Funny/Brutal: Freebie and the Bean Beat Up Whitey(Paul Koslo)
Early in Freebie and the Bean, our two "psycho brute cop buddies" -- James Caan (as Freebie) and Alan Arkin(as the Bean) set out in two scenes to roust a low level crook for information. The crook's name is Whitey and he's played by Paul Koslo, a weird looking young weasel of an actor who played a few roles like this in the 70's. (See: Mr. Majestyk.)
Its two great scenes.
ONE: In the first scene, Freebie and the Bean question Whitey high above San Francisco , on a construction crane at such a height, that on the big screen, you get dizzy watching it and fearful for the actors. Such a flimsy guardrail. Such a long fall.
The setting is too scary and unstable for the two cops to really beat Whitey up, but Arkin does his "crazy cop" routine and suggests that he WILL throw Whitey over the side if he doesn't offer up information. Whitey complies, but not with much. As Freebie and the Bean take the outside construction elevator down, we see a "knowing in-joke" sign: "VERTIGO CONSTRUCTION." Hey there's more REAL vertigo for the audience in THIS scene than in all of Hitchcock's "Vertigo."
LATER: "On dry land," Freebie and the Bean go to Whitey's apartment. When Whitey appears at the screen door, Freebie punches through the screen and knocks Whitey the length of his apartment onto a couch.
Freebie and the Bean enter, and Freebie commences to punching Whitey around hard and often, all around the room. Blood pours from Whitey's nose and marks his face; this is a BRUTAL beating.
And yet, the movie here seems to be SPOOFING the kind of brutality we had seen in The French Connection and (to a lesser extent) in Dirty Harry. Freebie and the Bean practice police brutality as a way of life and of interrogation. They are SO bad...you have to laugh.
Now the scene moves to a "wide Panavision close-up": Whitey is against the wall, screen right. Caan slaps him around as Arkin tries to calm Caan down, pulling him away from Whitey(Caan: I'm sorry, I just go CRAZY.) Caan leaves the shot entirely. Whitey screen right. Arkin screen left.
Arkin: Now can you give us some information?
Whitey: No, I got nothing.
Arkin: (Puckishly) Okay.
Arkin leaves the frame, leaving a nice open space, screen left -- which Caan then fills with his big head -- and the punching of Whitey continues.
When I saw this with a crowd in 1974, there were laughs all through this "beating," but none bigger than when Arkin said 'Okay" and left the frame open for Caan to enter again with more whupass.
Its what you might call "funny/brutal." Maybe "guy's humor." Maybe even a leftover from The Three Stooges.
They punch Whitey onto a couch(the violence is perhaps reduced by the "fake red paint" on Koslo's face in lieu of blood) and Caan moves on to Whitey's newly revealed nude girlfriend in the bedroom behind a curtain.
Arkin works Whitey:
Arkin: I don't know what he's gonna do to her.
Whitey panics.
Caan's voice: Gimme the pliers!
Arkin: (To Whitey) The plliers, he wants the pliers. (Sudden shock) The PLIERS!!
As it turns out , Freebie doesn't hurt the nude girlfriend at all -- though he does tie her up with his belt. 1974 kink.
My point about this scene -- start to finish -- is that today without an audience it may look mean and brutal and violent but...the audience just ate it up. This is the daring of "Freebie and the Bean" and what makes it a cult film.
Plus -- for weeks, months, YEARS -- after my friends and I saw Freebie and the Bean together, someone would always throw out the catchphrase: "The pliers...the PLIERS?!!"
Catch phrase comedy at its best.