Point Blank

 

Director John Boorman

Lee Marvin with the director

Marvin with Angie Dickinson

Lee Marvin

Marvin and his girlfriend, Michelle Triola, with Boorman

POINT BLANK           A                                                                                                         USA  (92 mi)  1967  ‘Scope  d: John Boorman

Lee Marvin got his start playing heavies, routinely cast in the role of villains, soldiers, or hard-as-nails tough guys, perhaps matching that rugged, granite-chiseled face that looks like it’s been around the block a time or two and seen things, a former WWII marine, wounded in action in the Pacific when most in his unit were wiped out, receiving a slew of medals and awards, but midway through his career he started playing rough and tumble good guys, continually growing in popularity, so by the time he made this film he was a bonafide star.  With that came surprising autonomy in the granting of certain provisions from the MGM studio heads, where his contract gave him “script approval, cast approval, and approval of the key crew,” deferring unprecedented creative control to young British director John Boorman, who he had met in England while shooting THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967), yet maintained a central role in the film’s development, plot, and staging.  What attracted them both to this film is the unstoppable force of the central character of Walker, played by Marvin, a master thief who goes up against the mob, or the Organization, in trying to get money back that was stolen from him after he was left for dead, originating as Parker in this adaptation of the 1962 crime noir pulp novel The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake, writing under the pseudonym of Richard Stark, the first of more than a dozen novels written around that same character.  Adapted by screenwriter Alexander Jacobs, reworking what was already written by David and Rafe Newhouse, Boorman and Marvin have transformed what might otherwise be second rate material into a cinema cult classic in this heist gone wrong movie, an absurdist neo-noir crime thriller with links to such classic noir characters as Robert Ryan in On Dangerous Ground (1952) and Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past (1947), and perhaps even his own role in THE KILLERS (1964), yet told with deliberately disjointed scenes and a brightly colorful visual style that alters the look of all the other crime movies which are typically dark and shadowy.  Ostensibly a revenge film replete with French New Wave aesthetics, told in a highly subjective yet non-linear style with plenty of flashbacks, jump cuts, slow motion, and a constantly shifting timeline where the present tense remains ever elusive.  An unorthodox, avant-garde editing technique also completely transforms a standard-issue, B-movie gangster story into a jagged kaleidoscope of narrative ambiguity, a jigsaw puzzle of disconnected memories reverberating through Walker’s brain, using virtuoso technical bravado to flood the screen with mysterious dreamlike imagery and various pop art color schemes, Walker Coming For You | Point Blank | Warner Archive YouTube (1:38), amplifying the sounds of his footsteps when Walker arrives at the airport, even after the scene ends, building tension while creating a blurred sense of reality, shot by Philip H. Lathrob, a camera operator in Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), making impressive use of “Scope compositions, using remarkably little footage, accentuating changing rhythms and off-kilter angles, often stopping in the middle of a shot, making it all but impossible for the studio to re-edit differently (as was their reputation), contrasting long and slow passages with sudden outbursts of violence that continually keep viewers on edge.  With Marvin, minimal dialogue suited him best, often resorting to none at all, instead simply lurking in the shadows, or sitting stupefied on a sofa or in a corner, completely exasperated and emotionally spent by the taut intrigue from the accumulating tension of the circumstances, with an expressive face and restless yet contained energy, ideally suited for this offbeat existential thriller that feels timeless, but was not a box-office success when it was released, yet has elicited volumes of critical praise ever since, now considered one of the seminal films of late 1960’s American cinema.  The film bears a similarity with the existentialist, avant-garde style of Arthur Penn’s Mickey One (1965), an obscure yet utter revelation in experimental modernism, going even further into the extreme than this film, yet made several years earlier, while Clint Eastwood copied the formula of an avenger returning in a quasi-supernatural form in two of his westerns, High Plains Drifter (1973) and PALE RIDER (1985).

