Crime/Thriller – Page 6 – The Magnificent 60s

Dr Crippen (1963) ***

I have to confess my ignorance of this infamous British murderer. I knew the name and that he had hacked up his wife and buried her under the floorboards, so I just assumed a nutcase in the vein of Jack the Ripper, a sadist with a bent for mutilation. So I was quite surprised by this biopic which tended more towards explanation – perhaps going as far as expiation – rather than exploitation.

Mostly, this is set around a court case with flashbacks to fill in the story. This is one of these pictures where the victim is completely unsympathetic. Mrs Crippen (Coral Browne) as portrayed here was just awful. An ex-music hall artiste, she not only slept around but taunted Dr Crippen (Donald Pleasence) about how much better her, invariably younger, lovers were in bed. She treated him as her servant, always on the lookout for the opportunity to humiliate him and was at her most venomous when drunk, a common occasion.

He had fallen for a much younger woman, his secretary Ethel Le Neve (Samantha Eggar), who, despite the age difference adored him. Though the notion of her apparently inept husband consorting with a woman was hilarious to Mrs Crippen, his wife wanted to use the opportunity to humiliate him further. Divorce is out of the question. In 1908 the scandal would ruin an outwardly respectable man. In innocent fashion, Ethel plants in the doctor’s head the potential solution.

Crippen poisons his wife, chops her up, buries her in the cellar and comes up with a fantastical tale to account for her disappearance, namely that she had run off to America to take up with a previous lover. The police think he’s lying – assuming she has just run off – but don’t believe this innocuous little man could be guilty of murder. The situation only becomes dicey when Crippen and lover flee the country and this creates a hue and cry, front page news across the world, and they are apprehended on board a steamship where they maintain the charade of being father and son, a cover blown by the fact her male outfit hardly conceals her figure and that he can’t resist squeezing her hand in public..

Ethel believes Crippen is innocent and although he is found guilty, there is a coda where it might appear that the crime should be manslaughter rather than murder. He intended the poison to be used as a sedative, to stop her verbally abusing him, and he only accidentally gave her an overdose.

So it’s far from drawing a lurid picture of a terrible murderer in part due to the portrayal of his philandering, drunken, abusive wife; in part due to the meekness of the doctor; in part due to being shown exactly how the overdose could have occurred in unintentional fashion; and in part because we do not see him butchering the body. It comes across as a more sympathetic portrait of one of the most demonized figures in British criminal history.

The only problem is it’s impossible to see the attraction of a vibrant young women to this fuddy-duddy older fellow. Maybe it was his intellect – a young woman dazzled by his brain.

He’s not exactly creepy, but he lacks an ounce of charisma. But that does square with him not being a murderer, and only wishing to sedate his wife – still a crime – to give him some peace.

Resulted in Donald Pleasence (Soldier Blue, 1970) being typecast as a villain which, while limiting his range, ensured career longevity. Samantha Eggar (The Collector, 1965) continued to burnish her growing reputation. Coral Browne (The Killing of Sister George, 1969) steals the show with a vigorous performance, but, oddly enough, didn’t do her career much good, another four years would pass before she was seen again on the big screen. Inveterate scene-stealer Donald Wolfit (Life at the Top, 1965) hams it up but there’s a more measured performance from the normally ebullient James Robertson Justice (The Fast Lady, 1962).

Directed by Robert Lynn (Mozambique, 1964) from a screenplay by Leigh Vance (The Frightened City, 1961).

More than competent biopic.

The Finger Man / Le Doulos (1962) *****

Stunning tour de force combining narrative complexity with technical audacity. Set up the template for later crime epics like Reservoir Dogs (1992) and The Usual Suspects (1995) and influenced Scorsese and Coppola. For the likes of me who revels in technical achievement, a delight, long tracking shots, two scenes over five minutes long shot in single takes, and rare use of the wipe. But technique is nothing without story. Luckily, here we are offered a riveting tale of double crossing, honor, revenge and that rare beast, irony. There’s a veritable tsunami of twists at the end but all the way through there’s the kind of sleight-of-hand that deserves a round of applause.

Jean-Pierre Melville hadn’t named his picture The Informer for the obvious reason of it being considered, erroneously, a remake of the John Ford 1935 Oscar-winning classic or just the danger of being unfavorably compared with it. But the pre-credit titles tell us that Le Doulos is underworld slang for an informer so we’re prepared for that element of the story. What we’re not prepared for is what comes next.

