Mike's Murder

 

Debra Winger is a great actor that has had a good career when she should have had a much better one. While she has certainly worked with some impressive filmmakers over the years, such as Richard Attenborough, Bob Rafelson, Alan Rudolph, Costa-Gavras, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Jonathan Demme to name a few, most of them are considered minor works at best, and her reputation for being difficult while making movies, including clashing with her co-stars and directors as well as refusing to promote pictures she didn’t like making, may have also hurt her career. The director that understood her the best was James Bridges who directed her in Urban Cowboy (1980), her breakthrough film, and Mike’s Murder (1984). He wasn’t afraid to be challenged by her: “When you work with a nice person, what you get on screen is 'nice' and nothing more. When you work with fire, there's smoke on the screen.”
 
The latter film, in particular, features Winger’s best performance to date, a layered depiction of a woman who discovers that a man she had a brief but passionate affair with wasn’t the man he appeared to be, drawing her into the Los Angeles drug underworld. Bridges adopted a challenging narrative structure that test audiences rejected, which prompted him to recut into a more conventional film where it proceeded to tank at the box office. Mike’s Murder is a haunting character study about a specific time and place that transcends its conventional thriller trappings.
 
Betty Parrish (Winger) has a brief but intense relationship with Mike Chuhutsky (Mark Keyloun), a tennis instructor. Six months later, she runs into him and he admits to being in trouble as he has started dealing drugs to pay the rent. She talks to him again on the phone three months later. They cross paths a couple more times with him wanting to hook up again but each time flakes out. There is something about him that she can’t stop thinking about to the point that she zones out in the middle of conversations with family and friends. Once she learns of his death – from a drug deal gone bad – she speaks to some of his friends and associates to find out what happened and to learn more about him. In the process, she comes to terms with the conflicted feelings she has for Mike.
 

Bridges expertly juxtaposes the mundanity of Betty’s life – she works as a bank teller who takes tennis lessons on the weekend – with the increasingly dangerous life of Mike who rips off high-end drug dealers thereby putting himself in peril. The film starts off with a brief montage of Betty and Mike as we see them laugh and flirt while playing tennis and then cut to them making love in tender slow motion in the shadows that is very film noir-esque. After the opening credits, the tone of the film shifts as we see the Mike narrowly escape retribution for intruding on an established dealer’s turf.
 
The first enigmatic nine minutes of Mike’s Murder show us a lot without telling us much and in doing so pose all kinds of questions. Who are these two people that seem in love and why is one of them in so much trouble? The first question is answered rather quickly while the second question is gradually answered over the course of the film. The questions of why he was killed and who did it aren’t really what makes this film so interesting. It is Betty’s reaction and how she deals with it over time as she tries to figure out what Mike meant to her.
 
Debra Winger is a fascinating actor to watch and director Bridges must’ve thought so, too, building this entire film around her, spending many scenes focused on her character, like when Mike calls Betty up after disappearing for three months. While they are chatting, we see the entire conversation from her side as the camera observes her looking at herself in a mirror. It is an unguarded moment as she is by herself with Mike’s disembodied voice in her ear.
 

Winger delivers a powerful, yet understated, lived-in performance doing an excellent job playing a normal person – not a movie star or a larger-than-life character, but a regular person just getting by like most of us are, day by day. Betty doesn’t have much going on in her life: she has her job and occasionally goes out with one of her co-workers. The actor does an excellent job of conveying a range of emotions with only her face as we see Betty deal with Mike’s death in stages. We see these feelings play across her eyes and it is fascinating to watch. This is particularly evident in the scene where Betty goes to Mike’s apartment to see where he was murdered and the horror that plays over her face is palpable. Part of her didn’t want to know the grisly details but another part of her had to know to get closure. Betty manages to keep it together for most of the day until she gets home and finally breaks down, letting all those pent-up emotions out.
 
Admittedly, Mike’s drug dealing escapades is standard fare seen in countless other movies of its ilk but Bridges handles it well by using very little dialogue in the scene where Mike and his partner-in-crime Pete (Darrell Larson) decide to rip off a high-end dealer, creating an intense scene. Darrell Larson does a fantastic job showing how his character gradually unravels with paranoia thanks to the cocaine he regularly takes and constantly evading the drug dealers he helped rip off. His storyline dovetails with Betty’s in an intense scene where he shows up at her house at night trying to explain himself. Larson delivers his dialogue in an emotional monologue that is insistent and pathetic simultaneously, delivered with sweaty desperation. This frightening encounter gives Betty a taste of Mike’s secret life and the dangerous people that inhabited it.
 
Of the people Betty crosses paths with during her informal investigation, the most notable is Philip Green (Paul Winfield), a record producer who Mike did work for at his home. He’s stand off-ish, at first, only to be somewhat anguished when talking about Mike’s death and then reflective about how they met. It is a wonderfully layered performance by Paul Winfield who makes the most out of his brief screen time.
 

As the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction and this certainly applies to the inspiration behind Mike’s Murder. Bridges and producer Jack Larson knew actor Paul Winfield as he had appeared in plays that both men had done. Through the actor they got to know a friend of his by the name of Mark Bernalack. The character of Mike was based heavily on Mark – both stayed with Winfield, were tennis pros, and ran afoul of local drug dealers resulting in their deaths. Larson said, “Jim was very haunted by it. It was because of how Mark was called a drug dealer in the newspapers. That was very sad to him. The papers portrayed Mark’s murder as if it was a good thing because he was a drug dealer.” It was a personal story for Bridges who had known people killed for dealing drugs in L.A. and it profoundly affected him. With this film he wanted to avoid the usual suspense thriller cliches and portray the city as “a disjointed society by using close-ups to imitate the view from a car.”
 
In early 1982, Bridges originally went to The Ladd Company to pitch another project – Jane Goodall in Africa – and while there he told Alan Ladd, Jr. about his idea for Mike’s Murder. The executive liked it and the title, agreeing to finance the project with a $5 million budget.
 
