but I can safely guarantee a flood of responses if I entitled a thread "Who else loves ecarle?" You'd be welcome with open arms and kisses Hell, I've even given it some serious thought in the past.
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Flattering, but NO, no, please don't do that. I'm low profile. And you just know I'd meet the people who DON'T love me. (As Cheech and Chong said "Nobody loves me but my mama...and she might be jivin' me, too.")
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Pike Bishop is a proud man on the way down -- and at the time, so was William Holden, a bit(he would always be rich and famous, but he was aging out of his top stardom.)
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Exactly. It's that magical meeting of actor and character that just doesn't happen often.
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Yes. Holden was perfect. And its interesting. The Wild Bunch got its greenlight as a "Lee Marvin vehicle" and was in danger of getting cancelled when he quit. Peckinpah got studio backing to find a "bankable old time" actor for Pike, and sent the script to lots of them: Burt Lancaster, Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston and/or Jimmy Freakin' Stewart got the script(my hidden favorite, Richard Boone, too, though he would not have fit and really wasn't a big enough name.) But William Holden was on the list, and for my money, it HAD to be him. In the 1950's, Holden was slightly bigger box office than all the guys above, and he DID do Westerns, but his claim to fame was as the "handsome but cynical loser type" in movies like Stalag 17, Picnic, Bridges of Toko-Ri and, of course, Sunset Boulevard. Holden brought his whole past with him to Pike Bishop and was great. He was also TERRIFYING in his first line: "If they move, kill 'em." The growl with which he said that line said: this man is a killer.
Note in passing: Ernest Borgnine's "Wild Bunch" character, Dutch, was written in the script as a young man who looked up to Pike as a father. But the producer DEMANDED that his pal Borgnine get the role, so Peckinpah re-wrote it and made Pike and Dutch "peers" --- almost lovers when they die together (but there is also the love story twixt Pike and Ryan's Deke...)
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On the other hand, I think Marvin would have been fun enough as Quint in Jaws, but the situation played out and it is very hard to imagine anyone other than Robert Shaw.
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If I were giving out all-time Oscars, I wouldn't hesitate in awarding Shaw for Best Supporting performance.
Me, too. Maybe Best Actor, though I expect Nicholson would have beat him anwyway.
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He's so good here, it's blasphemy for me to even consider somebody else in the part. So to ruminate on Marvin in the role, I have to pretend for a second that Robert Shaw never existed. If that's the case, then yes, I do concede that Marvin would have been a riot as Quint. Was it Marvin or [Christopher] Lee that snobbishly turned the part down? I'm thinking Lee; Marvin's biggest objection was other commitments, if I recall correctly.
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Indeed, we'd have to imagine that Shaw never existed. I think that Marvin had room in his schedule, but just didn't "see" "Jaws" as a Lee Marvin type of movie. Second choice was Sterling Hayden(the durable 50's actor who'd recently done The Godfather and was famous as General Jack D. Ripper) but he had tax problems and couldn't leave France for the U.S. Robert Shaw got Quint because he'd played Lonnigan in The Sting for Jaws producers Zanuck and Brown. Shaw got Lonnigan because first choice Richard Boone turned it down. So...Richard Boone got Robert Shaw cast as Quint.
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As far as Marvin's spectacular 60s run, you can't exclude The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance!!! I think that's what REALLY kicked things into gear for Marvin.
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True, but I see "Valance"(despite Marvin having the title role, hah) as one of the last of his "supporting performances" -- you know, the ones where he almost stole the movie from the stars.
In the early sixties, Lee Marvin did that again(Liberty Valance) and again(Donovan's Reef) and again (The Killers.) It was "ready" for him and "Cat Ballou" did it -- in a comedy role turned down by Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and Richard Boone among others!