Maurice (Serge Reggiani), just out of prison after serving a six-year sentence, turns up at the house of fence Gilbert (Rene Lefevre) who’s helped him get back on his feet by setting him up with a safe-cracking job. Gilbert is appraising a cache of stolen jewels. Maurice shoots him, steals the jewels and a bundle of cash, burying the loot under a lamppost.

Maurice meets up with his partner Remy (Philippe Nahon) and another gangster Silien (Jean-Paul Belmondo), previously considered untrustworthy, who supplies the tools for the planned heist. While Maurice and Remy set off to burgle a house, Silien phones a cop, Inspector Salignari (Daniel Crohem). Silien viciously beats up Maurice’s girlfriend Therese (Monique Hennessey) and kills her.

The robbery doesn’t go according to plan, the cops turning up unexpectedly. In the shoot-out, Salignari and Remy are killed, Maurice wounded. Maurice passes on details of where he buried the loot to another buddy Jean (Philippe Marche).

Silien is picked up by the police as a known associate of Maurice. The interrogation scene, which lasts five or six minutes, is a piece of cinematic bravura. Shot in a single take the camera follows chief interrogator Clain (Jean Desailly) as he paces round the room, Silien only coming into view when the cop stops in front of him and asks him a question. While refusing to rat on Maurice, Silien agrees, under pressure from the cops who threaten to expose his drug racket, to phone around the various bars where Maurice might be holing up. This triggers another virtuoso piece of filmmaking as Melville employs the wipe. Maurice is located, reading a newspaper report on Therese’s death.

There follows another colossal technical achievement, Maurice interviewed in another long single take, this time the interrogator pacing in front of the prisoner. Maurice is jailed, where he shares a cell with an assassin.

Meanwhile, Silien gets hold of the jewels and cash. He enrols old girlfriend Fabienne (Fabienne Dali), currently the unhappy squeeze of top gangster and club owner Nuttheccio (Michel Piccoli), and hatches a scheme that makes little sense to the audience. So we just have to watch. Silien breaks into Nutthecio’s club and in the guise of selling the gangster the jewels gets him to hold some of the items, thus, we quickly realize, covering them with his fingerprints.

Silien kills Nuttheccio then waits for the club-owner’s partner Armand (Jacques de Leon) to arrive, kills him and stages the scene to look like they killed each other over the jewels which he deposits in the safe. One of the jewels was found at the failed robbery so that’s enough to free Maurice.

Then we play out the revelation, the same kind of scenario repeated in The Usual Suspects, where the audience learns the truth. Therese was the snitch. That’s why she was killed. Gilbert was shot by Maurice because the dealer in stolen goods had drowned Maurice’s previous girlfriend Arletty. Even though you could argue that was justified, Maurice not being a good judge of character and not aware, as Gilbert was, that Arletty was also a police informer.

It was pure coincidence that Silien phoned Salignari on the night of the burglary. Despite being on opposite sides of the law, they were friends and the gangster was merely inviting the cop to dinner.

Silien proves to be such a straight-up guy that he hands all the stolen cash to Maurice. Silien plans to get out of the business and retire with Fabienne to a house in the country. Then we learn that Maurice has distrusted Silien after all and arranged for the assassin he met in jail to kill Silien. To try and prevent that, he races to the country house, fortuitously arriving before Silien and is, ironically, shot by the assassin. When Silien arrives shortly afterwards he, with more savage irony, is also despatched.

I watched this initially thinking what a huge risk Jean-Paul Belmondo (Borsalino, 1970) was taking in playing, as I initially believed, not just a police informer, but stealing from Maurice the buried loot and leading the police to him. It would have been a hell of a note if the narrative had continued in the same hard-nosed vein especially after Silien’s absolutely brutal treatment of Therese. The slap he administered came out of nowhere and resounded like a gunshot. He then tied her up, again venomously, and poured a bottle of whisky over her head.

That it turned out to be a story of honor among thieves was perhaps the biggest twist of all.

Jean-Paul Belmondo is outstanding in an underplayed role, Serge Reggiani (The Leopard, 1963) convincing as the two-timing crook.

Deservedly recognized as one of the most influential crime pictures of all time, this is nothing short of a masterpiece by Jean-Pierre Melville (Army of Shadows, 1969). Written by the director from the novel by Pierre Lesou.

Beg, borrow or steal this one.

The Third Alibi (1961) ***

Sometimes there’s nothing more satisfying than a well-plotted narrative that doesn’t overstay its welcome and comes with a sting – or two – in the tail. And in the B-picture world we can accommodate all sorts of venal characters and even hope – or at least wonder if – they will get away with their nefarious plans.