Subject to multiple interpretations, exploring the systematic bureaucracy and depersonalization of crime, a nihilistic sense of despair, while also offering a profound meditation on trauma, the film thrives simply by the force of what appears onscreen, among the most extraordinarily bleak visions of Los Angeles, in particular, rivaling The Long Goodbye (1973), CHINATOWN (1974), Blade Runner (1982), The Limey (1999), which certainly emanates from this film (Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967) and The Limey - Simon's ...), or MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001), becoming an integral character in the story, relocating much of what in the book took place in New York to Los Angeles, with its vibrant sense of artificiality and empty sterile space.  According to Thom Andersen in his illuminating cinematic essay Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), “People who hate Los Angeles love Point Blank.  British director John Boorman managed to make the city look both bland and insidious.”  The film is littered with used car dealerships, strip malls, parking garages, and a maze of concrete landscapes, like the concrete pillars beneath the Four Level Interchange and the now demolished Sixth Street Viaduct overlooking the drainage canals of the Los Angeles River, reduced to just a trickle, standing in stark contrast to the glass and concrete of the towering downtown skyscrapers, often shot from oblique angles, with modern architecture contributing to a coldly oppressive atmosphere, providing a brutal backdrop to Walker as a phantom haunting the underworld, wandering around a wasteland as if stuck in purgatory, a netherworld Terminator trying to understand his place in this constantly shifting, labyrinthian environment that devours human souls.  Walker is one of those Mephistophelian characters that seems to have made a pact with the devil, as his mere existence is suspect, turning this into a ghost story, an avenging angel demanding retribution for past sins, brutally shot by his treacherous business partner Mal Reese (John Vernon) after ambushing a mob helicopter drop on a deserted Alcatraz Island (the first film to shoot on location there after the prison closed in 1963), with Reese greedily taking his partner’s share of $93,000 in order to pay off the $150,000 he owes in mob debts, crawling his way back into respectability, taking Walker’s wife in the process, Lynne Walker (Sharon Acker), while a bullet-riddled Walker is left for dead in an abandoned prison cell, Point Blank (1967) -- (Movie Clip) Open, How Did I Get Here? YouTube (3:01), where his initial comments of “We blew it” echo a prominent fatalistic theme resonating at the end of Easy Rider (1969).  Exhibiting sustained brilliance in the opening sequence, revealed through fractured imagery, like a series of jarring, reassembled memories, with jazzy, melancholic music by Johnny Mandel, Point Blank (1967) -- (Movie Clip) Battle Of Alcatraz - TCM YouTube (3:32), the indestructible Walker rises from the dead, crawls out of his cell, climbs over the high barbed-wire fence, and miraculously swims his way to shore, a Herculean feat rarely, if ever, accomplished even under the best of circumstances.  Juxtaposed against this momentous opening sequence is a sight-seeing boat tour of Alcatraz with a fully healthy Walker onboard with Yost (Keenan Wynn), another enigmatic figure, not exactly friends, but together they scour the criminal underworld for unfinished business, with the tour revealing the perilous nature of the freezing water and deadly currents that deter anyone from even trying to swim ashore, with the tour guide suggesting there is no conclusive evidence that anyone has ever made it to the mainland.  In reality, there is only one instance of a successful prisoner escape by swimming, John Paul Scott in 1962, yet arrived on the shore so thoroughly exhausted that he was left unconscious, only to be resuscitated by police and immediately rearrested, Escapes from Alcatraz Gallery: Escape No. 14 - SFgenealogy.  Curiously, despite stalking a host of mob figures, Walker never kills anyone onscreen, yet people around him die under mysterious circumstances, none with more eerie calm than his ex-wife Lynne, resurfacing in Los Angeles in search of Reese, shooting up the bedroom mattress, only to find he’s not in it, collapsing in a disappointed heap afterwards, where the room furniture has mysteriously disappeared, with his wife narrating the scene in a long, extended monologue without a trace of emotion, as if speaking to herself with a sense of final resignation, committing suicide by sleeping pills in the other room while the unsuspecting Walker broods about what might have been. 