He wrote the film for Winger and insisted she do it. She remembers, “I had made one of my first left turns out of show business. He wrote this specifically for me to bring me back in and show me how this new ‘independent’ approach was the wave of the future.” She had moved to Cleveland and was in the process of giving up acting. Bridges recognized that it was a challenging role: “It wasn’t filled with a lot of things for an actress to grab on to. I needed someone who had that rare relationship with a camera that allows an audience to see her think.”
 

When it came to casting, Bridges and Larson had trouble finding the right actor to play Mike. They considered Kevin Costner but he was deemed “too old.” Larson’s agent told him about Mark Keyloun. He had done some television and theater work, but when they saw him in a film by long-time friend Paul Morrissey entitled, Forty Deuce (1982), and, after making sure he had chemistry with Winger, he was cast. To keep the costs down and preserve the production’s independence, the cast and crew took a 30% reduction in salary.
 
The Ladd Company liked the film but Warner Brothers not so much. They wanted another Urban Cowboy. The first test previews in Larkspur and Walnut Creek, California in February 1983 were disastrous as Larson remembers, “One guy in the audience stood up in the middle of the film and screamed, ‘This is the worst fucking movie I’ve ever seen!’ It was a wild and chaotic preview. People were very upset by the film, and it is an upsetting film.” Bridges recut the phone sex scene between Betty and Mike that originally showed the latter masturbating while talking to the former. Not surprisingly, this made test audiences uncomfortable and they reacted negatively to it.
 
According to Larson, Bridges re-edited “the ghastly murder sequence of Mike in the film and how Debra imagines that she sees them together in his apartment after he’s been murdered. Originally, Debra imagined them nude together in his apartment.” The film was restructured from the original version that was subjective in nature, focused on Betty’s point-of-view, to a more objective, chronological story. In addition, Bridges was allowed to film more scenes with Pete who was originally a “peripheral” character. In restructuring the film, Bridges removed singer-songwriter Joe Jackson’s score and replaced it with a more traditional one by John Barry. Some of Jackson’s songs are still in the film. The second preview in Seattle was much more successful with a stronger audience reaction.
 
Mike’s Murder had a brief theatrical run in March 1984 due to The Ladd Company and Warner Bros ending their partnership in April. What film critics that did see the film were mixed about it. Variety wrote, "As usual, Winger is wonderful to watch at all times, but her character is something of a cipher, and lack of any psychological angle holds down the film’s ultimate achievement." The New York Times’ Vincent Canby wrote, "Mr. Bridges, who gave Miss Winger her big break in Urban Cowboy, leaves her high and dry in this one. Though she receives top billing, she has no role to play." In his review, Roger Ebert wrote, "Winger’s magnificently responsive performance creating a character who’s ecstatic when reminded of her onetime lover, then melancholy and obsessed after his death." Finally, Pauline Kael praised Winger’s performance: “It’s a performance that suggests what Antonioni seemed to be trying to get from Jeanne Moreau in La Notte, only it really works with Winger—maybe because there’s nothing sullen or closed about her. We feel the play of the girl’s intelligence, and her openness and curiosity are part of her earthiness, her sanity.”
 

Mike’s Murder is part murder mystery and part character study with the latter being stronger and more interesting than the former. Bridges juxtaposes noir tropes with a thoughtful meditation on what it means to know someone and the brief time they are in our lives. While he was alive Mike’s allure had an initially strong gravitational pull on Betty, but over time his inconsistent, unreliable behavior took the bloom off their brief but intense romance. She didn’t realize how much he affected her until she started examining his life and in doing so examined her own. Like Mike’s untimely demise, fans of this film will always wonder what could have been with Bridges’ original version of the film. Can we let it go or be forever haunted by its brief existence?
 
 
SOURCES
 
BAM, April 20, 1984.
 
Bozung, Justin. “Producer Jack Larson on 1984 Warner Brothers’ Maudit, Mike’s Murder.” TV Store Online. February 23, 2021.
 
Farber, Stephen. “Where’s There’s Smoke, There’s a Fiery Actress Named Debra Winger.” The New York Times. July 6, 1986.
 
The Hollywood Reporter. May 4, 1982.
 
Kael, Pauline. Hooked. E.P. Dutton. 1989.
 
Tonguette, Peter. The Films of James Bridges. McFarland Press. 2011.

Angel Heart

In 1987, the stars aligned for Alan Parker’s horror noir adaptation of William Hjortsberg’s 1978 novel, Fallen Angel, into the film Angel Heart. It was part of a trend in the mid to late 1980s of movies featuring supernatural elements tied to Caribbean or South American magic with Santería and brujería in The Believers (1987), and Voodoo magic in Child’s Play (1988) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) being notable examples.
 
Several attempts had been made to adapt Hjortsberg’s book since its publication, but it wasn’t until Parker signed on to the project that it got serious traction. It didn’t hurt that he cast Mickey Rourke as his lead actor, red hot from the notoriety of 9 ½ Weeks (1986), and opposite him, Lisa Bonet, one of the breakout stars of the very popular television sitcom, The Cosby Show, which raised eyebrows at the time as she was known for playing a squeaky clean character in a wholesome show to starring as a femme fatale in a sexually explicit film.
 
Despite this, and the controversial, steamy sex scene between Bonet and Rourke’s characters, which forced Parker to cut 10 seconds to avoid an X rating, Angel Heart failed to make back its $18 million budget and received a mixed critical reaction. It has, however, gone on to influence filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and enjoyed a re-evaluation over the years as an atmospheric neo-noir fused with unsettling elements of supernatural horror.