We might have sympathy for stage composer Norman (Laurence Payne) stuck in a soulless marriage with Helen (Patricia Dainton). Small wonder he seeks spice through an affair with divorced sister-in-law Peggy (Jane Griffiths). After all, being a creative is hard work and we want him to enjoy showbiz success.

But that’s until driving home at night he knocks down an old man and races off without stopping. Luckily, the old fella’s not dead, otherwise it would have been in the papers. But then he’s bounced into asking his wife for a divorce since Peggy has announced she’s pregnant. But Helen isn’t agreeable, not least because of her dislike for her sister. And Helen’s very ill, a heart condition, but for reasons best known to herself, won’t confide this to her husband.

So Norman is left with no alternative but to bump her off. He comes up with a very clever plan that will allow him to pretend not be at home when he kills his wife there and also dreams up one of these clever alibis for Peggy, who’s integral to his plan, by getting her to make a nuisance of herself at the cinema, so everyone recalls her both arriving and departing, allowing her to slip out of the theater for the period of time she needs to assist Norman.

But Helen overhears the conspiracy. And when Norman goes home to shoot his wife, using an unlicensed therefore untraceable pistol provided by Peggy (war heirloom) instead of his own licensed traceable gun, he discovers the house is empty.

*Jazz singer Cleo Laine makes a cameo appearance, as, too, does Dudley Moore*.

When he returns to his lover, he finds her dead, shot through the head. As he rushes out, the police arrive. He’s only a suspect for a short time as his various alibis hold up. Helen appears to be standing by him. But then the police find his gun in the bushes outside the dead woman’s house.

When Helen confesses to the police that her husband has demanded a divorce, that puts her in the firing line. Except she’s got a perfect alibi. She stole the idea from the conspirators, making her visit to the cinema easily remembered by the staff both at the start of the movie and the end. It’s pretty much an unbreakable alibi unless any other witness can finger her.

Norman protests his innocence of course. And the irony is we know he’s innocent, but our sympathies are now with the killer, Helen, which twists around our preconceptions.

After all, not only is she the injured party in the romantic stakes, but she’s very ill, so needs all the audience sympathy she can get. So the audience, against its better judgement, is batting for her.

But, suddenly, twist number one, they don’t have to. Because the strain is all too much, and she has a heart attack and drops dead. And, surely, it won’t be long before Norman can find a way out of his predicament. And he believes he has the very thing.

There’s a nosy old neighbor who takes too close an interest in visitors to the house. So he must have seen Norman arrive there at the very time his lover was shot. The neighbor is brought in.

He’s a poor old soul. And blind. The result of being knocked over by a car a few weeks before.

What a cracking ending to a cracking tale. I always wonder why these kind of stories don’t get resurrected for some sort of portmanteau series, in the manner of Tales of the Unexpected. Although there’s little fat on them, a bit of judicious trimming would make them ideal for a one-hour television slot and this one, in particular, is little more than a three-hander, so wouldn’t cost much.

Each of the main characters is well drawn, each allowed a moment to stretch their emotional muscles. Solid, if not spectacular, acting from Laurence Payne (Crosstrap, 1962), Patricia Dainton (The House in Marsh Road, 1960), and Jane Griffiths (The Double, 1963), and impressive turn from John Arnatt (A Challenge for Robin Hood, 1967) as a doughty cop.

Written by Maurice J. Wilson (The House in Marsh Road) and director Montgomery Tully (The House in Marsh Road) from a play by Pip and Jane Baker. Tully is in fine form at the helm, wasting no time in driving this towards ironic conclusion.

I’ve been clocking up a few from the Tully portfolio in the last month or so. Astonished to find he directed another seven pictures this decade, so I might, in due course, complete the collection.

Enjoyable.

The French Connection 2 (1975) ***

Back to Marseilles four decades on from Borsalino (1970) and a preposterous plot that virtually sinks this fictional sequel to the factual original. For a start, French drugs kingpin Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) has a very distinctive face, and it could hardly been beyond a cop, accustomed to issuing identikits, to provide the French police and Interpol for that matter with a mugshot, thus eliminating the contention that New York cop Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) is the only one who can identify him.

Throw in the fact that, unlike other U.S. exports like Jason Bourne who is fluent in several languages, Doyle is instantly at a disadvantage because, blow me down, the ordinary French citizen doesn’t speak English, ensuring that the cop comes across as one of these witless foreigners who thinks shouting louder in English makes him any more intelligible. And his sole method of detection is to simply wander the streets of a city with a population of 1.3 million hoping to catch sight of his quarry.

