Friday Forgotten Film: Daylight
- dis•as•ter |diˈzastər|
- noun
- - a sudden event, such as an accident or a natural catastrophe, that causes great damage or loss of life
- adjective
- - denoting a genre of films that use natural or accidental catastrophe as the mainspring of plot and setting : a disaster movie.
-
informal
- a person, act, or thing that is a failure
During the 1990s, actor/writer/director Sylvester Stallone ventured away in film from his two biggest personas onscreen, that of Rocky Balboa and John Rambo. Age will do for that to you. Both roles brought notoriety, fame, and not surprisingly, some baggage. To his credit, and for better or for worst, Stallone attempted a change of pace with a variety of unexpected films during this period. Action, comedy, and drama were each undertaken. Some worked at the box office with little critical acclaim (Demolition Man, 1993) or were spotlighted later by critics and fans even if the film failed with ticket buyers at the time (Cop Land, 1997). Others were best left behind (My Little Hollywood, 1997) or went on to achieve the dubious distinction of being so bad that the film was actually and perversely entertaining (The Specialist, 1994). You gotta give it to him, the movie star gave his a career a literal roll of the dice with this undertaking.
Though it gathers little attention these days (especially after Sylvester Stallone successfully returned to the Rocky and Rambo franchises during the 00s), the 1996 Rob Cohen-directed film, Daylight, offered an under-appreciated homage to the disaster films of the 70s, though modernized with some 90s sensibilities, events, and startling effects. I’ll admit, here and now, that I am a long-time fan of the disaster flick. While it didn’t originate during that particular decade (the concept is as old as silent movies), the genre really hit its stride during the time that became known as the “Sexy Seventies”. Airport (1970) and, of course, The Poseidon Adventure (1972, and celebrating its 40th anniversary this year) kicked off the decade by making this type of film big box office as never before — studios noticed and Earthquake and The Towering Inferno (both in ’74) soon followed up to cash in on the craze. Undervalued fare from previous decades, like The Last Voyage (1960), never had it as good as they did here. Read more 
Friday Forgotten Film: The Yakuza
There are instances when an actor, or director, tries something so different and foreign just to stretch themselves in their film craft… or to get a paycheck. Occasionally, the attempt really isn’t that unusual — it just has that appearance. Those that try may get rewarded for the endeavor… but only sometimes. More often than not, their daring efforts will garner a harrumph from critics or be ignored by the movie-going public. Any combination of which guarantees the movie the actor/director put their time and sweat (and sometimes soul) into will quickly come and go when released to theaters. Nowadays, this isn’t as bad of a deal considering DVD sales are as large, or larger, to a studio’s individual movie returns (following an accelerated release to disc, of course, ‘cuz it bombed at the box office). Those sales help to negate the bad bottom-line karma surrounding such a motion picture.
However, when this happened decades ago, movies simply slipped through the cracks and were consigned to oblivion. If it was a 70s film, and was lucky, it could start getting attention once more in the subsequent age of the VHS tape and the video rental store (itself just about relegated to history’s dustbin) that followed. That is, if the studio bothered to release it to the consumer market (a number never are). In my opinion, some of this pertains to a particular and unexpected neo noir from mid-decade: The Yakuza. And you can lay whatever praise for this little seen pearl of a movie at the feet of those who dared to take a chance with the material, one that was ahead of its time. Certainly, we’re talking about director Sydney Pollack and actor Robert Mitchum in what turned to be their only collaboration together. Add to this an ambitious screenplay written by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) and Robert Towne (Chinatown, Tequila Sunrise), along with a stellar, if disregarded, introduction of a Japanese movie star to U.S. audiences, Takakura Ken. It was a heady mix which was unfairly overlooked.
What made this film so different? Simply, it was an attempt to present the time-honored gangster genre film in a whole new way. That is, by introducing Japan’s equivalent to western audiences in a story that involved Americans and the organized crime clans known as the Yakuza. The story begins in what was contemporary Los Angeles. A business man (Brian Keith) seeks out his former WWII colleague, Harry Kilmer (Mitchum), to aid in the return of his daughter, now kidnapped by his unhappy business partner (who happens to be a Yakuza crime boss). Naturally, this is complicated by returning to Japan and confronting a sore issue for Harry. The former occupation forces MP’s erstwhile lover Eiko (Keiko Kishi) will have to be involved. Her brother, Ken (you already guessed who, I know), is a former successful gangster, one indebted to Harry, and the only in-road (as a go-between) toward settling this without bloodshed for the tasked American. As any good crime melodrama would have it, we all know this won’t come to pass, especially in a 70s neo noir.
Harry Kilmer: “Everywhere I look, I can’t recognize a thing.”
Oliver Wheat: “It’s still there. Farmers in the countryside may watch TV from their tatami mats and you can’t see Fuji through the smog, but don’t let it fool you. It’s still Japan and the Japanese are still Japanese.”