In passing: I always note that in the sixties, two rather different character actors -- Lee Marvin and Walter Matthau -- became stars pretty much exactly the same way: as "supporting actors" they started becoming more interesting(or at least AS interesting) as the stars they were supporting. Marvin and Matthau each needed a movie to "make them a star" and they got it -- and Oscars -- a year apart: "Cat Ballou" for Marvin and "The Fortune Cookie" for Matthau(he won Best Supporting Actor, but everybody saw him as a lead.)
In Lee Marvin's case, I believe he actually needed to get older and his prematurely white hair helped eliminate a "stupid simian look" that impacted his fifties suppoprting parts. Simply put: Lee Marvin got old and got handsome and got the leads.
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I pondered buying The Comancheros today, which I've never seen; interesting how he made 3 movies, 1 per year, with Wayne and then never worked with him again.
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Marvin is interesting in that movie; he's not in it very long and he elects to wear his hair with a huge part of his scalp "carved out." Its a make-up effect(his character was scalped by Native Americans), but its rather hard to stomach. Still, the movie lights up while Lee Marvin is in it...and never really recovers once he is gone.
One clue on Wayne and Marvin not working together again:
Howard Hawks gave an interview where he said Marvin approached him about directing the serious Western "Monte Walsh"(1970) and Hawks said Marvin said, "Now I don't want this to be like a cliche John Wayne Western" and Hawks laid into Marvin: "You don't have anything on John Wayne and you should be proud if this IS like a John Wayne Western and I'm not directing it!"
So....
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Haven't seen Paint Your Wagon, and to be honest, I don't have much desire to.
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And you see? That's why it has a "bomb" reputation and helped cripple Lee Marvin's star career. I think the scenery is beautiful, the cinematography is rainy and moody, the songs are rousing or pretty...and the plot stinks. And the movie is way too long. Also, Clint Eastwood doesn't do anything. "Paint Your Wagon" works better as a "Soundtrack CD." BUT: Lee Marvin really is great in it, so funny.
There's this one line that Marvin delivers so well, to a fresh-faced young man who reveals he is a virgin:
Marvin: Wait, wait. You're not telling me...you've never been with a woman?
Young man: No, sir.
Marvin: (With a look of shock, horror, disbelief, sadness) Why, why...why..that's TERRIBLE!!!
I laugh just thinking of how "method" Marvin's pain was in that line.
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A violent "Kansas Gangster" thriller called "Prime Cut" interestingly pitted Marvin against NEW middle-aged star Gene Hackman, but the movie was poorly made and shot(surprisingly, by Michael Ritchie.)
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Prime Cut is such a weird beast of a movie that we really need to devote an entire thread to it. I disagree with your assessment, however; the pairing of Marvin and Hackman is just too delicious to ignore (even if the latter is underused), while the oddly beautiful compositions, wacky scenarios, and cultural mishmash (east meets, well, mid-west) make for a surreal gangster tale and bizarrely entertaining experience. I often pull my DVD off the shelf just to reassure myself that yes, some brilliant mind actually gave this project the go-ahead. It's one of the "lost" treasures of 1970s cinema.
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Ya got me! I haven't seen Prime Cut since it came out. I remember the posters seemed to promise "North by Northwest meets the Godfather" what with the cornfield action, but the movie was seventies gritty and weird and -- to my memory at least, poorly filmed given that Michael Ritchie turned in the neat and clean "The Candidate" the very same summer of 1972.
But I'm always open to reopening my views. And hey, I RAN to see that movie! It was Lee Marvin versus Gene Hackman, for gosh sakes(and Hackman had months before won the Oscar for French Connection.)
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Emperor of the North is another miracle. Marvin against frequent co-star/fellow he-man actor Borgnine in a brawny, bloody, yet "thinking man's" action yarn set against the backdrop of the Great Depression? I nearly fell out of my chair when this movie's existence reached my cerebral cortex. You're right about its "aging male stars", and I'll do you one better: The picture is so unique and precious because it features two great stars of a bygone era, in a story which takes place in a long-ago chapter in American history, made with the verve and edginess that characterized 70s cinema.
