1976 - THE SHOOTIST, John Wayne's final film

The Shootist's reputation as John Wayne's final film is a decent enough final film for this legendary performer.   It's now well known that Wayne who was suffering from cancer and in poor health had quite a few challenges getting through the filming.  Probably because he wasn't feeling well Wayne apparently had a lot of conflict with the director Don Siegel who was a fairly feisty guy as well.

 

This story is extremely downbeat.  Wayne plays an aging gunfighter dying of cancer who has decided to spend his remaining days living in a boarding house run by Lauren Becall.  However Wayne's reputation has made him a magnet for a lot of people looking to exploit him for a buck.  This all inevitably draws Wayne into one last gunfight.

 

This is a real old timer's film loaded with lots veteran actors.  Besides Becall, there's Harry Morgan, Scatman Crothers, Hugh O' Brian, Richard Boone, John Carradine, and Sheree North.  There's also a somewhat miscast Ron Howard as the young kid Wayne befriends.  Howard does a decent job with his role but at this point in his career he was so identified with his "Richie Cunningham" role from Happy Days it was difficult to see him in anything else.  James Stewart is also in the film and he gives a very good performance in a relatively small part.

 

John Wayne brought all of his skill and authority as an actor to his final film but The Shootist is an extremely depressing film and some what of a downer to watch.  Don Siegel another old timer Hollywood guy was known as a director of action films but he did a good job on The Shootist which is primarily a character study.

The film was written by Miles Hood Swarthout and Scott Hale, the running time is 100 minutes. 

1973 - CHARLEY VARRICK. a well made crime caper

Walter Matthau is Charley Varrick a crop duster in New Mexico who has taken up bank robbing when his business fails.  After robbing a bank in a small town.  Varrick realizes that the money from the robbery is being laundered by the Mafia. Now with the police after him he has to contend with a Mafia hitman also on his trail.

The film has an interesting cast.  Walter Matthau is generally remembered for playing comedy. Actually he was in a number of serious roles particularly at the beginning of his career.  Joe Don Baker is the "good old boy" hit man on his trail.  One time 20th Century Fox Studios starlet Sheree North is a forger who Varrick hires to create a new passport in order to get out of the country. Perennial bad guy John Vernon is a member of the Mafia.

 

The film was very well directed by Don Siegel.  Siegel was one of those Hollywood directors who essentially shot medium to low budget films and was elevated to auteur status over the years by the critics.  However  for every Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dirty Harry and Riot in Cell Block 11 there was crap like Duel at Silver Creek and The Black Windmill.  Siegel also directed John Wayne's last film The Shootist and had to deal with a very cantankerous Duke Wayne throughout the filming.

 Charley Varrick was a story that played to Siegel's skills as a good director of action films.  This film zips along at a good pace without losing sight of the characters at the expense of the action aspects of the film something current filmmakers could learn.

As good a job as Siegel did as the director, this film is blessed with a very good script from Dean Reisner and Howard Rodman.  In fact a major asset to this film's success is their contribution.

The running time on this film is 111 minutes.

1962 - HELL IS FOR HEROES, a very good antiwar film

 This is a very good antiwar film.  A squad of American soldiers has to hold the line from some German soldiers.  Along with excellent battle scenes the interactions of the soldiers are well developed particularly with the heightened presence of the Germans.

The film has a great cast of character actors.  Singer Bobby Darrin is a private, James Coburn is a corporal, Nick Adams a Polish refugee from the Germans.  Even more great character actors show up, Mike Kellin, Fess Parker, Harry Guardino, and L.Q. Jones.  In a very strange piece of casting comedian Bob Newhart is a soldier/clerk now assigned to the squad.  Newhart probably has the dumbest scene in the film doing one of his comedic telephone bits.

 Probably the most fascinating performer is Steve McQueen as a former Master Sergent busted down to the rank of private.  This is a classic McQueen role, a malcontent who can't get along with anyone but is highly skilled at his occupation in this case killing Germans.  During the making of the film McQueen was quite a handful for the production.

The director was Don Siegel who was kind of a bruiser of a filmmaker guy himself when dealing with actors and studio executives.  Siegel was a replacement for Robert Pirosh the screenwriter who initially tried to direct this film but ran into major issues dealing with McQueen.  Only a tough guy like Siegel could handle him.

  

The battles are well staged and for what could have been a rah rah war movie they have a tough intensity to them.  The final battle with the Americans attacking a German pillbox is particularly intense.  To paraphrase Shakespeare there's no honor in dying in combat, you just end up dead.  Highly recommended.