Walker is a no-nonsense figure who only asks direct questions while searching for information, going through the ranks of mob figureheads, usually breaking into a room unannounced, taking someone completely by surprise, strong-arming them into confessing what they know, refusing to leave until they spill the beans, yet his often wordless manner completely transforms the figure of a gangster, deriving a certain amount of black humor in his old-fashioned, brutish antics, a lone wolf up against an entire organization, where these mobsters aren’t as much surprised that he was able to breach their security as they are bewildered and positively astonished that anyone would still resort to such reckless daredevil tactics over such a measly sum.  Angie Dickinson made three movies with Marvin and has a prominent role as Lynne’s attractive sister Chris, clearly exuding sexuality, owner of a nightclub that was previously run by her husband, the love of her life, wiped out in a disagreement with the mob, yet still runs the place to make a living, making regular payments to the mob as the price of doing business, so there is plenty of instilled resentment that Walker cleverly utilizes to his own advantage, flushing out the whereabouts of Reese, who is protected like Fort Knox in the Penthouse Suite of the Huntley House in Santa Monica, but Walker stealthily finds an opening, Point Blank (1967) -- (Movie Clip) Men Everywhere - TCM  YouTube (2:54).  Infuriated that he is void of emotion and won’t give up on his robotic quest, Chris furiously beats him on his chest until collapsing from sheer exhaustion, turning on all the modern electrical appliances in the kitchen, voicing her displeasure over an intercom like the voice of the omnipotent, believing it’s only a matter of time before he gets killed, that he’s living like he’s already dead, lee marvin vs. angie dickinson YouTube (4:18).  This was the same home rented by the Beatles in 1966, located at 7655 Curson Terrace in Beverly Hills.  Blending the past, the present, and the future, the film is an amalgamation of Walker’s troubled memories, constantly referred to as already being dead, repeating the ominous opening shot sequence multiple times lest we forget, yet his obsession with righting past wrongs adds a kind of fantasy, wish-fulfillment twist, where violence is a conditioned reflex that seemingly justifies his overall ruthlessness, lost to himself and all that remains human, having no other recourse, where obliterating all obstacles in seeking justice is the only thing that matters.  Walker is a destructively amoral force conjured up to even the playing field, joining the ranks of all the rest of us seeking answers for having been burned or cheated by capitalism running amok, by the standard cutthroat tactics of a ruthlessly corrupt government or big business, which we are powerless to stand up to, overwhelmed by all their contemptible power and monetary advantages that allows them to routinely step on and ignore the little people.  Walker is the spirit of retribution, a symbol of our times, constantly questioning his own understanding of reality, finding a glaring contradiction between who we are and who we pretend to be.  Throughout the film various mobsters are disguised as respectable members of the community, just a cover for money laundering and nefarious other sleazy business practices that allow them to routinely swindle the public.  Keenan Wynn’s Yost may be the most devious surprise, as we’re led to believe he’s a federal agent of some sort with acutely reliable inside information, perhaps in on the scheme to track these mobsters down as there is insufficient evidence to prosecute, yet it turns out he’s also Fairfax, the man who writes the checks, deeply embedded into the hierarchy of the mob’s organizational structure with his own ambitious designs on taking over, using Walker to do the dirty work for him, leaving audiences in a moral quandary, as everything we’ve been led to believe is turned upside down.  Under the illusion of free will and the American Dream, we are all trapped under the thumb of doing the bidding for some faceless disreputable force that can only maintain their power through deception, misdirection, and invisibility.  No good guys, no bad guys, all in the same boat, where the entire systematic structure is rotten to the core, as organized crime continues to be embedded into the sanctuary of everyday ordinary life.  Like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956), you can’t get rid of them, as they’re literally everywhere living under a carefully protected façade of legitimacy.  Self-deception may be our greatest weakness, where the medium is the message, and who among us can see through the all the layers of manufactured illusion and camouflage to get at the truth?  And what is the truth?  These kinds of unanswered existential questions lie at the heart of this boldly innovative film, asking just who we truly identify with.        

'Point Blank': John Boorman's Amalgamation of American ...   Koraljka Suton from Cinephilia & Beyond

My Darling Clementine

 

 

 

John Ford on the set with Henry Fonda (left) and Cathy Downs

 

MY DARLING CLEMENTINE           B+                                                                                   USA  (97 mi)  1946  d:  John Ford

What kind of a town is this, anyway?  A man can't get a shave without getting his head blowed off.      —Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda)