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Nicely put. Miracle A: it was made at all (even in 1973 I think it was a risk.) Miracle B: we can still watch it today, when there's NOTHING out there like it.
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For Borgnine's birthday, I started a "Top 10 Ernie movies" in honor of the big man, and almost every list included Emperor of the North. I think it makes for a great double-bill with another Depression-era flick from that same time period headlined by several similar stars, Hard Times.
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Hmmm:
Emperor of the North: Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine
Prime Cut: Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman
The Poseidon Adventure: Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine
Death Hunt: Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson(no wait, Bronson got top billing this time)
Hard Times: Charles Bronson and James Coburn
Bite the Bullet: Gene Hackman and James Coburn
Connections, connections. Well, they are all "he-man" movies for one thing. Even "Poseidon" in its own way.
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I concur re Martin Sheen, but disagree about Apocalypse Now; if anything, I feel he was the best part of that movie (which has never been my favorite, mind you) outside of Coppola's artistic virtuosity. If motivated, one could probably make the argument that Sheen works so well BECAUSE of his relative blandness; he's an automaton carrying out the will of his bureaucratic master.
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Well, OK. Let's just say Sheen "served the material," especially in his weird hallucinatory opening scene. And I remember reading something scary: Martin Sheen at age 30-something had a heart attack early in the filming of AN. A heart attack! But he recovered and kept filming. And all those big stars thought: "I'm sure glad I didn't accept that role."
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You mentioned Scheider, who flourished in the 70s. What a career he had that decade, eh? And yet, you'd probably be hard-pressed to pin-point just what his distinguishing traits were. I think he brought an "everyman" quality to his roles that made him likeable in addition to believable.
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Roy Scheider kind of slogged along and got his first break with "The French Connection." He treaded water for a few years("The Seven Ups" was a decent Conenction sequel of sorts) and then landed the big one: "Jaws."
He certainly had an "Everyman" quality, but also a good mixture of the tough(incredibly muscular wiry body) and the vulnerable. Always remember that Charlton Heston campaigned to play Chief Brody in "Jaws." Imagine if THAT happened. Funny thing, though: Spielberg wanted a funny, quirky actor named Joseph Bologna for Chief Brody. Universal didn't want him. Good luck for Roy!
And MORE luck a few years later, when Richard Dreyfuss walked on "All That Jazz" and Roy Scheider -- MUCH better cast as a wiry dancer than the pudgy Dreyfuss -- got his best role, ever.
In between, Roy Scheider turned down playing the villain in Hitchcock's Family Plot to do a virtual "cameo" in the much bigger Marathon Man. Even this Hitchcock fan believes that Scheider made the right call.
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Since the bulk of this was about Marvin, I think it's only appropriate to end there. This is especially fitting, because it entails what was touched on earlier. I have a pretty large thread going on at the CFB about a particular favorite movie of mine that both Bronson and Marvin made in the twilight of their careers, called Death Hunt. I invite you to share your thoughts about that special flick over there, ecarle, as I would consider it something of an honor. If you've vacillated in the past about posting there, perhaps this is the perfect opportunity! If not, I understand, and I'd still like to see your thoughts posted here. Here is the link: http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000010/nest/194184939
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Well, I will come over there, that I can now promise. I saw Death Hunt many years ago and I can't remember it clearly other than its "weirdness" with that mountain man killer taking people out as Bronson gets hunted. I'd have to rent it again before I could participate, but I will try. I have two anecdotes I will share here:
In "The Dirty Dozen," Lee Marvin has top billing and Charles Bronson is behind him(and the only survivor of the actual Dozen at the end.) In "Death Hunt," I do believe that Bronson gets the top billing.