This little remembered Sydney Pollack film had a lot to overcome when it arrived. First, was its timing. Released in early 1975 in the U.S. (the film actually debuted December 1974 in Japan) when the initial martial arts film craze started to wane. The Yakuza must have appeared to some as another movie co-opted for the ‘Kung Fu’ movie movement of that decade, whether it had a big name director and actor associated with it or not. It wasn’t that. This was a crime film. What people missed is that this one was at the center of a remarkable set of three crime pictures for Robert Mitchum… The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) and Farewell, My Lovely (1975) bracket it. As well, few here at the time knew about the long-standing genre of gangster films in Japan, which have a tremendous history in and of themselves. From its early romanticized view of the ‘noble’ underworld characters, all the way to its later more realistic, hard-boiled style that paralleled Hollywood noir, as noted by author Mark Schilling in his well researched guide to Japanese gangster films. Yet, that was exactly why the film was not so unusual for Pollack (someone known for his dramas) and substantially, of course, for Robert Mitchum. For me and others, if there was actor you would associate with the film noir genre, it… was… Mitchum.
He was almost 60 when he made it, and he still carried off his role in what was a tribute to the (at that time) little known yakuza eiga. As I mentioned in a look-back review of the Dirty Dozen from last year, I place Robert Mitchum in the rare company of male lead performers (along with Lee Marvin) who could effortlessly pull off their roles as tough, unpredictable, but ever so cool men on the big screen. Few actors could carry off weary and dangerous with that ease and assuredness — even fewer, could do it anywhere near that age like Mitchum did here. Putting him together with someone as great as Takakura Ken was the film’s best attribute, too. Takakura made a career in Japan performing the analogous latter-day John Wayne roles, if that character operated on the other side of the law, that is. Though he had a surprising un-stereotypical supporting role in Robert Aldrich’s Too Late the Hero, this was his big intro to American audiences. In spite of the fact this film didn’t amass much attention, he made the most of it. Certainly enough for Ridley Scott to remember and use him in the key part for 1989′s Black Rain. That his film character and Mitchum’s Kilmer didn’t much like each other, only made their pairing the better.
The Yakuza remains, even decades after I first saw it, a film worth viewing. Sure, the story does suffer somewhat from having to introduce and superficially explain concepts deep-rooted in Japanese culture. Then and now, that is part of the fascination for many of us (Paul and Leonard Schrader included) who find distinct wonder with this insular Asian society. Still, this film is a hybrid of sorts. It has elements of the familiar (noir) but with an idealized take toward the Japanese film genre it wished to salute. It is a mix that delivers more often than not. Japanese audiences and critics found the film “… culturally sensitive, if highly romanticized, take on contemporary gangs“, as noted by Mark Schilling, if a bit absurd from their perspective. Our market simply ignored it, regrettably. Nevertheless, Robert Mitchum gave “one his best performance as the world-weary but still spry Harry Kilmer.“, and that, my friends, should never be missed or forgotten, in my opinion. It’s too bad the marketing in the U.S. didn’t live up to the film’s story — the poster and tag line doesn’t cut it (pun intended). They would have done better following the U.K. promotion (it’s why I lead off with its poster graphic). Their’s said it best:
A man never forgets. A man pays his debts.
How very true.
Like this:
Friday Forgotten Film: Hickey & Boggs
There are films that instantly garner acclaim and are lauded for being big groundbreaking movie experiences. Sometimes it was even true. And the 70s had plenty of them — in fact, it was in that decade where the summer blockbuster was literally invented. The Exorcist, Jaws, and Star Wars burst upon the scene during that era, and we’ve felt the effects ever since. Yet, this same period also spawned some small, tough, and underestimated films that were gems in their own right, just nowhere near as successful. Many would become essential viewing, down the line. They’d end up as influential offerings on some VHS rental shelves, that is when movie junkies gave them a chance. It could be said, some were pioneering motion pictures (in their own downcast and urban way).
“I gotta get a bigger gun. I can’t hit nothin’.”
Still, many of these disappeared quickly from the box office tabs, but some arose over time. A good bit of the crime films during this period fit the latter category to a tee. When initially released, these gritty post noir crime stories never attained anything close to success and were quickly forgotten to the video store dustbin. They weren’t meant for a wide audience, anyways. Their loss. And in my mind, 1972′s Hickey & Boggs epitomized this. This low-budget neo noir is likely the most overlooked film on that list — and certainly one that’s been hardest to find. Author Duane Swierczynski, the most prominent champion of the film I know, distilled it best back in 2009:
“A few years ago I became a huge fan of Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, thanks to Terrill Lankford and Michael Connelly. Huge to the point of rewatching it two, three times a year, because I see something new each time. And just a few weeks ago, I was turned on to Night Moves, the Gene Hackman/Arthur Penn P.I. classic, thanks to both Ed Pettit and Lee Goldberg. Now I’ve found the private eye movie that completes the trilogy (in my own head, anyway): Hickey & Boggs, starring (and directed by) Robert Culp, and written by the legendary Walter Hill.