New York City, 1955. Parker immediately immerses us in the snow-bound city with shadowy alleyways and great attention to period details with era-specific cars and clothes that set a noirish tone. Harold Angel (Rourke) is a slightly seedy private investigator approached by a mysterious client named Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) for a job. They meet at a church in Harlem and right from the get-go something is off. It could be the woman outside on the verge of passing out, surrounded by family and friends, or it could be the room where a woman is scrubbing gruesome blood-spattered stains off a wall from an apparent suicide by a parishioner who blew his brains out.
 
The initial meeting between two of the greatest actors of their respective generations is as wonderful as one would hope as they face off against each other. Robert De Niro plays it low-key yet ominous with the occasional sidelong glances at his no-nonsense attorney (played by Law & Order’s Dann Florek) and exuding a cultured air while also a malevolence in his piercing stare. In contrast, Rourke playfully mispronounces Cyphre’s name and acts nervous, laughing uncomfortably as Harry is clearly intimidated by his future employer. Their scenes together, particularly their first and last one, are some of the film’s best moments if only to see De Niro’s bemused malice square off against Rourke’s smartass bravado.
 
Cyphre wants Harry to track down a well-known singer by the name of Johnny Favorite from back in the day who failed to honor a contract. Johnny came back from World War II suffering from shellshock and extensive facial injuries involving intensive reconstruction. He wants to know if the man is still alive but, of course, it isn’t that easy as Harry quickly realizes.

Rourke is perfectly cast as a low-rent P.I. in way over his head. He excels at playing these types of characters and delivers a memorable performance as a cocky gumshoe whose whole life gradually unravels. Harry is literally a tortured soul but not particular smart as it becomes apparent early on as he fails to pick up on the clues to the nature of his character. The film’s most significant moment of horror comes with his big revelation – something that was readily apparent to everyone else. Rourke gives it his all in the scene, conveying a truly tormented soul with raw intensity.

Much was made at the time of Bonet’s highly sexualized performance and how different it was from her family-friendly character on The Cosby Show. She shows off plenty of skin and is fine as a voodoo priestess with a secret, but comes off a little stiff, at times, in the scenes she shares with Rourke, a much superior actor. Fortunately, the camera loves her and she photographs very well, providing an alluring screen presence.
 
Parker’s screenplay tells us too much of what we are already seeing. On several occasions, Harry tells Epiphany Proudfoot (Bonet) how beautiful she is, which is unnecessary. We have eyes, we see her beauty by the way she is photographed. Harry also repeatedly says how much he hates chickens, which seems too on-the-nose, and that he’s from Brooklyn, which we quickly discern from his accent.

What Parker the screenwriter lacks in subtlety (Louis Cyphre = Lucifer – really?) Parker the director more than makes up for it with excellent direction and gorgeous cinematography courtesy of frequent collaborator Michael Seresin, aided by the incredible, period-rich production design by Brian Morris and art direction of 1950s era New York by Armin Ganz and Kristi Zea that envelopes you in this world with its evocative imagery of slow spinning fans and gated elevators going down, even if the latter image is rather heavy-handed (I wonder where it is going to?).

Visually, Parker contrasts the cold darkness of New York with the bright, sun-drenched heat of New Orleans. The source novel takes place entirely in NYC, but I can see what drew Parker to N.O. It is a visually stunning place with its own unique look and vibe. Parker plays up its hot house atmosphere, complete with sensual heat generated by Bonet and Rourke.
 
Alan Parker was sent the book when it was published in 1978 where it had immediately acquired a reputation for being tough to adapt as it was told in the first person “since so much of it happens inside the person’s head,” said the filmmaker. Paramount Pictures optioned the rights with the book’s author William Hjortsberg writing the screenplay. Robert Evans was being lined up to produce with John Frankenheimer directing. Not long afterwards Dick Richards replaced Frankenheimer with Dustin Hoffman starring as Harry Angel.

Parker was then re-introduced to the book when producer Elliot Kastner gave it to him in 1985. He hadn’t written a screenplay in a while, instead mostly rewriting other people’s work. He was also intrigued about the fusing of the supernatural with the detective story. In adapting the novel, Parker changed the story form being set entirely in New York City to half there and the other half in New Orleans for “very selfish reasons,” and “a lot of the leads within the novel itself went down to New Orleans, and I thought it was a way for me to open it up and give it a different look.” He also felt that New York was an “overly filmed city,” but was drawn to Harlem as he felt that not enough films had been shot there. He did research at the Harlem Library, looking into “bizarre religious movements of the 1930s and 1940s, born of economic isolation, and perhaps spiritual desperation.” He wrote most of the script there and “once I’d broken the back of the story” wrote the rest in New Orleans where he had wanted to move some of the action. It was there that he wrote, “sitting at corner tables in remote bars in the city’s shadowy back streets.”
 
In search of financial backing, Parker met with Andrew Vajna and Mario Kassar at the Cannes Film Festival after a screening of Birdy (1984). The independent movie producers had made millions of dollars with the lucrative Rambo and Terminator franchises and were willing to take risks on films like Angel Heart, agreeing to finance it.
 
For the casting Harry Angel, Parker met with Jack Nicholson but he didn’t show much interest. He then met with Mickey Rourke for lunch and, according to Parker, “told me quite emphatically that he was the only one to play Harry Angel and so I should ‘stop talking to the other guys.’”

Parker courted Robert De Niro for months, meeting a few times, and went over the script, “every single line and everyone single idea that he had from the point-of-view of the character,” the filmmaker remembered. Two weeks away from filming and Parker still hadn’t gotten De Niro to commit to the film. Originally, he had been approached to play Harry Angel but told the director that he wanted to play Cyphre. Parker didn’t want to pressure the actor in case he said no as there wasn’t an alternative choice for the part.
 
Parker had not seen Bonet on The Cosby Show. She came and was the second person to audition for the part. Parker was impressed with her: “She was very young, she had an innate intelligence beyond her years.”
 