Coming immediately after the end of WWII, Ford chose an avenging angel picture to mirror the sacrifices made during the war, using Henry Fonda as the moral conscience of Wyatt Earp, a stranger just passing through, an ex-marshal come in out of the cold to bring civilization to the lawless town of Tombstone, using unorthodox and perhaps even lawless methods to accomplish the task, but when he leaves just a few days later, the town is a much better place, representing hope and optimism for the future.  This is a conquest of the wilderness film, revealing how the American frontier was founded by overcoming the corruptions of the past, and laying in its place the foundations of civilization and individual liberty.  Americans in the 1940’s lived through a period of great uncertainty, having already survived the tragic economic effects of the Great Depression, now having to survive the trauma of WWII, along with it the horror of atomic bombs and the nightmarish revelations of the Holocaust.  America had not yet developed into the superpower it would become, where there were plenty of fears and anxieties about the future, including an underlying belief that we would have to re-navigate our political traditions and redefine a new road to progress, fueled by the promise of the American Dream.  After experiencing so much devastation and death during the war, Ford wanted to help rebuild America’s belief and confidence in itself and its own history, returning to Hollywood after his stint as a naval officer to make a film about a living legend.  To Ford, who actually met the real Wyatt Earp in his youth, Earp was a frontier figure that helped transform the West, believing progress lay in establishing outposts of civilization that could stand the test of time.  Earp’s authority as a lawman is unprecedented, yet he doesn’t wear a gun, as he mixes easily in the company of the fastest guns, part of the mythical lore of the West, while also enjoying the game of poker, often associated with shady dealers and shifty characters, where villainy rules when it comes to stealing the pot.  To travel so frequently in criminal subcultures makes him the ideal lawman when it comes to instilling moral values and administering justice, though like Ethan Edwards in THE SEARCHERS (1956), he still lives outside the boundaries of civilized life.  The general consensus is that Ford made few films in his career that actually lived up to his own aspirations, with this being one of them, working closely in developing the script with Winston Miller and Samuel G. Engel, adapting the popular 1931 novel Wyatt Earp:  Frontier Marshal by Stuart N. Lake, which offered a historical glimpse of early cattle towns on the Great Plains that helped build the legendary status associated with his name, with Ford claiming this film represents Earp’s version of the gunfight at the OK Corral, the climactic moment of the film.  While it remains among the most critically acclaimed of all Ford’s films, listed as one of the first 75 films ever entered into the National Film Registry, it is firmly rooted in myth, however, suggesting the appearance of these towns popping up across the American West brought civilization and democracy to the American West, pushing aside the amoral primitivism of the lawless frontier, accentuated by an argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in his 1893 Frontier Thesis, which was massively accepted in its time and for more than 100 years after, still not totally discredited, popularized by President Theodore Roosevelt’s celebration of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and artists like Frederick Remington.  Problematically, underneath Turner’s optimism lay racist condescending references to Indian land as a savage frontier, implying Indians are “savages,” yet from an Indian point of view that land didn’t get savage until the arrival of whites.  To the extent that Ford helped perpetuate this racist myth is well documented, as the more developed central characters in his films are always whites, while Indians, Mexicans, or other non-whites are always viewed as a negative counterpoint to the “civilized” white values, using the vast emptiness of Monument Valley, where he shot nine westerns, as a natural backdrop for his untamed frontier. 

There is a natural ease about this film that sets it apart, never in a hurry, quietly contemplative with dark and melancholic themes, and a brooding sadness with the tubercular Doc Holliday (Victor Mature) sensing his own demise, yet its nostalgic, easy going approach makes heavily romanticized jingoistic propaganda feel overly conventional and mainstream, which is precisely Ford’s intent, the template for his future westerns, though it lacks the true urgency and real originality of another Henry Fonda film, William Wellman’s The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), or Ford’s self-reflective film essay The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).  The title, however, makes no mention of frontier violence, instead making reference to a familiar 19th century folk ballad, running as a background score throughout the movie, while also identifying the name of a secondary character who takes on some importance as the film progresses, becoming linked with the town’s future.  Ironically, it’s another song playing in what may be the most beautifully devised and profoundly affecting scene of the film, with a devout rendering of Shall We Gather at the River? playing to the sound of church bells, as Wyatt Earp (Fonda) and Clementine (Cathy Downs) take a long quiet walk to a dance at a church dedication, My Darling Clementine 1946 - a scene from the film ... - YouTube (4:52), with the church becoming a building block for the future, a sign that Tombstone is finally becoming civilized, with this scene representing the heart of a newly established community.  While Ford and his legion of followers like to think of him as a chronicler of authentic Western history, other than the gunfight itself, which did happen (though significantly differently than portrayed), the rest of the film is mythologized and is entirely fictional.  Earp and his brothers were never cattle drivers, as shown in the opening scenes, where a chance encounter on the open plains shows Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan, who ruthlessly beats his sons with a whip, while imposing his will, “When ya pull a gun, kill a man,” suggesting otherwise is cowardice) making an offer on the herd, which Wyatt politely refuses, revealing his intentions to herd them from Mexico all the way to California, while also revealing his intentions to head into the nearby town of Tombstone that evening.  The Clantons take advantage, rustling some of their cattle after murdering the youngest brother James (Don Garner) who was left behind to keep watch, as he was too young and innocent to drink in town.  Unaware of what was transpiring, Wyatt heads into a barbershop for a shave, but gunshots ring out, with the barber running for safety, as a drunken Indian is apparently taking potshots from inside the saloon.  No one from town moves a muscle, so Wyatt takes matters into his own hands, sneaking up from behind and knocking out the perpetrator with a rock, hauling him out of the saloon feet first, railing against anyone who would serve alcohol to an Indian, then kicking the Indian out of town, basically eradicating the threat.  It should be noted that the Indian is played by Charles Stevens, a real-life grandson of Geronimo.  Treating an Indian with contempt is standard operating procedure in John Ford’s Manifest Destiny films, so this is par for the course.  Indians also appear silently, sitting outside the jailhouse or waiting for the stage, hanging around outside the saloon or working at a stagecoach station, while a couple Indians on horseback can be seen riding through the streets during one of Wyatt’s barber visits, all used as props.  Mexicans aren’t treated much differently, viewed as docile and tacitly submissive, with the exception of a firebrand saloon girl who works as a prostitute, Chihuahua (Linda Darnell, who signed a studio contract at the age of 15).  Offered the job as town marshal, Wyatt refuses, heading back to camp where he finds his brother dead (James was actually the eldest brother and lived to the ripe old age of 84), returning the next morning to take the job, deputizing his brothers, hellbent on avenging the death of their brother, with Tim Holt as Virgil and Ward Bond as Morgan Earp.   

