Richard Lutz and those flims you just gotta see on the box this week
Some movie-names (real or fictional) leap off the page or, in this case, the screen: Marilyn, 007, Clint, Hitchcock.
Well, how about Walker?
Who?
Walker has no first name and little backstory but as soon as you see that iconic photo of Lee Marvin with a 44 Magnum looking down at an unknown person with that steel eyed look, you know who Walker is.
He’s the violent con just out of prison looking for the $93,000 that the mob owes him. He’s the heavy duty hardman psycho hero of Point Blank ((Fri; BB2, 12.10 AM…ok, ten after midnight)..
The film was directed by Brit John Boorman, who earned his chops at the Beeb. it was made in 1967, partially shot in San Francisco though there is no inkling of flower power here. Marvin’s Walker just wants his money and can’t understand that during his time banged up, life and crime had changed. It had gone legit. There was no cash around. Mob boss Brewster (played by equally tough guy Carol O’Connor) explains it is tied up in investments. Walker and his 44 just don’t get it.
He’s a crime dinosaur.
The film has a solid cast- faces you’ll recognise. Angie Dickinson, John Vernon (he actually cried in the filming when Marvin hit him too hard) and Keenan Wynn.
And Boorman uses an edgy non linear tone to the film that includes flashbacks, dream sequences and jarring edits that must have infleunced Tarentino, Soderbergh and host of young directors gettng behind the camera in the 80’s and 90’s.
Others simply followed the movie. There’s a 2010 French film also called Point Blank and John Cusack was in a movie called Grosse Pointe Blank which is watchable but a mere suped-up modern black comedy. Interestingly, Mel Gibson stars in another copy called Payback which is also on this week (Tues; ITV4, 22.00). It’s well, Mel Gibson. It ain’t Lee Marvin
Film historian David Thomson (a critic among the best) calls Lee Marvin’s Point Blank ‘a masterpiece.’ and adds: ‘this is not just a cool violent film, but a wistful dream..’
Well, I don’t know about …errr..wistful. But it sure is cool.