Disc Type

Steve McQueen is one of those actors who will always be an icon of the silver screen and an actor who just personifies cool. The Getaway (1972) is easily my favorite film of McQueen’s. He has several other films one could argue that are “better”, but for me it will always be the Sam Peckinpah classic. Over his career he’s played a variety of roles from being a cowboy, a detective, a race car driver, to a professional thief and so forth, and for the most part I could believe him in all of these roles, but Nevada Smith is the first time I had to put up my hands and just go “are you kidding me?” For some reason they felt the audience would buy that a 35-year-old McQueen could play a 16-year-old half-Native-American character. Now if you can get past that kind of absurd casting and just go into the movie and accept as a western / revenge film, then Nevada Smith is a helluva good time with gunslinging action with beautiful locations and a terrific cast.

The film opens up with Max Sands (McQueen) coming home to discover that his Native American mother and his father have been killed by a trio of men looking to steal some gold.  Max wastes little time to mourn his family as he sets out for revenge, only the trouble is he doesn’t know where to go or even how to shoot. This leads him to encounter Jonas Cord (Brian Keith), who takes pity on Max and decides to train and feed him for a bit. When the two part ways, we can see that Max is a little more prepared to continue his journey for revenge, but is he really able to take a life? The first of the men he encounters is Jesse Coe (Martin Landau), who is a knife expert, and this builds up to an entertaining confrontation and some nice stunt work by those involved. I love that this confrontation didn’t take the typical easy approach and just have the two men square up in the middle of the road and pull guns on each other … Instead we get a shootout, cattle running amuck, and a knife fight, and this is only Max’s first of three major confrontations, so it definitely sets the tone for what is to come, and it doesn’t let the audience down.

When it comes to writing crime, I don’t think anyone has ever done it better than Elmore Leonard.  When you look at his books and you see the number of quality films and TV series that have been adapted from his work, it is pretty impressive. 3:10 to Yuma, Out of Sight, Jackie Brown aka Rum Punch, Justified, Get Shorty … I could keep going, but that’s just a glimpse of what the man is responsible for. I discovered his books in high school, and I have been a fan ever since. When he passed away in 2013, it was a pretty sad day for me. He was an icon and one of my major influences on becoming a writer. So when the chance came along to review the release of the 1986 film 52 Pick-Up, I was more than eager to get my grubby paws on this one. This isn’t my first time watching the film. My first time was back in the 90s when I picked it up on VHS at the local mom & pop video store, but to be fair, I don’t think I’ve seen it again since.

The film starts up simple enough with entrepreneur Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) being blackmailed by three pornographers. They have video of Harry caught in an affair with a young twenty-something girl, and they threaten to hand over the tape to his wife unless he pays the men. It seems simple enough, but when it comes to a story from Elmore Leonard, that magic isn’t so much in the story but in the unique and colorful characters that litter his tales and the directions that he takes them. Sure, you can guess that Harry is going to want to fight back against these blackmailers, but it’s the way he gets them to turn on one another that makes this one a fun one to watch.

Fritz Lang is an iconic Hollywood director who was successful in the silent era and was able to transition and be successful into the “talkie” era. His work in Germany is what he is most known for, Metropolis (1927) and M (1931) but in 1934 he fled Nazi Germany, even after being offered to be the head of the German Cinema Institute and came to America where he signed a contract with MGM studios where his career flourished despite having a reputation for being difficult to work with. He’s a director that if you go to film school you will learn about, and you’ll either appreciate his films or find yourself falling asleep during them.  Despite my appreciation for M and Metropolis, I have to admit I really never explored the filmmaker’s work beyond those films, so when the chance came to check out Human Desire, I was curious to see how it was.

Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) is a Korean War vet who returns home, and the first thing he wants to do is get back to work as a railroad engineer. As he’s getting used to life back home, he’s living with his fellow engineer Alec Simmons (Edgar Buchanan) and his family. Immediately he is reunited with Alec’s daughter, Vera (Diane DeLaire) who apparently has always been infatuated with Jeff, though he always viewed her as a younger sibling … now that he’s back from the war, Vera seems more grown up as well as being more forward with her intentions, but Jeff seems to have other plans. Then there is Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford) who works for the railroad and has a hotheaded temper; this temper of his gets him fired. This brings us to Vicki Buckley (Gloria Grahme), the young and beautiful wife of Carl who may be her husband’s only chance of salvaging his job. Though to get her husband’s job back it means talking to an old family friend, and despite himself, Carl can’t help but get jealous of what his wife may or may not be up to, and his temper once again gets the best of him, and this time it leads to murder on a train.