Not surprisingly, De Niro committed fully to the transformation into his character: “All I know is when we were working we always knew when he was on the set because suddenly we all felt kind of strange. He became very creepy…You’d feel his presence. Somebody would say, ‘Bob must be here,’ and you’d turn around and there he was,” Parker remembered. For De Niro and Rourke’s first scene Parker used two cameras simultaneously in opposite directions, “this way, should the two of them begin to improvise or go off at a tangent, provoking in the other an action or reaction, a moment’s magic that one inspired in the other would be captured on film.” Observing their acting styles, Parker said, “Bob was cool, meticulous, charming and generous, but had everything under control. Mickey was disarming and ingenuous, but at all times gave as good as he took.”

Angel Heart was originally given an X rating by the Motion Picture Association of America for the sex scene between Bonet and Rourke’s characters. Parker said at the time, “They have not told me what it is specifically they objected to. I am not really sure what is acceptable and what is not…It’s like carving up a body. You get down to where there’s only a foot left and they say, ‘Ah, that’s it.’” The Director’s Guild of America then-president Gilbert Cates leant his support: “We’re against any kind of censoring of material.” Parker appealed the X rating twice before cutting 10 seconds from the scene to obtain an R rating on February 26, 1987. Parker said of the experience, “The film will play uncut almost everywhere in Europe. In most countries, sex is not something that gives you a problem. Violence is. It’s almost the reverse of the way it is here, where you can blow 10 people’s heads off in two minutes and it’s OK.”
 
Angel Heart received a mixed to negative critical reaction. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars and wrote, “Angel Heart is a thriller and a horror movie, but most of all it's an exuberant exercise in style, in which Parker and his actors have fun taking it to the limit.” In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, “Affection of any sort is totally lacking in this film adaptation. The only wit is supplied by Mr. De Niro, who delivers his lines, some of which are genuinely funny, with a comic daintiness that gives firm style to the otherwise murky, pointless narrative “ The Washington Post’s Rita Kempley wrote, “While it has a sinister elegance, the movie is over-stylized, and we're over-stimulated when the soundtrack goes berserk, from a few thumpity-thumps to a visceral, ventricles a-pumping score.” In her review for The New Yorker, Pauline Kael wrote, “This is a lavishly sombre piece of hokum-funereal and loony.”
 
For all of its heavy-handedness, Angel Heart is ultimately a triumph of style over substance. I like how Parker gradually introduces the horror genre elements as Harry dives deeper into the voodoo culture that Johnny was a participant. He ratchets it up when more people Harry encounters wind up dead in all kinds of horrible ways. Horror noirs drenched in atmosphere are cinematic catnip for me and on this level the film certainly delivers. Parker has made a neo-noir as a waking nightmare with Harry trying to desperately to wake up, but unable to much like he is unable to escape his true nature.

Angel Heart would make for an excellent double bill with another horror noir, Roman Polanski’s The Ninth Gate (1999) also with a slight script offset by plenty of style to spare and featuring a damned protagonist to anchor the occult lunacy that threatens to overwhelm the film. Whereas Polanski’s film playfully pokes fun at genre conventions, Parker’s effort treats them with deadly seriousness, which exposes the script’s deficiencies. It could have used a bit more levity other than the occasional flourishes by Rourke. As a result, at times, we are laughing at Angel Heart rather than with it in the case of The Ninth Gate.
 
 
SOURCES
 
Daily Variety. April 28, 1986.
 
Gallagher, John A. Perfect Movies. February 17, 1987.
 
Parker, Alan. Angel Heart: The Making of the Film – Beat for Beat. Tri-Star Pictures. 1987.
 
Publishers Weekly. August 21, 1978.

The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death

 

From a very early age my parents instilled in me a love of movies. Some of my earliest memories are of seeing an animated Raggedy Ann and Andy movie in a darkened theater. This love of cinema also extended to my reading material. In addition to reading copious amounts of comic books and the young adult fiction of S.E. Hinton, I was given at an impressionable age a children’s novel by Daniel Pinkwater entitled, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death. It not only contains several references to movies and movie stars, but also features such evocative imagery that I could so easily see it being made into a film. I always imagined it being directed by Beetlejuice (1988) era Tim Burton.

The protagonists of the novel are two boys – Winston Bongo and Walter Galt – who meet in English class at Genghis Khan High School. They become fast friends and bond over how “utterly boring, nauseating, stupid and generally crummy it is.” Winston introduces Walt to the practice of Snarking Out, which involves getting up at 1 a.m. and sneaking out of your home undetected. Oh, how awesome that sounded at my young age. The two boys meet and take a downtown bus to the Snark Theater, which has a different double bill every day (for example: Vampires in a Deserted Seaside Hotel at the End of August and Invasion of the Bageloids) and is open 24 hours – basically, my dream movie palace! Another perk of this place was that if you submitted the name of a movie they would get it and send you a letter with a free ticket when they got it. You can also submit your birthday and they will send you a free ticket for that day.

The Snarkout Boys takes me back to the heady days when going to the movies was a communal experience: “I’ve never had so much fun at the movies. As each new film started, and the audience heard the Laurel and Hardy theme song, everybody started cheering and clapping. We did, too.” Walt even champions seeing a movie in a theater as opposed to on television:

“The thing about Laurel and Hardy movies that you can’t get from the chopped-up versions on television is how beautiful they are. Things happen exactly at the moment they have to happen. They don’t happen a second too soon or too late. You can even predict what’s going to happen—and it does happen—and it surprises you anyway. It doesn’t surprise you because it happened, but because it happened so perfectly.”

On the way home, the bus breaks down so the boys continue on foot and take a detour through Blueberry Park, named after James Blueberry, the toothpick millionaire and whose will stipulated “that the city could have the park, as long as people were permitted to speak there. Anyone who wants to can make a speech there. They don’t have to have a permit or anything like that.” Winston and Walt listen to a trade unionist complaining about working conditions in beatnik-speak – pretty advanced stuff for a children’s book!

