue semi-documentary 1970's cheapness." In this regard, "Fat City" looks much like Peckinpah's "Junior Bonner"(a Steve McQueen rodeo picture) released the same summer as "Fat City." Were these guys all comparing notes? The Arizona small towns of Junior Bonner match up well to the Stockton , California of Fat City -- and in both locales, men damage their bodies for some glory and a little cash. Ride a bull. Beat another man senseless. Earn a living.

Still, Junior Bonner managed to be funny, warm and upbeat. Fat City is none of the above. I realize that got it some great reviews in 1972 -- but I only want to see it once.

And this: with Fat City out of the way in the summer of 1972(and making no money), John Huston moved on to release a "for hire" movie at Xmas 1972 called "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean," with Paul Newman starrily leading a large cast of folks like Anthony Perkins and Jaqueline Bisset in a violent Western fable. Rather as with "The Kremlin Letter," John Huston trying to make a commercial property with a major star(Newman) in the early 70's just didn't work right. Fat City was likely more where his head was at, back then. Bonus, though: "Fat City" star Stacy Keach shows up for a hilarious cameo in Judge Bean as an albino gunslinger out to kill the Judge -- how he DOESN'T kill the judge is pretty damn funny. So two Keachs in two Hustons in one year.

All by itself, "Fat City" is proof positive that John Huston could make a "grim 70's downer movie" with the rest of them. With the bigger but weirder "Kremlin Letter" and "Judge Roy Bean" on either side of it, one realizes: Huston had no business getting hired to make "commercial" movies by Hollywood. He was his own offbeat rebel, marching to his own downbeat drum.

And yet Huston worked forever, year in and year out, regardless of box office. It pays to be hip and loved in Hollywood...