Lee Marvin gave a funny interview for "Death Hunt," indicating that he was one of the few actors who could give the prickly Charles Bronson "a bad time." Marvin said something like "Yeah, I was sitting with Charlie in a bar the other day and he's telling people how he worked in the coal mines and I couldn't take it and I said "Charlie that was 50 years ago when you were a kid and you've been rich for 20 years and haven't been NEAR a coal mine! But keep milking it!"
So anyway, I'll try to participate....
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SeanJoyce
13 years ago
Thanks for the reply ecarle. And you don't have to worry about me dedicating a thread to you over at the CFB, lol.
Do you have any idea what happened to joekiddlouisechama?
I know that you're quite the Richard Boone fan. I have to admit to never having seen Hombre or Big Jake; along with The Shootist (which I have seen, and love), I understand that Boone solidifies himself as one of the screen's greatest villains with those films.
That's fascinating to me that Boone was the first choice to play Doyle Lonnegan. Again, I'd hate to think about replacing Shaw. He was such a unique, talented, and entertaining actor...one of my personal favorites. I love The Sting, and Shaw's a part of all that.
But I imagine that Boone would have been terrific. Any idea why he would turn down such a promising role? Boone has his fans, but he never quite "made it", wouldn't you you say? A t.v. show that did okay and some juicy supporting parts, but he never became a "big star". By the time The Sting rolled around, it was probably too late at that point to worry about it. Still, the team of Hill-Newman-Redford was a bonafide recipe for success. Boone may have possibly been able to snag a nomination. I love the way Shaw underplays it...quiet, controlled menace that you know has the potential to explode any moment. Still, perhaps the character is TOO controlled. We don't see the character really "react" beyond his vexation with Newman in the poker game. I could see Boone playing the part "bigger", which may or may not have been better for Lonnegan.
Monte Walsh is one of those Marvin movies I only recently found out about. I can't wait to see him and Palance saddle up for as aging cowpokes. And Jeanne Moreau!
re Bronson and Marvin, I've read that Marvin's errant drinking on the set of The Dirty Dozen got so bad that Bronson had to be restrained from hitting him. I wonder if that's true. Marvin also reportedly angered one-time co-star Lancaster on the set of The Professionals, who was incensed at Marvin's lack of, well, professionalism. That's surprising to me, since the two had such great onscreen chemistry, I assumed they did most of it drunk, together. The Professionals is a damn fine western, and it makes one wish that Lancaster and Marvin teemed up more.
Is it true that his proclivity for drink was so strong that Ford tried to get all of his shooting done before noon so Marvin could hit the closest watering hole?
Amusing, but also sad. If you do watch Death Hunt, take note of how haggard and beyond-his-years Marvin appears in the early scenes. He wasn't far from his death when he made it.
I'm not sure if you can easily procure a copy of Death Hunt; I don't want you to go to a lot of trouble. It just would tickle me to have your esteemed opinion about a film I cherish, in a thread I created...over at CFB no less!
I also encourage you to take another look at Prime Cut. In addition to everything that has already been said, it was Sissy Spacek's debut. Shots of city-slicker gangsters strolling through billowing fields of wheat, or engaging in fire-fights at a fairground or in a sunflower patch, stick with ya. Again, it's a strange animal, but one that works.
"...if that was off, I'd be whoopin' your ass up and down this street." ~ an irate Tarantino
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ecarle
13 years ago
Do you have any idea what happened to joekiddlouisechama?
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'fraid not. It was a scholarly and intense time when he was here. Maybe...like many a Clint Eastwood character(and he loved Eastwood)...he'll ride back in.
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I know that you're quite the Richard Boone fan. I have to admit to never having seen Hombre or Big Jake; along with The Shootist (which I have seen, and love), I understand that Boone solidifies himself as one of the screen's greatest villains with those films.
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I post extensively on Boone at his board. My "love affair" came as I realized how often, when I saw him in a film from the 60's or 70's, his funny-menacing charisma literally blew me away.
