The Gritty Cinema Of John Flynn
Ed here: I watched "The Outfit" last night and it was as dazzling and powerful as ever. Duvall IS PARKER.
Here's a very good Movie Fanfare piece on the sadly forgotten director John Flynn.
For the entire piece go here: https://www.moviefanfare.com/john-flynn-movie-director/
by Irv Slifkin
Somewhere in Movieland, there’s some kind of radar that tracks film directors. Blipping prominently on the screen would be the likes of Ford, Welles, Capra, Hawks, Spielberg, Kurosawa, Kubrick, Tarantino, Scorsese and Lean.
Here's a very good Movie Fanfare piece on the sadly forgotten director John Flynn.
For the entire piece go here: https://www.moviefanfare.com/john-flynn-movie-director/
by Irv Slifkin
Somewhere in Movieland, there’s some kind of radar that tracks film directors. Blipping prominently on the screen would be the likes of Ford, Welles, Capra, Hawks, Spielberg, Kurosawa, Kubrick, Tarantino, Scorsese and Lean.
There’d also be filmmakers
who barely register, no matter how sensitive the tracking device is. One such
man behind the camera who turned in terrific work on a regular basis but hardly
made a blip was John Flynn.
Even the name is
forgettable. A recent conversation with a friend—about the 1973 Robert Duvall
film The Outfit—led me to ask myself: Who directed
that? As I pushed aside the cobwebs of my mind, I recalled it was John Flynn,
which prompted me to do some further investigation. Damn, this guy made some
terrific genre films, though his most people—movie buffs included—would be
hard-pressed to name them.
A Chicago native who grew
up in Hermosa Beach, California, Flynn served in the Coast Guard and attended
UCLA for journalism. He hooked up with director Robert Wise, with whom he
worked as an apprentice on Odds Against Tomorrow, and as script consultant on
West Side Story. He directed the second unit for several films, including the
Elvis Presley boxing vehicle Kid Galahad, the romantic drama Two for the
Seesaw, the war epic The Great Escape, and the all-star farce What a Way to
Go!, before graduating to helming his first feature.
It was, in fact, Wise that
Flynn credited with helping him start his career. Wise enlisted Flynn to direct
1968’s The Sergeant, which the veteran director
produced. Set in 1952, the film centers on an American sergeant (Rod Steiger)
stationed in France who is attracted to a recently-arrived soldier (John
Phillip Law), and insinuates himself the subordinate’s life with tragic
results. The film is now looked upon as a seminal example of how homosexuality
was depicted in movies, but it failed to make an impression on audiences
despite its controversial nature and Steiger’s strong performance as the
tortured lead character.
Flynn didn’t fare much
better with the non-reception greeting The Jerusalem File, a 1972 drama with
Bruce Davison as an American college student in Israel getting caught up in
politics after the Six Day Arab-Israeli War.
The Outfit (1973) changed
Flynn’s career trajectory, at least in the eyes of the critics, if not the
public. In this tightly-wound, often explosive noir, which Flynn expertly
adapted from a “Parker” story by Donald Westlake (aka Richard Stark), Robert
Duvall played an ex-con who learns his brother has been gunned down while he
was in prison. It seems that a crime syndicate believed the sibling
robbed a bank under their control. Duvall, hot off of The Godfather, teamed
with craggy former partner Joe Don Baker for a direct confrontation with the
mobsters, led by the sinister Robert Ryan (in one of his last roles).
Westlake himself called
The Outfit the best film adaptation of his fiction, which would include Point
Blank, Payback, The Split and others just in the Parker series alone. It’s
certainly clear why the film is a success, from Flynn’s no-nonsense direction
and clipped dialogue, to ace cinematography by Bruce Surtees of dusty,
depressed California locales (prominently Bakersfield), to a terrific cast that
also includes Karen Black and several veterans of classic film noirs (Timothy
Carey, Elisha Cook, Jr., Marie Windsor, Jane Greer).
Duvall and Baker, the
heroes of the piece, are not very likable; another troubling element of the
film is how the women are treated. Black, as Duvall’s girlfriend, gets slapped
around and often comes off as a whining pain-in-the-neck; a debuting Joanna
Cassidy, playing Ryan’s trophy wife, basically gets berated and ordered around
by her older husband throughout the film.
Revenge was also the name
of the game in Rolling Thunder, his alarmingly violent drama
based on Paul Schrader’s screenplay (reworked by Fort Apache: The Bronx’s
Heywood Gould). The 1977 effort centers on an Air Force flyer (William
Devane) who returns to his hometown after spending years in a POW camp, to find
his wife remarried and his son unaware of who he is. He’s targeted by a group
of vicious thugs out for his compensation pay, who torture him—leaving him with
a life-altering disability—and kill his wife and son. Snapping, Devane goes on
a rampage, recruiting ex-POW pal Tommy Lee Jones to bring vigilante justice to
the perps.
No easy viewing, Rolling
Thunder, recently issued in an extras-packed Blu-ray release (and already
available on DVD), had a rough ride to neighborhood screens. Its release
history was marked by a studio (Fox) abandoning it, a marketing screening
that drew walk-outs and nearly a unanimous negative reaction from the audience,
mixed response from critics (“In sum, it neither rolls nor thunders,” commented
Variety) and, finally, a lackluster theatrical run by way of low-budget
specialist American International Pictures.
I saw "The Outfit" for the first time the other night on TCM. I can't compare it to the novel because it's been so many years since I read it, but the movie is a gem for any fan of hardboiled entertainment.
ReplyDelete