The lay of the land reveals two competing forces, the Clanton family, which controls the cattle interest, illegally rustling cattle and then selling them over the border in Mexico, and Doc Holliday, a renowned gunslinger (and dentist, not a physician) who controls the gambling and saloon business in Tombstone, where Wyatt’s relationship to the Clantons is a frosty one, while he attempts to befriend Holliday, but he’s an ornery character who typically goes his own way.  But the dual threats continually operate under the threat of violence, without community input or consent, representing greed and self-interest, neither one figuring into any concept of communal good that Wyatt is trying to achieve.  Part of the overt message of the film comes from a visit by Wyatt to the gravesite of James, just an 18-year old kid who never had the chance to grow up, hell, probably never even had a first kiss.  Wyatt vows to make this a better place in his honor, “When we leave this country, kids like you will be able to grow up and live free.”  Taking on that onus of responsibility turns Ford’s mythical lawman into a legendary cultural hero, which may explain why this is the first film Ford shot entirely in Monument Valley, though it was partially utilized before in Stagecoach (1939), located on the northern Arizona/Utah border, nowhere near Tombstone, Arizona which is closer to the southern Mexican border.  Laying it on rather thick, Ford introduces a Shakespearean actor (Alan Mowbray as Granville Thorndyke, a traveling actor from the East) to Tombstone, a reference to the highest level of sophisticated culture, but he’s hijacked from the theater and is instead holed up in a saloon where’s he’s plied with drinks and expected to perform for the exclusive barroom entertainment of the gun-toting Clantons, who quickly grow bored with him.  When Earp and Holliday rescue him, Holliday completes the infamous Hamlet soliloquy that the actor is too scared to remember, adding an extra dimension of poignancy, with Thorndyke concuding “Shakespeare was not meant for tavern louts.”  Mirroring his visit is an appearance by a young, attractive woman from the East, Clementine, who’s been searching for Holliday.  Despite her best efforts, he orders her out of town, having made his bed with the hysterically jealous Chihuahua, and while there’s forced pressure on her to leave, the church social suggests other options, like becoming the town schoolteacher.  More trouble develops between the Earps and the Clantons, each viewing their personal disagreements as strictly a family affair, allowing no other outside interference, leading to the ultimate showdown.  Removing his marshal’s badge, what transpires is completely outside the law, regressing to the primitive side of the West where a man handles his own business with a gun.  The sequence, shot by Joseph MacDonald, is given a realistic expression, slow to develop, with no intrusive musical score, yet remains decisive in its conclusion, with Wyatt carrying out his mythical destiny, allowing him to wander the ends of the earth afterwards, riding off into the sunset.  Ford has done what he set out to accomplish, which was to provide a heroic savior for a grieving nation, resuscitating valor from the trash heaps of history, but he’d be damned if it had to be true.