Soldier in the Rain

Making the jump from television to movie star, Steve McQueen had an interesting run through the first half of the 1960s, including his star-making role in The Great Escape with other strong parts in The Magnificent Seven, Hell is For Heroes, and two or three other parts. There were more positives than negatives, but the ones that missed have been generally forgotten. Unfortunately, 1963's Soldier in the Rain is on that short list of misses.

A few weeks away from getting his discharge papers, Sgt. Eustis Clay (McQueen) is dreaming of all that civilian life can offer him, all the freedoms the army has kept him from. A wheeler-dealer who trades for anything and everything he needs, Eustis has big plans to make a fortune once he's free of the army, but it all starts with one key caveat; he wants the help of friend and fellow supply officer, Master Sgt. Maxwell Slaughter (Jackie Gleason), who is similarly up for reenlistment but hasn't made his decision yet. As normal, everyday life goes by on the army base, Eustis does his best to convince Maxwell to join him in all his post-army plans, but can he do it?

With less than 30 feature length films to his name, McQueen's star burned fast and bright through the late 1950s, then into the 60s and 70s before his death in 1980 from cancer. He's one of my all-time favorite actors -- trapped in a dead heat with John Wayne and Clint Eastwood -- and this is one of the few films of his I had not seen. With so few remaining unseen, I'm sorry to report how disappointed I was with the effort. From usually reliable director Ralph Nelson comes a mess of a story, not sure if its a light buddy comedy or a significantly darker fare, slapstick goofiness or hardcore emotional. The most damning issue? If it's trying to be funny, it produces few to no laughs. If it's going for the drama, it's completely void of it up until the last 20 minutes.

As a huge McQueen fan, this is a bizarre film to watch because of the 33-year old actor's role. With later parts in Bullitt, The Sand Pebbles, and The Thomas Crown Affair (among others), McQueen perfected the part of the quiet anti-hero, the loner who works in society but only because he has to. Biographies point to him removing whole scenes of dialogue from scripts, insisting he could do something more efficiently with a glance or a quick sentence. Wouldn't you know it? It almost always worked. And then there's his part here....basically the polar opposite. Two years prior in The Honeymoon Machine, McQueen showed he could pull off a somewhat obvious comedic part. He had impeccable delivery and was able to do any physical scenes flawlessly. It's the type of part that made you wish he did more comedy in his career. Something doesn't quite make the transition to this flick then. 

It's hard to describe why this performance doesn't work. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, part of McQueen's appeal was this effortless cool. It never looked like he was trying too hard to impress you. His part in 'Soldier' is for lack of a better description.....obvious. It feels forced, like he's playing a stereotyped, cliched character so McQueen decided to ratchet it up a notch. His accent is supposed to be southern (I think?), but it sounds like he's got marbles in his mouth. Eustis is naive, innocent and a dreamer, but one key character ingredient is missing. It's hard to like him. Maybe I've just come to expect that much more of McQueen, but this is one of his lesser efforts although God bless him, he's certainly trying. Also in the shrill, annoying and overacting department are Tuesday Weld and Tony Bill in supporting parts. Ed Nelson and Lew Gallo have some fun with some adversarial parts, always tangling with Eustis and Maxwell.

The saving grace for 'Soldier' is Jackie Gleason. I grew up watching Gleason in some episodes of The Honeymooners where he was loud, exaggerated and all over the place. As I've found though in his best roles, Gleason was a great actor usually when he could underplay a part, like he does as Master Sgt. Slaughter. A nobody as a civilian, Slaughter enjoys all the perks of his job, but never really lets it go to his head. In Eustis, he has a friend and an adoring fan who looks at him like a hero in whatever he does. Rather than brush it aside though, Slaughter looks at country bumpkin Eustis and embraces him like a brother he's got to look out for. There is a friendly charm to Gleason here, just a good man who makes the right decisions to help others out. Don't mess with someone that's close to him, or he'll come after you.