Doyle, being a natural rule-buster, soon causes the death of a local cop to add to the five people he’s killed (including two cops) in his home country. The bull-in-a-china-shop is so ham-fisted that it’s embarrassing rather than comedic. And the get-out-of-jail-free card is just as preposterous. Turns out Popeye is bait – this was a trope of 1960s low-budget crime or espionage movies though usually a woman was either the willing or unknowing lure – sent to Marseilles by his own bosses, in the hope that his presence will lure Charnier out of hiding, when, in fact, the Frenchman hides in very plain sight, on his very fancy yacht or dining in very fancy restaurants.

You’d have thought it would be an incredibly simple matter to feed the Charnier’s face into the police system and come up with a match which would then just involve either breaking down doors or taking the more discreet approach of catching him in the act.

What saves this, and only just, is Gene Hackman’s performance, not as the aforementioned bull, but as a junkie going cold turkey. And that in itself is reduced to only a handful of outstanding scenes, when his opposite number Barthelemy (Bernard Fresson) has to listen to his meanderings about baseball and his childhood. The action finale, the equivalent of a dam burst, where the two cops are flooded in a dry dock is good too. But, devoid of the racing automobiles, the climax drags, as Doyle sets up a later action trope of the endless footslog (which Liam Neeson probably thought he had trademarked). This doesn’t even involve any leaping or running across rooftops just a canter along busy streets, down alleys and then along the marina hoping to catch Charnier before he escapes by yacht.

It’s slim on atmosphere, too. Where the original had a down’n’dirty lived-in feel, this comes over as a tourist version of Marseilles if a tourist fancied a stroll down some mean streets. There’s a really dumb scene where Popeye, hoping to scare out the crooks in the hotel where he was imprisoned, sets fire to the place. But he goes upstairs with a jerrycan of petrol, rather than starting at the top and working is way down, no guarantee that when he reaches the roof there’s going to be any avenue of escape left open to him.

Sure, a sequel was always going to be in the works after the success of the original. But why not concentrate on the obvious follow-up, how a cache of heroin with a street value of $32 million seized by Popeye and Co managed to vanish from a police property office.

Director John Frankenheimer (The Gypsy Moths, 1969, also featuring Hackman) hadn’t had a hit in a decade. This didn’t match the original at the box office. Written by Alexander Jacobs (Point Blank, 1967) and Robert Dillon (Bikini Beach, 1964) and Laurie Dillon, their only screen work.

Disappointing.

Borsalino (1970) ****

You wonder how much the unexpected success of this French gangster picture encouraged Paramount to invest in The Godfather (1972). The studio had gone down the Mafia route with The Brotherhood (1968) but to a significantly muted response. But where that film was heavy on family and drama, Borsalino went wild with charismatic performances and, as important, machine-gun-driven violence. And you couldn’t ignore the success the previous year of the French The Sicilian Clan (1969).

While Borsalino doesn’t go into the weighty issues and family sensibility that elevated The Godfather in the eyes of critics, its starting point owed more to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) with two likeable hoods, even, initially at least, sparring over the same girl. The family element here concentrates on fraternity, brothers in crime, rather than the father-son dynamic that drove The Godfather. And it’s just so much goddam fun.

Francois (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Roch (Alain Delon) are petty crooks in Marseilles in the early 1930s working their way up to the top, initially just with scams like presenting a longshoreman who can’t speak a word of German as a German regional boxing champion, hijacking the favorite in a horse race, setting up a slot-machine business, disrupting the city’s fish market, until graduating to more serious crime and challenging Marello (Arnoldo Foa) and Poli (Andre Bollet), kingpins of the area’s organized crime. They set fire to an abattoir, establish their own fiefdoms, running legitimate businesses like casinos. But the higher they climb the closer they come to a devastating irony which cannot be ignored. Once they’ve eliminated everyone else, their only competition is with each other, and both realize that, inevitably, one will begin to want to become the undisputed top gangster.

Roch is the more thoughtful of the pair, the one looking ahead, sensing opportunity, the strategist, Francois more likely to indulge his playboy instincts, but both enjoy the high life, mixing with celebrities, politicians and archbishops. There’s plenty collateral damage. Try to steal a bigwig’s girlfriend away and you are virtually condemning her to death.

Unexpectedly, for the genre, it’s huge fun, in part helped along by the genial earworm of a score by Claude Bolling, as evocative of the period as Scott Joplin’s rags were to The Sting (1973). We don’t have to suffer any sanctimonious prig on the sidelines offering commentary or the gangsters making out that they’re better than they are because they don’t indulge in certain types of crime. But the biggest contributory factor is the teaming of Alain Delon (Once a Thief, 1965) and Jean-Paul Belmondo (Is Paris Burning?, 1966), the two biggest French male stars of the decade, the former enjoying substantially more success overseas than the latter.