Written by Robert Pirosh and Richard Carr, the running time is a tight 90 minutes.

1974 - THE BLACK WINDMILL, James Bond meets The Man Who Knew Too Much

Unbelievably unthrilling thriller.  A British schoolboy is kidnapped and his secret agent dad searches for him.

The Black Windmill was directed by Don Siegel, who after Dirty Harry had built up a serious critical following as a film stylist.  Critics looked back at his earlier films and found an interesting list that included, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Hell is for Heroes and Riot in Cell Block 11.

 Of course for every Invasion of the Body Snatchers there was The Annapolis Story, Duel at Silver Creek and Count the Hours, films that will not get the Criterion treatment.

The film stars Michael Caine who somehow is now highly regarded as an actor.  Caine won an Academy Award which gave him a lot of cred.  A quick review of his career shows an actor who will stoop to any part for a paycheck witness,  Gnomeo and Juliet, Austin Powers in Goldmember and The Muppet Christmas Carol.  In The Black Windmill Caine must have really been in it for the money, he barely registers a performance and seems completely disengaged throughout the film.

Only Donald Pleasence seems to have any interest in the film playing Caine's boss the quirky head of a British intelligence unit. 

This film is so lame that the windmill in The Black Windmill  isn't even black.

106 minutes, Leigh Vance is the screenwriter.

1964 - THE KILLERS, made for TV film of the Hemingway story, sort of.

Supposedly the first made for TV film that was released instead in the theater because of it's violence.  The Killers is kind of a lame looking film with lots of sloppy back projection, cheap looking studio sets, crappy back lot filming and over blown music from John Williams no less.

The film was directed by B movie ace Don Siegel who had a good cast.  Lee Marvin and Clu Gulagher are the ultra cool killers possibly an inspiration for the Blues Brothers.  Angie Dickenson is the femme fatale in full fatale mode.  Ronald Reagan the criminal mastermind who earns his reputation as the second string actor he always was.   John Cassavetes is also in the film, this is the kind of crap he did to finance his own independent films. 

Since this was a cheapskate Universal studio production, Siegel probably did the best he could do under the circumstances.  Siegel tries to stick a few stylistic flourishes into the film but it's pretty much an uphill battle.  When it's all said and done probably the only interesting stuff in the film is Lee Marvin's very cool killer.

A film with a higher reputation than it deserves probably due to the weirdness of having Ronald Reagan in his final film playing a screen villain.  The Killers is another Criterion disc like the Blob where the bonus materials are better than the actual film.

93 minutes.

1954 - RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11, this is a great film

Finally a great movie.  The producer Walter Wanger, had shot a guy who was having an affair with his wife Joan Bennett.  He ended up going to jail for assault and while in jail he was shocked at the horrific conditions that the convicts were living in.  When he got out he decided to make a film about prison life.

Wanger hired Don Siegel a talented B movie director in the best sense of the word.  Siegel brought speed to this film.  Riot in Cell Block 11 moves fast and doesn't have a dull moment in it.  Siegel and Wanger got permission to shoot a lot of the film on location in Folsum Prison and that really adds to the look of the film.

 

The cast has a bunch of talented character actors.   The film is around 76 minutes long and makes it's points about overcrowding and the poor treatment of the convicts without hammering your head over it like a good liberal would.

 A very impressive film.

1958 - THE LINEUP, Dragnet on another channel

The Lineup was CBS's answer to the popularity of Dragnet, basically a police procedural crime drama. Columbia hired Don Siegel to turn it into a movie.

 

 
Siegel was a guy who had worked his way up in Hollywood starting in the 2nd unit department at Warner Brothers. He was enough of a pro to know how to put a modest film like this together. He was also lucky enough to be able to film a lot of The Lineup on location in San Francisco. The film is like watching a guided tour of the town in the late 1950's.

The film's story has to do with the cops stopping a heroin smuggling ring which is using unsuspecting couriers. A parallel story has two hired killers tracking down the people with the heroin and killing them off if they get in the way.

There is an exciting car chase at the end of the film which is kind of ruined by too much rear projection. The chase ends with a ballsy stunt on an unfinished piece of freeway which is pretty intense.

Probably the highlight of the film is Eli Wallach's performance as the killer "Dancer." This guy is truly scary. He pretty much kills anyone who even remotely pisses him off. In a way he's almost a warm up act for the Scorpio Killer in Siegel's film Dirty Harry.

86 minutes, written by Stirling Silliphant.