Tuesday's Overlooked Movie: The Friends of Eddie Coyle

I was finally able to see this after reading about it some twenty-five years ago. I still haven't read George V. Higging's novel the film is based on, but I intend to - one of these days. I know some of you are gonna say "You're looking forward to a treat" or some such, and I'm sure you're right. No question about that.

As the film is pretty great. The laconic style is familiar to anyone who's seen Bullitt, made by the same director Peter Yates, but there's not much talk in Bullitt. The Friends of Eddie Coyle, however, is very dialogue-driven. The characters just talk, talk, talk - and it's all fascinating! The lines don't all make much sense and they don't forward the plot, but it's much greater for that.

The film also trusts that the viewer can detect important plot points for him/herself. There's no one telling what happened or what will happen. In this respect, the final scene may be unnecessary.

The minus point in the movie is the funky soundtrack that's ripped out from a blaxploitation flick. This could well do without a music at all. (Mind you, Dave Grusin's soundtrack is very good, but not in this particular film.)

Here's a New York Times run-down on Higgins.

More Overlooked Movies (later, hopefully) at Todd Mason's blog here.

Edit: seems like Todd hasn't made up his usual round.

Two film noirs: Born to Kill and Out of the Past

The great film noir series of the Finnish Broadcasting Association has allowed me to see films I'd never seen before and revisit some of the old favourites. Robert Wise's Born to Kill (1947) was one of the former and Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past (1947; both from the same year!) represents the latter group of films. I enjoyed both, but Born to Kill was somewhat of a disappointment.

Wise's film has a cult reputation as being one of the most hardboiled and hard-hitting films of the late fourties. It stars the great late Lawrence Tierney who looks as mean as it gets. And here's the problem with the film: Tierney is just too bad and mean and mean-looking and I find it very hard to believe those women would fall for him. Well, of course the leading lady, played by Claire Trevor, would fall for him, as she is a sociopath by nature, but Tierney's psychopathic stare would scare away all the other ladies, especially Trevor's kid sister with whom Tierney gets married. Very nice battle scenes in the film, though. Tierney sure knew how to throw a punch.

Born to Kill is based on James Gunn's novel Deadlier Than the Male. I have the book, but haven't read it. I'd really like to hear comments on it, if there's anyone reading this who's read the book.

Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past is one of the classics of the film noir genre, and it should be: the balance between the bitter hardboiled tone and the soft fatalistic romance is deftly handled. Robert Mitchum is great as the fall guy who doesn't much want to get out. And Jane Greer - man, I wouldn't want to get out the set-up either. The dialogue is full of clever one-liners and witty banter.

But the plot? Could someone please tell me what happened in the film? I've seen the film at least four times and I've read Geoffrey Homes's novel the film is based on (albeit in the late eighties, and only once), so I think I should know. But I'm not sure I do.