Remember that Robert Redford was a not star when he made Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid so the pairing of two huge marquee names was not a regular feature anywhere in the world. It was Alain Delon, in his capacity as producer, who snared his rival, ceding top billing to achieve it.

This was the second of nine movies that Delon made with director Jacques Deray and could not have been more different from their previous outing La Piscine/The Swimming Pool (1969), a claustrophobic psychological thriller. Deray had history with Belmondo, too, Crime on a Summer Morning (1965). The characters were a great fit for their screen personas. And the photography, with some sepia tint, is distinctive.

Written by Jean-Claude Carriere (Viva Maria!, 1965), Claude Sautet (Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud, 1995), Jean Cau (Jeff, 1969) and the director, based on the book Bandits a Marseille by Eugene Saccomano.

Buddy movie breakout. Highly enjoyable.

This City Is Ours (2025) *****

Knockout! Just stunning! I’m running out of superlatives for this one, the best crime series since The Wire (2002-2008). For sure, it takes a lead from The Godfather (1972) in that the core concerns family. But in a far more emotional manner than the Coppola epic where apart from a couple of scenes between Michael (Al Pacino) and his father (Marlon Brando) actual male expression of feelings is kept to an absolute minimum as though that might contaminate the pot.

Here, women, both in their relationships with husbands/fiancés, and their own naked ambition are very much to the fore. The new generation of males are vulnerable because of their desire for family, utterly exposed by love for babies and unborn babies, as opposed to old school boss Ronnie Phelan (Sean Bean) who spent little time with his son. And the fear of those on the fringes of being excluded from the “family” or those on the inside being cast out gives the narrative an iron soul.

The nail-biting climax is driven by three incidents involving the most vulnerable and therefore the most loved members of the clan. There’s betrayal, revenge and double-crossing but none of the infidelity or drug/alcohol abuse that was often a hallmark of the genre.

The tale pivots on three events. The first is of the brooding variety. Ronnie has allowed Michael Kavanagh (James Nelson-Joyce), almost an adopted son, to take the lead in crucial negotiations with Spanish drugs kingpin Ricardo (Daniel Cerqueira) much to the annoyance of his son Jamie (Jack McMullen). The second is that, in consequence, Jamie decides to hijack the next shipment. When Ronnie discovers his son is behind the plot, he decides not to follow up, and Michael realizes that blood is indeed thicker than water and that he will be squeezed out of his position in the organization. So he kills Ronnie and assumes command.

Except Jamie doesn’t take too kindly to this notion and, although generally not too bright and certainly way too impulsive for his own good (the Sonny, to keep The Godfather parallel going, of this particular gang), works out that only Michael had the motive to commit the murder which of course Michael strenuously denies. Both convince themselves the only way to take control is to rub the other out.

And then we’d be in standard gangster territory except for the other, emotionally-driven, plotlines. Jamie has a son he absolutely adores. Michael, with an unexpectedly low sperm count for a hardman, is hoping for an IVF baby with his girlfriend Hannah (Diana Onslow), a respectable businesswoman but hiding a very dark secret. Michael’s sidekick Banksy (Mike Noble) is grooming his son in the business. Ronnie’s wife Elaine (Julie Graham) treats Michael like a son and is inclined to take his side against Jamie. Rachel (Laura Aikman), wife of Jamie’s sidekick Bobby (Kevin Harvey), has ambitions way above her station of lowly book-keeper. She finds a way of finessing the fact that she physically controls the organization’s cash – and that it’s Ronnie’s wife whose name is on anything the gang owns – to exploit the divisions in the family as a means of of becoming the de facto “Godmother.”

Meanwhile, Ricardo, for good reason, distrusts Jamie and will only do deals with Michael, for whom he acts as mentor (so, if you like, Michael has two dads) although Jamie plans to sidestep the Spanish connection and go elsewhere for drugs which would have the dual effect of leaving Michael isolated and, with Rachel controlling the purse strings, potentially millions of pounds in debt. And hovering in the wings is a crafty cop, causing problems in every sneaky way possible, and a liability Cheryl (Saoirse Monica-Jackson), stuck with keeping to the code of omerta even though she guesses Ronnie wiped out her husband.