On a solo snark Walt meets a girl his age – Bentley Saunders Harrison Matthews or Rat to her friends. She’s a skinny girl with blonde-green hair and happens to be a huge fan of legendary actor James Dean. Walt finds out that she’s been snarking for years. She tells Walt and Winston about her uncle Flipping Hades Terwilliger who has been snarking every night for 15-20 years.

The thing that struck me about these characters years later was their good movie-viewing habits, going to see films like Kiss Me Deadly (1955) and Song of the South (1946) – I had not heard of these films when I first read this book. I also love the snapshot Pinkwater gives us of the Snark Theater’s audience:

“The Attack of the Mayan Mummy came on. Almost at once, people began fidgeting, talking and leaving. As the movie progressed, those people still in the theater were almost all engaged in conversation in normal tones of voice. People lit up cigarettes, friends called to each other … Nobody complained. It wasn’t the sort of movie you’d want to pay attention to.”

What strikes me about the book now is its unique protagonists: two overweight boys and a rat-faced girl with punk rock hair, but Pinkwater doesn’t judge them and, in fact, champions them by further populating the book with oddballs and eccentrics typified by Rat’s family. There’s Aunt Terwilliger, an avid opera fan and yet prone to making speeches about how people shouldn’t listen to them. Uncle Flipping is a mad scientist who does research and development for Bullfrog Industries – the source of the family fortune. Their Chinese butler Heinz (who prefers to be called F’ang Tao Sheh) isn’t really Chinese. Finally, Rat’s mother, Minna Terwilliger Matthews, believes that all realtors are extraterrestrials that have been systematically replaced since the 1950s.

After breakfast, Uncle Flipping mysterious disappears. Has he wondered off? Was he kidnapped? Apparently, he does this often and it is up to the rest of the family to find him. Since they are on vacation, Walt and Winston offer to help Rat find her uncle. It may have something to do with international master criminal Wallace Nussbaum, the king of crime. He was kicked out of South American army for terrifying chickens and holds the world’s boomerang record.

The journey that Walt, Winston and Rat take finds them going to Lower North Aufzoo Street or, “the city beneath the city” as it is known. It is a fascinating look at what goes on behind the scenes as Walt and Winston discover the source of truck deliveries to the business district, where the garbage gets picked up, and a network of steam pipes that heat all the big office buildings. It is these descriptive details of the fictional town of Baconburg that Pinkwater really nails and immerses the reader in this vivid world. For example, at one point our heroes go to get a hotdog and even such a seemingly mundane task such as this is brought to life via such evocative prose:

“About half a block up the street, we could see a puddle of very bright, very yellow light. As we got close, we saw that it was a hot-dog stand with a sort of glass enclosure in front of it. There was a flickering blue neon sign in the window that said ED AND FRED’S RED HOTS … All the lights in the place were these yellow fluorescent light—the kind that are supposed to keep bugs away—and there were a lot of them. This made the brightly colored hot dogs and relish look even stranger than they must have looked in broad daylight.”

According to an article in the Chicago Reader, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death was inspired by Pinkwater’s experiences growing up in 1950s Chicago with several of the fictional places standing in for actual landmarks that he frequented. For example, the Snark Theater is a reference to the now defunct Clark Theater, which would show movies 24 hours a day and feature a different double bill every day. The public debates that occur in Blueberry Park actually took place in Bughouse Square. The oddly named Lower North Aufzoo Street is a riff on the famous Lower Wacker Drive. I can only imagine what a treasure trove of nostalgia a book like this must be for readers who grew up in Chicago.

For Pinkwater, he is interested in preserving, “the dying cultural treasures of urban life… There are things I`ve seen and experienced that have been very precious and nice, and I feel almost bad that they`re gone now… And when you read about these things, you say, ‘Damn, I’d like to go there tonight!’ I enjoy keeping some of this stuff alive.”

The kinds of descriptions I mentioned earlier are ones that I can see Tim Burton bringing to life in a film. When I first read The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death I pictured the entire story in my head, imagining exactly what these characters looked like and the adventures they went on. Pinkwater wrote a sequel entitled, The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror, which continued the numerous film references, but wasn’t nearly as satisfying a read as Avocado of Death, but then sequels rarely are. That being said, like any good young adult novel, Pinkwater’s book appeals to both youthful readers and older ones that pick up the references to obscure foreign and B-movies. It is a worthy addition to any budding cinephile’s library.

 

SOURCES

Pinkwater, Daniel. The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books. 1982.

Sachs, Ben. “My Favorite Book About Chicago Moviegoing.” Chicago Reader. June 17, 2013.

“Twisted Reality.” Chicago Tribune. February 21, 1990.

L.A. Takedown

It says something about the kind of juice Michael Mann had within the industry in 1989 that he was able to create – and get on television – a rough draft for a film he would make six years later. He wrote an early draft of what would become Heat in 1979 that was 180 pages and based on real people he knew both personally and by reputation in Chicago. Ten years later, he cut the screenplay down to 110 pages and raised the financing himself so that he owned the rights to the material. The result was a made-for-television movie entitled L.A. Takedown, a cat-and-mouse story between a career criminal and a dedicated police detective that aired on NBC on August 27, 1989 at 9 p.m.
 
The origins for the project were based in large part from the experiences of a police officer and an old friend of Mann's, Chuck Adamson, who had been chasing down a high-line thief named Neil McCauley in Chicago in 1963. Mann wrote another draft after making Thief (1981) with no intention of directing it himself. In the late 1980s, he tried to produce the film several times and offered it to his friend and fellow filmmaker Walter Hill but he turned it down. Mann was still not satisfied with the script, which had developed the character of McCauley but who still needed work. It also lacked an ending.
 