Boone's record of service is very narrow to me: a group of movies from 1964(Rio Conchos) to 1979(Winter Kills). And that's about it. Boone rarely got the lead in those movies. Usually, he was asked to be the villain -- he could be a GREAT villalin. But sometimes, he could be a pretty good good guy.
In fact, his claim to fame was AS a good guy -- Suave "man in black" Paladin on "Have Gun, Will Travel." I've watched many episodes of that series and while Boone is formidable in them...I think the episodes are too short and trite to really "show him off." Also, in his "fifties movies," Boone relies too much on his booming voice and menacing manner. "Something magical" happened around 1964, as Boone discovered the joy of a new vocal cadence and how to use his pointing-fingers for emphasis. Boone just suddenly became more fun and witty. Its kind of like how Al Pacino went from quiet brooder to screaming "Hoo-a" ham.
A quick run of the best Boone movies and why:
Rio Conchos: Four men on a mission. Two are cool and shady(Boone and suave Mexican Tony Franciosa.) Two are straight arrow Cavalry men(Stuart Whitman and NFL star Jim Brown..The Dirty Dozen was NOT his debut.) Boone has one of his rare top-billed roles here...and he owns it.
Hombre: He dominates as the bandit leader who robs a stagecoach and leaves the occupants stranded. Laconic Paul Newman and Boone trade some of the greatest dialogue ever in their final, bitter showdown.
Night of the Following Day: A mess of a movie kidnap thriller, but Boone's real-life pal Marlon Brando(as slimmed down as he would ever be; handsome) and Boone have some improv dialogue that reflects "two masters slumming." Those scenes can't HELP but be good. Brando let Boone direct most of this movie after firing the director. Boone had replied to one of that director's directions thusly: "It makes as much sense as a rat f---ing a grapefruit, but I'll do it."
The Kremlin Letter: John Huston's "R"-rated "spying is a dirty businsess" movie of 1970. The nifty gimmick: Richard Boone leads a bunch of "over the hill gang spies"(George Sanders, Dean Jagger, Nigel Green) who prove to be the most vicious and amoral bunch of "old coots" who ever cowered the Younger Generation. Boone is the amiable good ol' boy worst of 'em. I love: a late scene where Boone tells young star Patrick O'Neal about his plans to travel to Paris. I rewind and watch this scene several times every time it comes on. Its all in Boone's voice, manner, and finger movements.
Big Jake: John Wayne versus Richard Boone in a script partially written by the "Dirty Harry" writers...and it sounds like it, and it came out the same year AS "Dirty Harry." Writes Garry Wills: "Richard Boone is here the greatest villain in any John Wayne movie"(narrowly besting Lee Marvin in "Liberty Valance," so you KNOW he's good.) Wayne and Boone have only two verbal showdowns in this movie -- one in the middle and one at the end -- and they are just "the best of the best." Boone brings Wayne's (limited) game up. Just as he will in The Shootist.
Goodnight, My Love: A 1972 TV-movie that almost plays like a real movie. Big Boone and Little Person Michael Dunn are a Mutt-and-Jeff private eye team in '40's LA. Its a gentle spoof of Bogart with Victor Buono perfect as Sydney Greenstreet(called "Greenway.")
The Shootist: Only two scenes, both great. Boone told the press "I only came(from his home in Hawaii) to do this movie because the Duke asked me."
The Big Sleep: This 1978 remake is derided(the pure-Los Angeles story is moved to LONDON!) but c'mon, Robert Mitchum as Marlowe and Boone as Lash Canino, the Brown Man(aka, The Bad Guy). Mitchum and Boone were like sleepy old warriors in this one, vaguely amused by the retread they are in(with Jimmy Stewart as the Old General with the sexpot daughters.)
Winter Kills: Jeff Bridges has the lead and the cameos of Recent Old-Time Actors is Boundless: Eli Wallach, Sterling Hayden, Toshiro Mifune, Dorothy Malone, Ralph Meeker, John Huston...and Liz Taylor! And Richard Boone. And Anthony Perkins. I'm a Psycho fan. So a movie with Anthony Perkins AND Richard Boone. Color me delirious. (Perkins and Boone share no scenes, alas.)
