Miami Blues (George Armitage, 1990)

Loved the book but hated this flick. To be honest, I probably hated it because the book is such a masterpiece and I had simply expected too much. I guess what pissed me off was that director (or screenwriter) actually thought that he could improve the material by adding some scenes (like - for fucks sake! - a dinner they all have together) and had at the same time omitted some really cool ones. Just leave this stuff alone asshole, it's so much above you!!!

I was very surprised to see lots of raving reviews about  Alec Baldwin's performance on the various message boards. For my money, he's the one who puts the last nail into the coffin by his totally over the top portrayal of a "charming psychopath". On the other hand, Jennifer Jason Leigh is very good (as she always is) and especially Fred Ward manages to pull a good job. Maybe not too surprisingly since he's also credited as an executive producer so we can speculate that he was personally involved and had liked his character. At first I didn't like "his" Hoke much, but somehow he had stayed in the back of my mind. I was a bit surprised to have his image in my head when I was reading next Hoke novel. So I'm giving this movie an extra point on his behalf altough it's still an abomination of Charles Willeford's classic...

3/10

Le Battant aka Ice (Alain Delon, Robin Davis, 1983)

Ah, these good old Delon's 80s crime flicks! Too complicated, too long, too violent, with lots of nudity...

This one is as typical as it can be. Jacques returns from the prison and wants to retrieve the jewels he robbed. In the process body count will raise to double digits number and he will fuck 3 chicks.

It has some cool moments. My favorite scene would be the first one when bad guys are introduced. They are in this bistro all dressed up and talking cool gangster sinister type of shit trying to intimidate the owner. But problem is - check this out! - that they share single pistol between them! Hilarious! So when the poor guy decides to run away, bad guy #1 gives this gun to guy #2 so he can shoot him. Alain, what where you thinking when writing this!?!?

Cast is excellent. Not surprisingly old school François Périer as a main bad guy is superb and there's even a small role for very young Richard Anconina. It is of course always nice to see our favorite Nikita Anne Parillaud who was at time in relationship with Delon. Although to be honest, Marie-Christine Descouard steals the movie from her, at least in feminine department.

Btw, almost 20 years later, in 2002, Anconina and Parillaud did another movie together. Masterpiece, absolute must-see police thriller Gangsters.

All in all cool nostalgic stuff, just don't expect to see Melville flick.

6/10

The Drowning Pool (Stuart Rosenberg, 1975)

Second Harper movie and somehow I like it a bit more than the first one. Which is strange in a way because (a) I don’t usually go for crime stories that involve our hero personal shit and (b) don’t like crime stories that take place outside the big cities. They belong to urban jungles right?

Paul Newman is still overdoing his character a bit too comically for my taste, but Drowning Pool is much darker than its predecessor. It also deals with more sinister topics than “simple” greed and successfully manages to merge couple of fucked up family dramas into crime/mystery. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still as hard boiled as they come and body count reaches quite respectable number at the end!

Supporting cast is not such an all-star affair as in the first one but they somehow function together even better. Joanne Woodward is of course great but real mini-star here is Murray Hamilton who plays villain perfectly. He steals every scene he’s in even from the mighty Mr. Newman. 

Good stuff indeed. Probably mostly well-known for its ending climax escape scene but I liked it because of its dark moody noir atmosphere and well developed story that works on many levels. It feels very modern even today and – as Harper – doesn’t age at all.

8/10

Harper (Jack Smight, 1966)

Ross Macdonald is probably my second favorite crime author of the classical pulp era (first one - needless really to point out - being Chandler) and his Lew Archer the second coolest P.I. ever (after you know of course who being the first one). Apparently Paul Newman liked him a lot also and was happy to play the part under one condition – name Archer needed to be substituted with Harper because letter H was his lucky one (after filming The Hustler and Hud).

And he’s okay but I think he’s overdoing the part just a little bit. Yes, we know he’s supposed to be cynical but sometimes he’s acting like he’s being in comedy and not in a hard-boiled crime. I don't know, there are just too many of those facial grimaces. He is not at all bad and doesn’t damage the movie (like Frank Sinatra for example might) and especially his lines with witty dialogues and one-liners are delivered perfectly. But credits for that probably go more to its brilliant literary source.

Anyways, he’s okay but supporting cast is magnificent. Especially Lauren Bacall, Shelley Winters (once again!!!) and Janet Leigh. Bacall seems to be having really good time filming this and she plays her bitchy character to perfection. Real joy to watch, she was so cool!

Movie too is okay but has few faults. With almost two hours of running time it is for sure too long for mystery flick and story gets too convoluted. It doesn’t drag on and it never gets boring but both characters introductions and suspense building simply take too long. Seems like screenwriters tried too hard to stick to the book as much as possible when adapting it. Which was probably not needed since it was published in 1949 so they could afford a bit of tweaking it. I think it would be better to drop some character (like Harper’s wife and whole thing about divorce) or sub-plots altogether. Who knows…

Still a great movie and very enjoyable to see every few years or so, it doesn’t age at all! And last thing totally worth mentioning is hilarious poster – I simply must give Harper an extra star for it!

8/10

The Detective (Gordon Douglas, 1968)

Another collaboration of Gordon Douglas and Frank Sinatra made right after Tone Rome. But instead of cynical PI, Franky boy this time around plays honest and tough as nails police inspector. Which is premise unreal enough to kill the movie before it even takes off. They should just cast Lee Marvin or Steve "The Bullit" McQueen and maybe save the whole thing.