Early on, L.A. Takedown follows the plot to Heat beat-for-beat with Scott Plank playing Los Angeles Robbery-Homicide division cop Vincent Hanna and Alex McArthur as Patrick McLaren (Neil McCauley in Heat), the veteran thief. It is fascinating to see the different choices that Mann makes, such as the tweaks in dialogue or in the casting of certain characters. For example, Xander Berkley, a fantastic actor in his own right, is cast as Waingro, the loose cannon McLaren hires to help his crew knock over an armored truck. The actor plays him initially as a jittery psychopath, only to later settle on a drugged-out look, whereas in Heat, Kevin Gage brings a scary, simmering intensity to the role – a stone-cold serial killer and agent of chaos.

The most interesting casting in the movie is Hanna’s team, which includes Richard Chaves (Predator), Michael Rooker (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), and Daniel Baldwin (John Carpenter’s Vampires). Unfortunately, they hardly get any screen time and therefore make little impact. Plank is okay as Hanna but lacks the confident swagger that Al Pacino brought to the role. That being said, he does have a nice moment with his estranged wife, Lillian (Ely Pouget), near the end, after McLaren is killed, where he admits that he loves her but isn’t going to change.
 
L.A. Takedown suffers most in the casting of McLaren and his crew. McArthur, eerily chilling in William Friedkin’s Rampage (1987) as a sadistic serial killer, lacks the gravitas of Robert De Niro. The same can be said for the barely seen Peter Dobson (The Frighteners) as Chris Sheherlis who comes off as a glorified extra in this incarnation, whereas the role was expanded significantly in Heat with Val Kilmer taking over the character. Vincent Guastaferro (NYPD Blue) plays Michael Cerrito and lacks the intensity that Tom Sizemore brought to the part. They are simply not convincing as a team of elite thieves but then, they aren’t given the screen-time.
 
The scene where Hanna and McLaren meet face-to-face is fine but it makes one realize just how much De Niro and Pacino brought to the table – nuance and subtlety –that is lacking from McArthur and Plank. There is stiffness to the line readings from both actors as they fail to bring Mann’s words to life, summing up what’s going on in this movie. The inflexible actors are cast in the lead roles and the actors you’d like to see cut loose, like Rooker, are wasted in nothing roles. The famous bank robbery shoot-out is still exciting to watch and one of the few times L.A. Takedown comes thrillingly to life. It lacks the visceral immediacy of Heat but does have some cool shots, such a McLaren and Sheherlis running back into the bank after Hanna and his team show-up, with them chasing the camera in a slick tracking shot.

There are some enjoyable bits of business, such as a montage of Hanna working the streets of L.A., asking around about McLaren and his crew. Mann gives us a brief slice of the city’s night life via quick, broad strokes. Perhaps what is most striking about L.A. Takedown is how it doesn’t feel or look like a Mann production. While Ron Garcia’s (Twin Peaks) cinematography is just fine, it lacks the widescreen mastery of Dante Spinotti’s work in Heat. The T.V. movie’s 1.33:1 aspect ratio certainly doesn’t do it any favors, giving it a boxed-in feel as opposed to Heat’s 2.39:1 aspect ratio, which opens everything up and gives the film more of an epic feel. The lack of Mann’s distinctive touch may also be due to the incredibly fast shoot – uncharacteristic for the methodical filmmaker – with only ten days of pre-production and 19 days of shooting. In comparison, Heat had a six-month pre-production period and a 107-day shooting schedule.
 
At the end of the day, L.A. Takedown is a fascinating curio, nothing more – a stripped down, rough draft. Gone is Shiherlis’ subplot, so is the bungled precious metals sting, the subplot involving Hanna's stepdaughter, and McLaren dies differently and less satisfyingly. Due to the short running time, everything feels condensed while Heat’s expanded running time allows the story to breathe and provide nuanced characterization, thereby shedding more light on the motivations for the characters’ actions. Heat shows how more time, millions of dollars and a talented, star-studded cast can make a difference. Afterwards, Mann had a much clearer idea of how he wanted Heat to be structured. More importantly, he also figured out the ending. In 1994, Mann showed producer Art Linson another draft of Heat over lunch and told him that he was thinking of updating it. The producer read it, loved it, and agreed to make the film, giving ‘90s cinema what would prove to be a timeless heist classic.

A Flash of Green

What is the price for one’s soul? Is it ever worth the price, to betray loved ones, those who matter most to you? This is the dilemma that newspaper reporter Jimmy Wing (Ed Harris) wrestles with in A Flash of Green (1984), Victor Nunez’s adaptation of John D. MacDonald’s 1962 novel of the same name. As with all of the filmmaker’s films, this one is, first and foremost, a fascinating character study with a conflicted protagonist at its center.
 
Jimmy is a reporter for a local Florida newspaper in 1961. Developers are trying to buy Grassy Bay, a body of water in the heart of Palm City. Their goal: fill it in so that they can build homes on it, making a lot of money in the process. Some of its residents, however, have formed a committee called Save Our Bay (S.O.B.) to stop it, citing egregious environmental damage if it goes through.
 
Jimmy meets with Elmo Bliss (Richard Jordan), a county commissioner, to get the skinny on the development. He is told that the plan is to create an island, populating it with homes; as he puts it, “We’re going to manufacture a paradise.” Elmo is tired of being a commissioner and is going to run for the governor’s mansion. He plans to use the money he makes from Grassy Bay to fund his campaign. He wants Jimmy to spy on the S.O.B.s and dig up dirt on them … for a price, of course. He lays it all out for the reporter when he tells him, “World needs folks like me. Folks with a raw need for power. Without us, wouldn’t anything ever get done.”

Initially, Jimmy stays neutral, giving Katherine Hobble (Blair Brown), one of leaders of the eco-group, a heads up and she begins to rally the locals to stop it. He checks in on her and her two children from time to time as her husband - his best friend -- died a year ago. The steady income from Elmo, however, sways Jimmy, who is adrift in life. Adding to the weight of this decision is his wife, Gloria (Tiel Rey), who suffers from a degenerative brain disorder that her doctors understand little about and from which, it appears, she will never recover. The rest of the film plays out his moral dilemma – help Elmo for the money and in doing so betray Kat, the woman he loves but is afraid to admit it, even to himself.
 
