Caught this 1964 thriller on TCM recently and was really impressed. A remake of the 1946 noir classic that introduced Burt Lancaster (which was extrapolated from a short story by Ernest Hemingway), this hard-boiled production was a made-for-TV movie that was deemed too violent for TV and so was released theatrically. It's TV-movie origins are most visible in the backlot-intensive settings, some not-very-convincing painted backdrops seen through the windows of the indoor sets, and the high-key lighting. But the film's violence and intensity are pure big screen.
The story begins with two hit men (Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager) killing an automotive teacher in a school for the blind. Played by John Cassavettes, the man calmly accepts his fate. This intrigues the killers and when they learn he was involved in a robbery that made off with a million dollars, they decide to find out who ordered the hit with the hope that they will be able to procure the million for themselves. Their investigation generates several flashbacks in which we learn that Cassavettes was once a race car driver. Following an accident that sidelines him, an old girlfriend -- Angie Dickinson, smoking hot and sultry -- offers him a job as a getaway driver for a robbery planned by her sugar daddy, crime boss Ronald Reagan. But because this is a neo-noir, nothing is quite as it seems and many seductions and double-crosses in a plot filled with clever twists and satisfying surprises.
Marvin gives a steely performance that serves as a dry run for his role as a similarly determined bad man in POINT BLANK a few years later. Gulager gives a wonderfully performance as Mavin's sidekick -- a charming, playful, and incredibly ruthless psychotic killer. With their natty dress, cool sunglasses, and snappy banter, there can be no doubt that veteran and apprentice hit man characters played by Marvin and Gulager here served as the models for the Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta characters in PULP FICTION. The correlation is too exact for any other explanation.
As previously mentioned, Angie Dickinson is incredibly sexy and seductive in the picture -- the screen steams up every time she shows up. And because this is a neo-noir, Angie is not just femme, but also a fatale and she does a great job with that aspect of her character as well. This is a really complex and effective performance.
The biggest surprise in the cast is Ronald Reagan. Yes -- THAT Ronald Reagan. In addition to being a terrible president, Reagan was always a dreadfully boring and uninteresting actor in all of his nice guy B-lead and supporting performances. But here he plays a bad guy -- a really nasty crime boss -- and he's terrific. As it turns out, Reagan makes a really great asshole.
The only weak link in the cast is Cassavettes. As great as he was as a director of ground-breaking independent films, as an actor, I have always found Cassavettes to be quite off-putting. In almost every movie in which he appeared as an actor for hire, he plays an angry, pissed-off, and seriously charmless guy in a phoned-in manner that suggests he's only doing it for the money and hates himself for doing so and he is no different here.
The movie was written by Gene L. Coon (whose most famous credit is as the showrunner of Star Trek who turned Gene Roddenberry's FORBIDDEN PLANET knock-off into the beloved series it became) and directed by hard-boiled maestro Don Siegel. It's downbeat, cynical, and really, really good.