Odd: very few of these films were big hits or classics, but Boone is great in all of them. Even as he turned down "The Sting," he threaded these good movies with a lot of schlock near the end. There's one called "God's Gun" that he quit before he could do the talk-dubbing. So ANOTHER ACTOR is the voice of Richard Boone in that one. Imagine ANOTHER ACTOR as the voice of John Wayne...no can do.
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That's fascinating to me that Boone was the first choice to play Doyle Lonnegan. Again, I'd hate to think about replacing Shaw. He was such a unique, talented, and entertaining actor...one of my personal favorites. I love The Sting, and Shaw's a part of all that.
But I imagine that Boone would have been terrific. Any idea why he would turn down such a promising role?
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The details (briefly) are in the book by the late producer of "The Sting," Julia Phillips. She said that George Roy Hill really wanted Boone badly to play Lonnigan...and kept beefing up the part in the script. Phillips -- who didn't want Boone -- meanly wrote "Boone was usally too drunk to read the script...but finally said "no."(Pot: black: Phillips had a big drug problem.) Robert Shaw had been "out there for years": the hitman who so fought Connery to the death in "From Russia With Love," the King in "A Man For All Seasons" -- but he couldn't get traction as a leading man. So he took "The Sting"(with the role made better for Boone) and that got him "Jaws" and "Jaws" made him a leading man action star for the rest of the seventies("Black Sunday" is his best of the post-"Jaws" bunch.) Shaw died young of a heart attack. Too much drinking and too many action roles helped. Irony: Shaw's final movie was "Avalanche Express" with...Lee Marvin!
Personally, I think Boone turned down "The Sting" because it had been bad enough sharing the screen with handsome Paul Newman in "Hombre." Now he had to share it with Newman AND Robert Redford?
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Boone has his fans, but he never quite "made it", wouldn't you you say? A t.v. show that did okay and some juicy supporting parts, but he never became a "big star".
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All true. "Have Gun Will Travel" made him rich ("My go to hell money," he called the riches) and allowed him to work for a decade in movies almost exclusively, and always above the title. But he never really clicked as a leading man. I think he had a great smile and a great voice and a strapping body, but his face WAS kind of homely and he gained weight. He was doomed to be a character guy. It is rumored that a controllable love of drink in the 60's became uncontrollable in the 70's.
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By the time The Sting rolled around, it was probably too late at that point to worry about it. Still, the team of Hill-Newman-Redford was a bonafide recipe for success. Boone may have possibly been able to snag a nomination. I love the way Shaw underplays it...quiet, controlled menace that you know has the potential to explode any moment. Still, perhaps the character is TOO controlled. We don't see the character really "react" beyond his vexation with Newman in the poker game. I could see Boone playing the part "bigger", which may or may not have been better for Lonnegan.
I can "hear" Boone saying Shaw's lines in that train scene, and I'm sure he would have been "powerful stuff." Its sort of like Lee Marvin in Jaws. Rather than the better casting that William Holden clearly was than Marvin in "The wild Bunch," I would expect that Richard Boone, Lee Marvin, and Robert Shaw could all have been expected to have made Lonnigan OR Quint their own. Keep in mind, Marvin was too big to support Newman/Redford in The Sting and Boone was probably too "TV" to get Quint --- but all three men would have been fine for these roles. Robert Shaw benefitted in the seventies by being a "new face"; Marvin and especially Boone were almost played out.
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Monte Walsh is one of those Marvin movies I only recently found out about. I can't wait to see him and Palance saddle up for as aging cowpokes. And Jeanne Moreau!