So while I can't truly recommend this film, I can say that parts of it work extraordinarily well. Even when McQueen's performance can be a little grating, his scenes with Gleason have an easy-going natural charm (more impressive when you read about their on-set differences). A buddy film/relationship minimizes it to a point, but that's what it is. Two different people who end up being close friends. Still, the movie on the whole doesn't amount to a whole lot, especially in the final 30 minutes as it takes a turn to the extreme dark. Probably for McQueen completists and Gleason fans alike.

Soldier in the Rain <---Youtube clip (1963): **/****

I Walk the Line

Is there a genre of movies that could be dubbed "I'm having a mid-life crisis?"  It sure seems like there has been enough movies where a middle-aged man, fed up with where his life has ended up, does something to reclaim his youth whether it be an affair with a younger woman, buying an expensive sports car, or the always reliable bail on your life and start over.  That's the basic premise for 1970's I Walk the Line. 

The movie of course is not based on Andy Taylor -- Andy Griffith's character in The Andy Griffith Show -- but there are a fair share of similarities between the TV sitcom character and the main star here, Gregory Peck. Directed by John Frankenheimer, 'Line' jumps right into the premise of small-town life in the south is like where big-city life seems like a far off thing and the excitement is minimal.  But what if something came along -- for one person at least -- that livened things up even for a little bit?  Would you embrace it or pass it up?  So goes Pecks' dilemma.

As the peace officer in a small Tennessee town, Sheriff Tawes (Peck) just doesn't have much to do.  His home life is quiet without much in the way of fireworks (good or bad), and he spends his days patrolling back roads and making sure everything is up to snuff.  One day he pulls over a truck driving wildly down the road and meets Alma McClain (Tuesday Weld), a teenage girl who is lively and exciting in a way little else is in his life.  They quickly start seeing each other -- secretly of course, this is the South -- only to have Alma's moonshiner father (Ralph Meeker) blackmail Tawes for protection so his moonshining business can keep going. As long as the sheriff gets to see Alma, he doesn't seem to care, but his hushed up affair becomes an issue when an FBI agent (Lonny Chapman) shows up with orders to clean out any moonshiners in the area.

This performance for Peck is quite a departure from his usual roles where he usually played stout men of principles where good was good and bad was bad.  Frankenheimer wisely doesn't paint Tawes as a hero or as a bad guy, instead just showing him as a man who's frustrated with the path his life has took.  Through Weld's Alma, Tawes sees a chance to be happy, to be young again.  Peck pulls this all off perfectly, like a man about to explode. With anything involving an older man and a younger woman (Alma's age is never specified, 19, 20 maybe?), there's a certain element of creepiness, but for the most part it is kept to a minimum.  Give Peck credit, he goes right up to that line of crazy, obsession love without going over...just barely.

Making his obsession fully understandable is Tuesday Weld because, well, she looks like she does.  The 27-year old actress is playing a part that is slightly younger than her, but this bubbly blond with the huge smile makes it easy to understand why a middle-aged man would feel the way he does about her.  What I liked about the character was the question of if she was playing Tawes for his protection or because she was genuinely interested in him, had real feelings for him.  Her motives are established late, leading to an ending that surprised me, but it certainly works as a "real" ending.  Also worth mentioning in the cast is Meeker in a smaller part as Alma's father Carl (subtle creepy incest hinted at), and Charles Durning as Hunnicutt, Tawes' deputy who always sticks his nose where it doesn't belong.

My biggest issue isn't in what we do see, but what we don't see.  Tawes gets involved with Alma very quickly without much in the way of character background.  It's obvious he is bored to death by his job, family and life in general, but there's only one scene that even shows it, a dinner scene with his wife (Estelle Parsons), their daughter and Tawes' father.  The peaceable sheriff looks like he's about to kill them all in a fit of rage.  I'm not looking for 30 minutes of mind-killing boredom where we saw Tawes and his descent, but even a little more background would have been interesting.

One review I read accurately identified 'Line' as a movie that feels like a folk song, a country ballad, and he's dead-on.  Singer Johnny Cash handles the soundtrack (including title song "I Walk the Line"), helping the movie move along in the montage sequences as Tawes and Alma sneak off to be together. Frankenheimer filmed in Tennessee, giving the story a sense of being separated from the rest of the world in this tiny backroads town.  It feels like you're there with them and not some movie studio set.  For an underrated, different movie, give this a try.  Watch it at Youtube starting here with Part 1 of 10.