All three films are essentially about the same thing: the death of the private eye as we know it…”
The essence of the film is just that. This isn’t Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade pounding the streets for clues or uncovering corruption in the noble, traditional sense à la Raymond Chandler or Dasheill Hammett. No, the protagonists in this tale are downtrodden like most everyone else was in the 70s… and living in (perfectly coined by Duane) a “mean, sunbaked” Los Angeles of the time that had little pity for their ilk. And some took note. Elizabeth Ward’s chapter in the Film Noir Reader, titled The Post-Noir P.I., provided an excellent study of this dynamic in her comparative look at The Long Goodbye and Hickey & Boggs. The writer deftly analyzed the indifference of the 70s upon those few with a code, and their newly out-of-place status. And, it took a heady combination of screenwriter, actor-director, and cast more than adequate for the job to take on that unidealized task at hand.
Al Hickey (Bill Cosby) and Frank Boggs (Robert Culp), I Spy co-stars reuniting and going against type in this downbeat crime thriller, are a pair of impoverished private eyes approached by a coiffed and shady character to find a particular woman who has gone missing. Needless to say, these P.I.’s step into a case way over-their-heads, one which involves a suitcase full of $1000 bills, syndicate ties, double-crosses, and desperate characters just hoping to make it out alive (our heroes included). Few do. Luckily, Hickey & Boggs had the support of a grand troupe that also contributed much to the hard-nosed movie fare of the era. There was a good deal of story and talent many dismissed when the film came and went back in ’72. Besides Hill, Culp, and Cosby, you had Vincent Gardenia (Death Wish), Tom Signorelli (’81′s Thief), James Woods (I don’t have list, do I?), Bill Hickman (Bullitt, Seven Ups, French Connection), Rosalind Cash (Klute, Omega Man) and Michael Moriarty (Who’ll Stop the Rain) dotting the cast and chewing the scenery. Hell, even Ed Lauter (The Longest Yard) showed up in uniform.
Hickey: “It’s time to get out.”
Boggs: “Outta what?”
Hickey: “There’s nothin’ left of this profession, Frank. It’s all over. It’s not about anything.”
Perhaps, it was the manner Hickey & Boggs depicted its gritty content, or the conflict it had on scant budget display, which drives my love of the film. Maybe it was the greed and mayhem Walter Hill penned so ably, and for which Robert Culp (in the rare director role, one he was so underrated at) assuredly laid out across the cityscape (a place that once existed and has gone by the wayside), that makes it simultaneously so harsh and wistful. Much like the detectives of yesteryear and those long gone Santa Monica homes that once peppered the bluffs over PCH. I guess it’s those film segments, which have either gone over the edge or have been bulldozed over, that make it so. By us local diehards, anyway. And like the Robert Towne written Chinatown (released a couple of years later), this one presents the City of Angels as a distinct character of the piece (even if she was a bit threadbare and calloused toward those who loved her for a time back then).
For me, Hickey & Boggs remains so damn watchable. After almost 40 years since I first caught the film in a near empty theatre, I’m still finding things in it I admire. Especially of late, its cinematography. Credit has to go to Bill Butler for making all that daylight and color in the film look so scorched and yet somehow noirishly dark. This is the same guy who would be the DP a couple of years later for some kid director named Spielberg doing some shark movie. Under his lens, L.A. never looked so bad, and so beautiful to me. Just like those old Civil Defense sirens that echo through the movie. And like Michael Mann with his Los Angeles masterwork, Heat, you got to give Culp praise for shooting the only motion picture he ever chaired all across the city he lived in and along some of its famed locations (btw, that is the real Pink’s in the film, and one of its hot dogs in the image below). Yes, he did it cheaply. But then again, this wasn’t the 90s. And yet, I consider all the movies named here, those that used Los Angeles as a backdrop that is, as essential viewing. Especially this neglected neo noir.
“Look, everybody in this town is about to burn us up. You can’t go bad on me now. Frank, don’t you get it? Our pictures are in all the newspapers. They are going to bury us! One side or the other.”
Hickey & Boggs is a forgotten film that’s finally gaining a long overdue reappraisal. I believe part of the reason a proper DVD release has been held up is the legal entanglement over rights. Sadly, with the passing of Robert Culp, it means the long dispute has cost us a key resource to the film’s backstory. There’s only a woeful disc and an ancient VHS tape floating about today for media collectors (I know, I have both). All is not beyond hope, however. Amazon is now offering a pristine widescreen print of H & B on their Video on Demand service for rent or purchase., as does a certain fruit labeled company:
The streaming/digital video route is the recommended way to go as of today with this film (unless you’re lucky enough to catch it in a revival screening). But, it’s worth it. If there is any justice in the world, even if it’s of the sorrowful variety that is Hickey & Boggs’ finale, surely as Duane and I hope, only a Criterion Collection disc treatment will give this film its due.
Blogger’s Note: even better, while it’s not a Criterion Collection disc, thankfully MGM MOD has released Hickey & Boggs in widescreen DVD. And as reported by J.D. in his fine review of the film and DVD, this one is worth having. You can purchase here, or on Oldies.com site.