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Its good. Its offbeat. Its realistic. It helped further erode Lee Marvin's stardom, because its no fun at all. Nor is "Pocket Money" with Paul Newman(about which Marvin said, "Its no fun playing the ugly guy.") After that spectacular run of movies in the 60's, Marvin just couldn't catch a break in the 70's. He made TWO movies for...American-International? (Shout at the Devil and Cathouse Thursday, etc.)
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re Bronson and Marvin, I've read that Marvin's errant drinking on the set of The Dirty Dozen got so bad that Bronson had to be restrained from hitting him. I wonder if that's true. Marvin also reportedly angered one-time co-star Lancaster on the set of The Professionals, who was incensed at Marvin's lack of, well, professionalism. That's surprising to me, since the two had such great onscreen chemistry, I assumed they did most of it drunk, together. The Professionals is a damn fine western, and it makes one wish that Lancaster and Marvin teemed up more.
Is it true that his proclivity for drink was so strong that Ford tried to get all of his shooting done before noon so Marvin could hit the closest watering hole?
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I don't know about that with Ford, but I've heard it was the case with Paint Your Wagon. Director Sam Peckinpah was that way, too. Everybody worked hard to get work done before 3:00 because Marvin(on his sets) and Peckinpah(as the LEADER on his sets) usually snuck in drinks from morning through lunch.
I've read that about Marvin being drunk on "Dirty Dozen" and "Professionals" (on which Lancaster was dead sober), and you can add one more: when he staggers out of a house and dies in "The Killers"(1964), his dying stagger is realistic because...he was dead drunk. He had no lines, director Don Siegel just decided to shoot Marvin "as was," telling him to stagger out and fall. Marvin did manage to point his finger like a gun at the cops while dying...
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Amusing, but also sad. If you do watch Death Hunt, take note of how haggard and beyond-his-years Marvin appears in the early scenes. He wasn't far from his death when he made it.
Well, obviously Lee Marvin's drinking was no laughing matter(except on screen in Cat Ballou and Paint Your Wagon), but he had deep-seated reasons for it in his WWII service -- he was wounded and saw many friends die. You raise an interesting point about his deteriorating looks. The "Lee Marvin of the mid-sixties" -- handsome and tan and middle-aged but fit -- deteriorated rapidly as he aged and drink took its toll. By the time he made "Death Hunt," Lee Marvin didn't look like Lee Marvin anymore(for that matter, Charles Bronson didn't look like Charles Bronson, but drink did NOT take him down.)
Its no secret that drink similarly damaged the faces of Richard Boone(already not a very handsome man) and William Holden and "prematurely aged" them. "Rugged" was one thing, but when these male faces became hard to look at(Boone's problem, not Holden's)...career damage was inevitable.
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I'm not sure if you can easily procure a copy of Death Hunt; I don't want you to go to a lot of trouble. It just would tickle me to have your esteemed opinion about a film I cherish, in a thread I created...over at CFB no less!
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Let me see what I can do.
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I also encourage you to take another look at Prime Cut. In addition to everything that has already been said, it was Sissy Spacek's debut.
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I tend to remember certain reviews I read. The Time critic wrote something like: "This is the debut of one Sissy Spacek, of whom one has no hope for a future in movies whatsoever."
I remembered that review when Spacek won the Oscar in 1980 and I actually wrote a letter to the Time critic, including the 1972 "Prime Cut" review. I got a letter back from an Time intern-staffer, not from the critic:
"The critic's job is to go out on a limb, and in Ms. Spacek's case, he obviously fell off."
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Shots of city-slicker gangsters strolling through billowing fields of wheat, or engaging in fire-fights at a fairground or in a sunflower patch, stick with ya. Again, it's a strange animal, but one that works.
As I say, I recall being excited by the "prospect and premise" of "Prime Cut"(gangsters in the fields of wheat) but the execution seems flimsy. Note in passing: shades of "Sweeney Todd" -- Hackman's gangster runs a meat processing plant that converts dead gangsters into sausages.
Like they say "those who like law and sausage should never see them being made."
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