Ed Harris delivers a memorable turn as a man faced with a conflict, a crisis of conscience. The deeper Jimmy digs for dirt for Elmo, the more morally compromised he becomes. He passively watches as his friends are railroaded by local politicians. Why is Jimmy willing to do this? Has his wife’s medical condition left him so cynical that he doesn’t care about anything? Kat and her kids humanize him, give him something to care about – a life he’d like to have. Jimmy’s actions are ruining people’s lives … good, decent people he’s known for years. Even those closest to him, like Kat, are being harassed on the phone by religious zealots, surreptitiously employed by Elmo to scare of members of the S.O.B. Harris does an excellent job conveying the guilt that plays across Jimmy’ face when the S.O.B. fall apart, knowing that it is because of his actions.
 
Richard Jordan does an excellent job of expressing Elmo’s passion for the development deal. He’s honest with Jimmy about his ambitions but not about how far he will go to realize them. Jordan is a fascinating actor to watch as he so effortlessly disappears into his character, something he did often in such diverse films as The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), The Mean Season (1985), and The Hunt for Red October (1990). In A Flash of Green, Elmo is the obvious villain of the film, but Jordan resists the urge to play him that way, even when he obliquely admits to sending guys to beat-up Jimmy repeatedly in the hopes of ‘persuading’ him to leave town after he turns the tables on Elmo. It is hinted that these two men have known each other for many years, the only reason why Elmo doesn’t have Jimmy killed.

Blair Brown is also very good as a woman still struggling with the loss of her husband, raising two children, trying to protect the bay from greedy developers, and sorting out her feelings for Jimmy. She has a lot on her plate and Brown’s intelligent, layered performance results in a fascinating character. At times, it is painful to watch her and the other committee members struggle against more powerful forces that they have no hope of beating. Brown resists any urge to inflate Kat’s fight to heroic heights, as one would see in a Hollywood movie, and instead opts to have that be only one of many aspects of her rich character.
 
There are also memorable minor roles, such as George Coe as a fellow journalist who doesn’t have the stomach for the darker stories that he and Jimmy sometimes cover. His response is to get so drunk that Jimmy must take him to his wife who cares for him. Even his character has his own arc and finds a way to redeem himself as he does his own part in the unfolding drama.
 
Sam Gowan, who had worked on Victor Nunez’s first film, Gal Young ‘Un (1979), went on to work at the University of Florida Libraries as the assistant director for special resources. Part of his division was the John D. MacDonald repository. MacDonald was a successful crime author, both critically and commercially, with his series of Travis McGee novels, and 1957 novel The Executioners adapted into film twice, in 1962 and 1991. Gowan and his wife enjoyed the man’s novels and she suggested asking Nunez to adapt one of them. Warner Bros., however, owned long-term options on all the Travis McGee novels, save for a couple of the early ones, which were available. He contacted MacDonald’s agent in Los Angeles and worked out a deal that required a small payment up front and a loaded backend, whereby if the film did well financially, the author would be paid more.

The budget for A Flash of Green was $750,000, ten times larger than Gal Young ‘Un. Half of the budget came from a small group of local investors with PBS American Playhouse covering the rest, who had been impressed with Nunez’s first film. To keep costs down, the entire cast worked for Screen Actors Guild minimum.
 
At the time the film was cast, Ed Harris turned down a chance to extend his run on Sam Shepard’s off-Broadway success, A Fool for Love (for which he won an Obie Award), and an offer from Paul Newman to appear in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, to go to Florida and act in Nunez’s project. Harris said, “I loved Victor’s sensibility and his cinematic tastes, his knowledge and how he films.” The actor was also drawn to the character of Jimmy Wing:
 
“I really appreciated the subtle character study that this guy is. He goes through so many changes. He’s someone who gets caught up in events that sort of catch him and sweep him away and he really has to climb his way back. He was a character I could really explore.”
 
To this end, the actor worked with the filmmaker on the screenplay, and during rehearsals, he frequented local stores for his character’s outfits. Harris’ hands-on approach extended to other cast members. Richard Jordan helped get period-specific props for the film and remarked on the challenge: “That era is too recent for anyone to collect and a lot of what you’d want to use has wound up in garbage cans.”

Critics of the day gave A Flash of Green generally favorable reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "A Flash of Green is attentive to the compromises of daily life, and it understands how people can be complicated enough to hold two opposed ideas at the same time." In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, "A Flash of Green is not perfect, but it is provocative and nearly always intelligent." The Washington Post's Lloyd Grove wrote, "Nunez, who also worked the camera with an eye for faded beauty, has made Palm City a self-contained world where there can be no appeal to a higher authority. While sometimes he's a bit heavy on the symbolism -- having Wing, at one point, fiddle with a two-faced doll -- he usually handles the material with admirable subtlety, letting the story all but tell itself."
 
The worlds in Nunez’s films feel fully fleshed out and realized, populated by readily identifiable people with compelling dilemmas. In the case of A Flash of Green he also creates a real sense of place; the attention to period detail on a budget is fantastic, with vintage cars and clothes used sparingly and matter-of-factly. He achieves it with small details, such as the cluttered office that Jimmy works in or the Spartan wood interior of Elmo’s office. Nunez also has a great ear for dialogue, accurately capturing the way people talk, evident in the scene where Kat debates with her friends about the development of Grassy Bay, with one arguing that developing the land will help the depressed local economy. The film presents several different points-of-view and then shows them in conflict with one another.
 