Here is an interesting tidbit of information I uncovered while researching this film. When the film was initially released it was criticized for the lack of accomplished celebrities in its cast. This carries some serious irony given that the film features the likes of Willem Dafoe, William Petersen, John Pankow, Jane Leeves, and John Turturro, all of whom have gone on to become accomplished actors in their own right. All it took was time. Despite not being considered well known at the time, this was still a movie with great portrayals and snappy quips that made me laugh. In fact, the only thing to rival its story is the real-world implications it had afterwards, which we will get into in a bit. Petersen leads the film as Richard Chance, a Secret Service agent with a reputation for reckless, impulsive behavior, and, unbeknownst to his superiors in the Service, also corrupt. Petersen has his sights set on Dafoe’s Eric "Rick" Masters, a ruthless and skilled counterfeiter in Los Angeles. Though Petersen and Dafoe are the big draws for the film, the film is predominantly told from the perspective of Pankow’s Secret Service Agent John Vukovich, Chance’s partner who acts as the ying to Petersen’s yang. While Chance is corrupt, Vukovich is a by-the-book agent who chafes at the ideal of bending the rules. The dynamic reminds of me the relationship portrayed in Training Day between Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawkes’ characters. I’d go so far as to suggest that this film may have influenced or at least paved the way for that film.

“Make it real.” That was the instruction that director William Friedkin gave to the actors, and I have to say his will was done in everything from the car chase to the sex scenes. For example, Petersen did a lot of his own driving during the car chase sequence, and actor John Pankow's stressed-out reactions were real. Authenticity was clearly the core intent for this film, and it worked. I was leaning in and wrapped up in the action. Additionally, the car chase sequence, in which the final escape by going the wrong way on the freeway, went on to gain quite a bit of prestige. According to my research, that sequence is consistently ranked among the best car chase sequences on film, often appearing alongside The French Connection (another Friedkin directed film), The Seven-Ups, The Blues Brothers, Ronin, and Bullitt.

Safe-cracker John "Duke" Anderson finds himself a relic of different time as he unwittingly enters a world of pervasive surveillance (cameras, bugs, and tracking devices) and attempts his latest caper. Based on the book of the same name, Sean Connery plays Anderson, a recently released convict who is no sooner out of prison than he is already planning his next job: burgling an upper-class apartment building in Manhattan in a single sweep. Now, I am a sucker for a heist movie. Give Ocean’s, give me Inside Man, give me Heat. Catch me in the right mood and I’ll even take Now You See Me or The Italian Job. Bearing that in mind, this film held some intrigue for me, as it featured a character using old-school methods in what was starting to become a digital age. I was curious to see if his old-school methods could overcome the technological advances. However, I will say that in order to be capable of beating the surveillance, you first need to know about it. Fun fact: The Anderson Tapes was the first major motion picture for Christopher Walken, as well as the last on-screen film appearance by Margaret Hamilton.

Connery is obviously the film’s biggest draw, and his character, Duke Anderson, is likeable to a certain extent. He’s charming and clearly capable of masterminding a heist. At times, particularly during the planning stage, the film reminds me of the opening sequences of a Parker novel. This comparison is most notable when Anderson goes in search of financing to bankroll his heist endeavor and putting his crew together. The side deal he makes with his financier also carries a measure of intrigue, because up until this point, I merely thought of the character and the job as a nonviolent endeavor, and yet in this moment, violence became a factor. This ups the stakes, you could say.

Anna May Wong might be one of Hollywood's biggest stars that most film fans have never heard of. Thanks to KL Studio Classics, you now have the opportunity to get to know the actress a little better and sample three of her films. For those of you who take the time to add this to your collection, you won't be disappointed. She's not the kind of name who appears in many conversations these days, but she left behind a body of work that is more impressive than many of the golden era names you do know. Her real name was Wong Liu Tsong, and she appeared in about 50 films from 1920 in the Silent Era until about 1950 when she made her way to television screens for another 16 years, appearing in such hit shows as Mike Hammer with Darren McGavin and I Spy with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. In the Silent Era she was frustrated that she had been typecast in the typical, often stereotypical roles of Asian women and left Hollywood for Europe where she continued to be disappointed. Throughout her career she went back and forth between Europe and America and even toured China for several years. While she fought to get prominent parts, she was often thwarted by her heritage and ended up in mostly budget films throughout her career. But these budget films have found their way back to the surface, and you get to catch three of them here.

"Nobody disobeys me. My word is law. I am king of this river. They are all savages, but they are like little children, and I know how to handle them. I will say, 'I am your king so back to the jungle. Let peace return to the river.'"