I Walk the Line <---TCM trailer (1970): ** 1/2 /**** 

Pretty Poison

In an epically unlucky case of typecasting, Anthony Perkins made a huge impression on audiences in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 thriller Psycho playing unhinged Norman Bates. In fact, Perkins made too big of an impression because from then on during his career, he was always looked to for the slightly crazy roles that probably prevented him from getting the more glamorous leading man roles. Perkins went through a slow period after Psycho, but in 1968 made a movie with another mentally disturbed character, Pretty Poison.

TCM Underground aired this movie last Friday and having heard absolutely nothing about it I thought I'd give it a try. Perkins does play a toned-down version of Norman Bates, another disturbed individual with his fair share of personal problems. Not being an actor, I can only guess what being typecast feels like, but Perkins is so good in these roles it's easy to understand what casting directors saw in him. He plays these parts so effortlessly, making you empathize with his characters when you know you probably shouldn't.

Released from prison after serving a sentence for arson and accidental homicide, Dennis Pitt meets his parole officer, Morton Azenauer (John Randolph), who has set him up with a job in a quiet, little Massachusetts town. Dennis goes along with the plan, but takes a different job in a different town where he takes a job working in a chemical plant. Azenauer warned him not to live out his elaborate fantasies that run through his head, but Dennis can't help himself. He meets Sue Ann Stepanek (Tuesday Weld), a high school band majorette, and tells her that he is actually a secret agent for the CIA assigned to destroy the chemical plant because of the deadly toxins it dumps into the water.

At first a little skeptical, Sue Ann starts to believe Dennis' crazy statements. So with a willing sidekick, Dennis begins to plan his mission, destroy the chemical plant before it can do anymore damage. Not surprisingly, things escalate to the point where Dennis no longer has control on the situation, especially when Azenauer shows up wondering what's happened to him. As well, Sue Ann's mother (Beverly Garland) is suspicious of this older man's interest in her 17-year old daughter.

Pretty Poison's story can be described as a slow burn. Upon meeting Sue Ann, there is a feeling that everything is not quite right with this high school girl. She's just too willing to go along with this plan that Dennis concocts about being a secret agent. In this small northeastern town, Sue Ann's bored with her life and is looking for any excitement. For about the first 45 or 50 minutes, that is what the story feels like, a somewhat offbeat but almost sweet relationship between these two people. When Dennis actually puts his plan into action, that's when the sh*t really hits the fan, sending the story down a vastly different road right up until the end.

Perkins delivers a strong performance as Dennis Pitt with one question reasonating in my head as to the make-up of his character. Does Dennis really believe he is a secret agent for the CIA or is it really an elaborate fantasy in his head? It's hard to tell at times, but for most of the movie's 89 minute running time, I've got the feeling Dennis believes he is in fact a secret agent. It's only late in the movie when his fantasy has gone horribly awry that reality dawns on him. As Sue Ann, 25-year old Weld pulls off a frightening performance, really as the villain of the story. She has the innocent look of a high school senior, but below the surface there's some scary stuff going on.

Pretty Poison has been released on DVD so if interested, check out Amazon, or check out TCM's online schedule every so often to see if it pops up again sometime soon. It's a creepy story that just keeps building and building until the final scene which reminded me of the ending The Omen would use years later. Great performances from a tyepcast Perkins as a mentally disturbed man and Weld too as the not so innocent teenage girl. The trailer below has some SPOILERS, and don't be confused, this is not a romantic comedy as much as it might try to make you think otherwise.

Pretty Poison <----trailer (1968): ***/****

Thief

Before there was Heat, Collateral or most recently Public Enemies, even director Michael Mann had to start somewhere. Directing his first feature film, Mann was already showing a style that he's become famous for with 1981's Thief.

With some directors, it takes time for a personal style to develop, but with Mann and Thief, it wouldn't be hard to believe if someone had told me this movie was made in the late 90s when he had become a very bankable director. It has all the elements fans have become used to, and in some cases scenes that are almost completely duplicated with later efforts, but more on that later.