Nunez does a deft juggling act of showing how parts of Florida are being ruined by greedy developers and the toll it is taking on the residents, without being preachy about it, and by focusing on the relationships between them. A Flash of Green might be the most low-key crusading journalist film ever made. There are no heroic, epic speeches, moustache-twirling villains, car chases or gun battles – just people trying to protect their own little piece of the world. Much like John Sayles, Nunez is interested in telling stories about everyday people trying to get by, finding that their personal dilemmas are just as worthy of telling as any epic tale. For the people in his films, what goes on in their small world means everything to them. Life is about the choices we make and having to live with them. Jimmy has to live with the choices he has made. They were tough decisions that took their toll on him physically and emotionally. Jimmy finds that it isn’t easy buying back even a part of his soul. It is a long, hard journey but by the film’s end, there is hope that he is on his way to redemption.
 

SOURCES
 
Crandell, Ben. “FLIFF Reunites Old Friends Ed Harris, Victor Nunez.” South Florida Sun Sentinel. November 17, 2015.

Fein, Esther B. “Shaking A Hero Image.” The New York Times. July 22, 1985.
 
Gowan, Sam. “My Life in Movies.” The Gainsville Sun. April 1, 2004.
 
Maslin, Janet. “At the Movies – Jordan Assembled Props.” The New York Times. June 28, 1985.

Gotham

Made during her bombshell period, Virginia Madsen is perfectly cast as an elusive femme fatale in Gotham (1988), a made-for-television movie for the Showtime Channel and that was part of a run of sexy roles in the late 1980s that also included Slam Dance (1987), and into 1990s with The Hot Spot (1990) and forgettable erotic thrillers such as Caroline at Midnight (1994) and Blue Tiger (1994). Fortunately, this one stars Tommy Lee Jones and whose angle is a neo-noir fused with a ghost story.

“You ever find yourself walking down a dark street, you think you hear footsteps coming up slowly, somebody just out of sight?” This question kickstarts the story as Charles Rand (Colin Bruce) asks down-on-his-luck private investigator Eddie Mallard (Jones) to find his wife Rachel (Madsen) and tell her to leave him alone. The only problem: she’s been dead for over ten years. Rand offers Mallard a lot of money to take the case, which he accepts even though, as he confesses to his friend Tim (Kevin Jarre) later on, he fears that he’s feeding into this man’s delusions.

Eddie humors his client and his odd ramblings about his wife (“She lusts for daylight. She wants power in the daylight.”). The man is truly haunted by her death and apparent resurrection and this intrigues Eddie – that and the hefty paycheck. One day, Charles spots Rachel across the street and asks Eddie to go over and talk to her. With her long white gloves, vintage hat tilted at just the right angle and retro black dress, Rachel looks like she stepped right out of a 1940s film noir. Of course, she denies knowing Charles and humors Eddie by going out for a drink with him where she explains that she is a woman of expensive tastes.

Rachel shows up at Eddie’s office and apologizes for coming on so strong the other day and takes him out for a bite to eat as a way of apologizing. She comes across as a slightly sad, lonely wealthy lady. He’s intrigued by her stunning looks and enigmatic past. Their paths cross again as she wanders out of the smoke on a deserted city street one night. The deeper he goes into the case the more he realizes it’s not as simple as it seems and like most noirs he finds himself drawn into an increasingly complex web with Rachel at its center. Is she really the deceased wife or is this merely the delusions of a crazy man?
 
The movie has odd beats that occasionally disrupt its traditional narrative, such as a scene where Eddie and Rachel are serenaded in an alleyway by a dirty bum with an immaculate acoustic guitar and a beautiful voice. It’s a poignant moment as the camera stays on Madsen’s face as Rachel reacts to “Danny Boy,” her eyes gradually welling up and a tear runs down her face. With the help of his very talented crew that includes the likes of David Cronenberg’s longtime production designer Carol Spier, legendary cinematographer Michael Chapman (Raging Bull) and composer George S. Clinton (Austin Powers), writer/director Lloyd Fonvielle creates a suitable neo-noir mood and atmosphere with a touch of the supernatural, such as a spooky shot of Rachel submerged in murky water, a gloved hand reaching out to Eddie.
 
With her old school looks, Virginia Madsen could have been a Classic Hollywood movie star and is perfectly cast as an elusive femme fatale cum woman out of time. She does an excellent job of coming across as this sweet, alluring presence and then transforms into a vulgar, vengeful creature. The actor is more than believable as a woman that could seduce men into doing her bidding and destroying their lives in the process.

Tommy Lee Jones is well cast as a world-weary gumshoe who thinks he knows all the angles until he takes on this case and becomes entangled in Rachel’s web. Like Rachel, Eddie undergoes his own transformation and Jones does an excellent job of conveying a man who has seen it all to one obsessed with a woman that tears his life apart.
 
The critics of the time weren’t too kind to Gotham. The Washington Post's Tom Shales wrote, "Madsen is a sensuously spooky Rachel. She is also quite naked in two or three scenes, popping up, literally, in the bathtub, and falling out of a refrigerator. Madsen holds Jones and the camera captive. Maybe it doesn't matter that the whole thing is senseless." In her review for the Los Angeles Times, Lynne Heffley wrote, "What viewers fall victim to is a flawed vision. Suspense fizzles into steamy homage to Madsen’s beauty, clad and unclad; New York City locales are unbelievably underpopulated; a street bum sings “Danny Boy"-all of it-and Madsen’s exquisite lips are either framing romance novel banalities or a favorite obscenity." The New York Times’ Walter Goodman described it as “a lugubrious telling of a story that at its best is incomprehensible.”
 
“It may be a dream but it’s one of those dreams you can’t wake up from,” Eddie says at one point and it is the narrow line Gotham treads between what is real and what we perceive as real. And isn’t that all down to perception anyway? One person’s reality could be another’s dream. Since this movie is a neo-noir typically things don’t go well for the protagonist but Fonvielle twists this convention so that his main character is spared while another character is doomed. He does an excellent job of grounding the movie in its own reality so we’re never sure what is real and what is a dream except for little details that he uses as signposts along the way. It’s a tricky balancing acting between the ridiculous and the sublime but then again, isn’t all a matter of perception?