So it’s a game of shifting loyalties, grasping after power, with uber gangsters laid emotionally low by commitments to babies and pregnant wives. There’s none of the posturing of The Godfather, no making excuses for career choice or murderous thugs who draw the line at dealing drugs or women purportedly unaware of what their husbands do for a living.

Directed with occasional elan and pace and a great nose for the cliffhanger. Terrific writing by Stephen Butchard (The Last Kingdom, 2015-2018), both in dialog and twists on character interaction, and with a marvellous sense of narrative. You never know which way it’s going to go.

But most of all bursting with outstanding talent. You won’t see a deader eye this side of Clint Eastwood than James Nelson-Joyce (A Thousand Blows, 2024-2025) in his first leading role, who’s as comfortable exploring his own emotions as planning destruction. Mother hen Julie Graham (Ridley, 2022-2024) could easily turn into Ma Barker. Hannah Onslow (Belgravia: The Next Chapter, 2024) is tormented by her secret. Laura Aikman (Archie, 2023) manipulates and schemes. Virtually the entire cast are seasoned television actors, yet they’ll never have been lucky enough to encounter such character depth before.

Get on to your local streamer/television station and harangue them to buy this from the BBC.

As I said I’ve run out of superlatives.

Mr Majestyk (1974) ****

I interrupt the current program to bring you the hugely under-rated Mr Majestyk, now showing on Amazon Prime.

You read any critical assessment of the 1970s and if they talk about male actors at all it’ll be the “new wave” of Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Oscar nominees/winners all. There’ll be nary a mention of the actors who kept the box office straight on a consistent basis for most of the decade. Clint Eastwood would come into the equation, but it wouldn’t be for Dirty Harry (1971) or Every Which Way but Loose (1978) but only when he flexed his directorial muscles. Charles Bronson never harbored any ideas of picking up a megaphone so he wouldn’t even have that saving grace.

Yet Eastwood and Bronson saved Hollywood before the big blockbuster like Jaws (1975) or Star Wars (1977) took off and for one specific reason. They attracted a global audience. When foreign receipts started to matter more than ever, these two delivered. And while the critically-adored actors dithered over choices and could scarcely be guaranteed to put out a picture a year, Eastwood and Bronson were dependable, occasionally ramping up output to three a year (1971 and 1973 for Eastwood, 1972, 1974 and 1976 for Bronson). They were old-school reliable performers. .

Mr Majestyk has been somewhat overshadowed because it appeared just before what some ill-informed observers deemed to be Bronson’s breakout picture, Death Wish (1974), and because it was helmed by the under-rated Richard Fleischer (The Boston Strangler, 1968) who never seemed to generate critical traction.

In fact, it’s a cracker – a pair of stunning car chases, full-on blow-away street battle, and the actor is one of his best roles. If anyone could play a farmer convincingly it’s Bronson, who looks as if he knows exactly what it’s like to put in a mucky day’s work (he was a miner). Vince Majestyk (Charles Bronson), in the watermelon line, falls foul of small-time organized crime in the shape of one of the most hapless hoods you’ll come across, Bobby Kopas (Paul Koslo). When Majestyk doesn’t take too kindly to Kopas trying to muscle in on the employment market, the farmer ends up in jail.

During a routine transportation, gangsters try to hijack Mob hitman Frank Renda (Al Lettieri) but despite going in all guns blazing the racketeers haven’t counted on Majestyk, who steals the bus, sees of the pursuing cops and robbers and hides out in a shack in the hills. He trades the mobster for the cancellation of charges against him by Det Lt McAllen (Frank Maxwell). But he’s duped by Renda’s backgammon-playing fashionable moll Wiley (Lee Purcell). On the loose, Renda is determined to get his revenge. The cops are happy to use Majestyk as bait.

Mexican Nancy (Linda Christal), a crop picker and union organizer, also enters the frame, and despite Majestyk, having recognized imminent danger, trying to stifle burgeoning romance, she keeps coming back. She’s a straightforward gal. “You want to go to bed with me, why don’t you just ask?”

But bait becomes bait-and-switch and soon it’s the gangsters who are on a wild goose chase, car passengers driven off the road during a wild chase over dusty mountainous country, others picked off by rifle until it comes down to a showdown at an isolated house.

While Majestyk has the muscle to give Renda an occasional slapping, he’s also got the sucker punch, duping the hoodlum time and again.

One of the elements that distinguishes this is that, apart from Renda, all the characters, good or bad, male or female, are soft spoken. Even Lt McAllen isn’t always chewing someone out.