Working on his own as a safecracker, ex-convict Frank (James Caan) is at the top of his game and bringing in a pretty penny while doing it. With help from his partner, Barry (Jim Belushi), it seems there's not a safe or vault out there the two men can't take down. Frank has only one demand when it comes to jobs, only money or diamonds, nothing too exotic and he picks the jobs. But after one particularly successful job, Frank is approached by a fence named Leo (Robert Prosky) to work under contract exclusively for him.

Frank wavers at first, but decides to take the offer. His plan is simple; do a handful of lucrative jobs and walk away from his career as a thief with his new wife, Jessie (Tuesday Weld). Apparently, Frank's never seen a mafia movie to know that as long as you make money for organized crime, they're not going to let you go easily. So for the expert safecracker, the situation goes from bad to worse, and he must now find a way out. Story-wise, this is nothing that hasn't been dealt with before in movies, books, and TV shows. But with Mann at the helms, you barely even notice that this all sounds really familiar. He does everything so well, so smoothly, that I got so wrapped up in the movie I didn't even notice the familiar storyline.

Ranking up there with Robert Deniro's Neal McCauley and Tom Cruise's Vincent, Caan as Frank is a great anti-hero and the perfect hard-edged character to lead the movie. Caan is one of those few actors who is just cool standing there. He doesn't have to try or pretend to be somebody he's not. For God's sake the man played Sonny Corleone! As Frank, Caan gives one of his career's best performances. After serving 11 years in prison, he's making up for lost time whether it be with his career or his newlywed bride. The scene where the two really connect for the first time, check it out here, is one example of a similar scene Mann would use 14 years later in Heat. It's the perfect scene to really get to know a character, and Caan is dead-on in the scene and Weld matches him.

As Frank's wife, Weld delivers a strong performance as a woman with a similarly troubled past. At first, she doesn't know how to read Frank's advances, but comes to see him as he really is, honest, sometimes brutally so, straightforward and just looking to lead a happy life. Prosky provides a good villain who for much of the movie is just a business partner. Of course, any self-respecting moviegoer knows he's not as legit as he's made out and problems arise. Belushi in a smaller part makes the partnership between Frank and Barry completely believable with very little said between them. And surprisingly, Willie Nelson joins the cast as Okla, a convict and sort of mentor/father figure to Frank who's serving the last 10 months of his sentence. He's only in 2 scenes, but Nelson is strong in both, giving a depth to Frank's background we otherwise would have no idea about.

On to the movie's style which is evident from the opening credits and the first vault break-in, seen here. Much of the movie's tone has to be chalked up to the score from Tangerine Dream which is a moody, dark, intense, very 80s electronica score. At times it can be overbearing, maybe a little over the top, but it fits the movie so perfectly. Filmed in Chicago, Thief is shot in shadows and darkness, almost a modern film noir, with some really innovative camera shots. I'll always be in favor of on-location shooting, especially when it involves my hometown of Chicago, because it's hard to duplicate the feel of a city elsewhere, whether it be a studio or another city posing as Chicago.

Less reliant on action and shootouts than some of Mann's later movies, Thief nonetheless does not disappoint when it comes to gunplay. It's after a $4 million dollar heist that the situation goes all to hell and Frank realizes everyone he loves and everything he owns is at risk. Drawing on his prison experience, "you have to have the mindset that you're not scared of dying," Frank goes after Leo and his henchmen in one last desperate attempt. You can see the last 10 minutes here, but obviously MAJOR SPOILERS. It's a very stylish, moving ending to the movie with another great sample from Tangerine Dream playing, even if I would have altered the ending a bit.

So take what I say with a grain of salt, I'm a huge Michael Mann fan, but Thief is as good if not better than the director's most well-known and respected movies like Heat and Collateral. Featuring a great performance from James Caan as an all-around badass who won't be messed with by anyone and a worthy supporting cast, Thief is one you should not let slip by.

Thief <----- trailer (1981): *** 1/2 / ****