But probably not. It's just not intense enough. Seemed to me like director couldn't decide whether to shoot hard-boiled crime or character study drama. It starts with violent killing of some wealthy gay and soon all the cliches (sex, drugs, politics, dirty cops etc) are thrown into the pot. Which is not bad, problem is that Sinatra starts to have these moral dilemmas (+personal dramas) instead of trying to solve all this mess. Not to mention it runs for almost 2 fucking hours...

I don't know, it was probably a bit daring at the time when it came out but it didn't pass the test of time very well. It certainly left me pretty cold and bored for most of the time. But at least in the second part Jacqueline Bisset appears and lights those few scenes she's in it. And it was funny to watch great lover Mr. blue eyes Sinatra struggling with a fact that his wife is nymphomaniac. I bet his agent was thrilled when he accepted this role.

5/10

Sitting Target (Douglas Hickox, 1972)

Was reading this great book about snooker’s bad boy and “people champion’s” Alex Higgins and died laughing few times when it came to his turbulent relationship and “adventures” with his good buddy Oliver Reed. I knew guy was fucking insane and all but reading trivia about him on IMDB I was again dying of laughter. Check this for instance:

He died of a heart attack in a bar after downing three bottles of Captain Morgan's Jamaica rum, eight bottles of German beer, numerous doubles of Famous Grouse whiskey and Hennessy cognac, and beating five much younger Royal Navy sailors at arm-wrestling. His bar bill for that final lunch time totaled 270 Maltese lira, almost £450.

On IMDB website I also read that he starred in Sitting Target which is the first British film to get X ratings just for the violent content. And since it also has Jill St. John from Tony Rome I naturally decided to check it out.

Can’t say I was disappointed because it’s not THAT violent. But it’s still excellent thriller with good prison escape and car chases and good looking women and all that. The best thing about it (beside animal like and totally out of control Reed) is it’s great ending. Final twist is totally unexpected and I didn’t see it coming at all.  

7/10

The Boston Strangler (Richard Fleischer, 1968)

Quite interesting and not bad at all. It’s kind of semi-documentary about serial killer doing his thing in Boston in the early 60s. First part concentrates around police investigation and detective work and is far better than second one. Because then it goes into this boring moral debate about choosing between “doing the right thing” or protecting individual human rights. And then it just abruptly ends without really giving any answers.

Most memorable thing about this one is that Tony Curtis actually does a good job (okay, he also did fine in Sweet Smell of Success, but basically there he just acted himself). And it’s even more amazing because he steals the movie from Henry Fonda who just doesn’t seem to be interested in it.

Also worth mentioning are split screen shots. They are super annoying at the beginning but then somehow I got used to them and they are not used too frequently anyway. Hell, few times they actually do increase cinematic effect. 

All in all, it’s decent movie that I think ages pretty well.

And check out the poster! Pretty cool, ha?

6/10

Tony Rome (Gordon Douglas, 1967)

PI mystery with Frank Sinatra. Sounds like a bad joke, but it’s - surprisingly - quite okay and definitely above average. I’m pretty sure it was adopted from Marvin H. Albert’s book especially for Sinatra and he created his character more like Lew Archer type than Phillip Marlowe which is okay. Or let’s say bearable.

Story involves lots of characters and gets really complicated, so ending doesn’t even need some big twist. For me it was rewarding enough that it ended and made sense. More or less…

I was a bit disappointed with performance of Gena Rowlands. She doesn’t seem to put any real effort into it and I would like to think she did just for the money to help her husband create one of his masterpieces Faces the following year. But on the other hand Jill St. John is charming (Slut... That's just a nickname. Only my dearest friends use it.) and total revelation to me. She does ring a bell but I honestly don’t really remember her from any movie. But in those few scenes she has she really steals this one from Frankie boy.

6/10

Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges, 1955)

Simply brilliant, what a movie! I think they should make viewing of Bad Day at Black Rock (+ maybe Zinnemann’s High Noon) mandatory for anyone that wishes to join conservative party. No better way to show the greed, paranoia, small town “I’m just a good neighbour minding my own business” mindlessness, emotional blackmail/exploitation and essentially just simple hatred against not only the foreigners, but basically against anyone different. It sounds like too many of the big themes thrown into the plot, but it’s not as it is masterfully directed.

And the cast! It’s perfect blend of an older Hollywood generation from 40s and newcomers. I like Spencer Tracy even in his comedies with Hepburn but here he is truly superb. He just gets this right balance of toughness, dedication, fear, even a bit of arrogance. I remember when I was first watching it many years ago I was sure that he’s not really crippled and that he was just fucking with those guys. But back to cast – name a movie where you can see together Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and Robert Ryan!? The Wild Bunch comes to my mind which reminds me to put that Peckinpah’s masterpiece on my to-do list. Been to long since I've last seen it.

My only tiny slight disappointment is the ending. I think it would be even better and more efficient if Tracy would leave the fucker burn to death. By making authorities handling the matter it suggests that America was (is?) free and opened society that punishes such crimes and they are more of exception than a general state of mind. And I don’t think this is the message that Mr. Sturges wanted to send to his audience because we need to remind ourselves that this masterpiece was made while that McCarthy asshole was still haunting his imaginary red witches.

10/10