Although the car chases have been compared to Bullitt (1968) and The French Connection (1971) they have much more in common with Fear Is the Key (1972) where we are miles away from slick city roads. Plenty opportunity for vehicles to sail through the air. Nancy proves something of find behind the wheel, and Vince pretty game in the back of the truck being bounced six ways to Sunday by her driving.

Outside the action, several excellent scenes – the gangsters shooting up the watermelon crop, headlights ominous in the dark, a crop-picker being smashed by a car, Kopas being put in his place by Renda. Not only is the romance in a low register, but Bronson is in a low key, resigned to what he cannot change, but taking charge with blistering speed when he can.

This was a deliberate change of pace in terms of characterization from Bronson following the more action-oriented Chato’s Land (1972), The Mechanic (1972) and The Stone Killer (1973). There’s none of the usual brooding menace. He’s a farmer, not a killer.

Despite a long stretch in The High Chaparral (1967-1971), this was the first movie in six years for Argentinian Linda Cristal who’s effective rather than a scene-stealer which the cool Lee Purcell (Kid Blue, 1973) definitely is in non-showy fashion. By contrast Al Lettieri (The Godfather, 1972) eats the scenery, which is his job, as he turns from cat into mouse.

More than ably directed by Richard Fleischer from an original screenplay by Elmore Leonard (The Big Bounce, 1969).

A must see.

The Untouchables (1987) *****

The greatest crime picture ever made, outside of The Godfather Parts I and II (1972/1974). A sledgehammer of a narrative that moves like an express train, only slowing down for a number of bravura sequences. Riddled with fabulous lines, built on great performances, and seeded early on with subsidiary characters who will later play significant roles. In any analysis it reads like a greatest hits.

The bloodied finger of Al Capone (Robert DeNiro) holding court to fawning journalists; the little girl’s plaintive cry of “Mister” before she’s blown to kingdom come; the love note included in the lunch of Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner); “poor butterfly” as the first raid goes wrong; the introduction of Malone (Sean Connery) “here endeth the lesson”; the trading of racist insults with recruit George Stone (Andy Garcia); Capone bludgeoning an associate to death with a baseball bat; in the safety of a church, Malone explaining “the Chicago way”; the first big cinematic sequence – the shootout at the border with meek accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith) making his bones and sneaking a drink of beer; Malone “killing” the dead man; “touchables” smeared in blood in the lift; Malone’s fistfight with crooked boss Dorsett (Richard Bradford); Malone’s murder by hitman Frank Nitti (Billy Drago); the second, and greater, bravura sequence – the shootout on the steps of the railway station; Ness pushing Nitti off the rooftop; the disbelieving Capone sentenced.

And those are just the broad strokes. Peppered throughout is the issue of Capone’s tax evasion, the crime that brings him down, with virtually all Wallace’s contribution being reading from documents relating to this. Nitti appears in the second scene, leaving the bomb that will blow the little girl to kingdom come, and again at Ness’s house.

And this is so old-fashioned that not only are we rooting for the good guys but none of those involved has marital or alcohol problems. Cops like Malone may be disillusioned but they don’t take their disenchantment out on the bottle. Anyone who talks about marriage agrees it is a good thing.

Character introduction doesn’t go down the iconic route of The Magnificent Seven (1960) or The Dirty Dozen (1967). Chicago’s Finest sneer at Ness behind his back. Another director would have been tempted into a bolder entrance for Malone. But he’s a loser, still a beat cop in middle age, and on the late shift at that. He doesn’t just know his job, detects Ness is packing a gun, but he’s capable of a sardonic quip or two. Who’d claim to be working for the humiliated Treasure Dept is they weren’t? And he’s not so stand-up as he appears, playing with a key chain like worry beads, keeps a sawn-off shotgun in his record player.

And that’s before we go into the dialog. Screenwriter David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992), revered as America’s greatest living playwright, turns on the style. “You can get further with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word”; “They pull a knife, you pull a gun”; “do you know what a blood oath is?”; “team!”; “brings a knife to a gun fight”; “all right, enough of this running shit;” “can’t you talk with a gun in your mouth?” “his name wasn’t in the ledger,” “did he sound anything like that?”

And that’s before we get to the score by Ennio Morricone, his best in terms of the consistency of theme (rather than just one standout tune) since Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). Or the rocking title sequence.

Turned Kevin Costner (Horizon, An American Saga – Chapter 1, 2024) into a star, a position, with dips here and there, he’s maintained for half a century. Andy Garcia (Black Rain, 1989), too, though for a shorter duration. Not everyone was impressed by Robert DeNiro’s (The Alto Knights, 2025) florid interpretation, but I wasn’t one of them. Brought Sean Connery (The Russia House, 1990) long overdue recognition for his acting, though it’s worth remembering that the Oscar voters who gave him a standing ovation could have handed him the gong a good time before for any number of excellent portrayals.

Director Brian DePalam (Carrie, 1977) was an Oscar shut-out. And when I look at the films that took precedence in the Best Film nominations, there’s only one, Moonstruck, that I’d seek out.

This is a thunderous achievement, and I can’t wait for 2027 when Paramount surely will bring it back to the big screen for a 40^th anniversary celebration.

Unmissable.

The Gauntlet (1977) ****

Clint Eastwood the dumb schmuck. Never thought I’d be writing that. But our hero has parked his Dirty Harry persona and channelled much of his inner James Stewart or Tom Hanks, the upright fella who may be a bit of a jerk but is a decent guy underneath.

Our patsy, Phoenix, Arizona, detective Ben Shockley (Clint Eastwood), unshaven drunken bum, is dumb enough to imagine he’s been selected for a special mission because he’s the kind of cop who gets the job done, rather than because he’s the one most likely to fail. He’s sent off to Las Vegas to collect a witness for a trial. No big deal. Two-bit witness, two-bit trial. As soon becomes par for the course, people are apt to make fun of him, in this case a Las Vegas cop turning him away for asking for a guy by the name of Gus Mally. Guffaws all round till the cop takes pity on Shockley and informs him the witness is a woman (Sondra Locke), a feisty sex worker, who spends pretty much the whole of the movie making fun of him and every other sonova.

Shockley’s kinda disturbed to see that someone has made a book on Mally reaching Phoenix, the opening odds of 50-1 soon lengthening to 100-1. But he’s a trusting sort of fella (translated as dumb schmuck) so he thinks it’s a joke but everywhere he goes he gets ambushed and it takes a helluva long time – and only with Gus’s constant nudging – to realize that every time he phones back his position to his boss Commissioner Blakelock (William Prince) there’s awful consequence.

The firepower at everyone’s disposal – both Mob hoods and the cops – is so fearful that cars and houses are destroyed in a ferocious hail of bullets. The only time Shockley comes into his own, cop-style, is when he hustles some Hell’s Angels down and steals a motorbike. But guess what, the bad guys are still not just one step ahead, but in a different class altogether when it comes to pursuit, calling upon a helicopter armed with a sharpshooter.

Shockley even quails when another cop, co-opted into giving them a ride, starts making creepy sexual remarks to Gus, not realizing she can more than take care of herself as if she’s been dealing with hecklers all her life. Gus is quite a character. When she’s not screaming her head off to gain sympathy from Shockley, she’s trying to seduce him, or taking the piss out of him or just plain mocking his ineptitude and trusting personality.

She’s got better weapons at her disposal than he’ll ever have, a tongue that could strip paint, and a body she’s not frightened to use to get herself out of a sticky situation. Or in one particular instance, to save Shockley’s hide. It’s only after this that Shockley gives her any respect. And they come to more than a mutual understanding, as she begins to show genuine feelings for her escort, and we end up with the kind of relationship that’s always going to be raggedy around the edges because, as you’ve guessed, he’s one for keeping his emotions in check and makes do with a catchphrase, “Nag, nag, nag.”

Just what her purpose is in said trial you couldn’t care less about, she’s just a Maguffin to bring opposites together, soften her hard edges and toughen up his unsuspicious nature. There’s a heck of climax as they ride into town in an armor-plated bus and straight into the same kind of fusillade as they previously endured until between them they manage to nail the corrupt bad guys.

This is a hell of a ride, great concept, terrific believable characters, she’s sharp and sassy, and he’s toned down the arrogance. There’s genuine charisma between Clint Eastwood (Coogan’s Bluff, 1968) and Sondra Locke (The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, 1968), helped by the fact they were already in an adulterous relationship, and in between falling into difficult situations it’s a blast watching them getting out of them.

Despite the virtual non-stop action, it’s a change of pace for Eastwood, a shift away from the screen persona on which his commercial attraction was built, and in some senses, even counting in the violence, it owes more to the dynamics of the screwball comedy than anything else, especially when the more practical woman is called upon to save the out-of-his-depth man. Written by Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack (they teamed up again for Pale Rider, 1985).

Ably directed by Eastwood, a belter.

The Accountant 2 (2025) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Rebirth of the semi-feel-good action movie. Take note, Steven Soderbergh et al, boring us to death, this is how to make an intelligent adult thriller. Of course, first of all, you’d have to recruit a writer as savvy as Bill Duque (creator of the Ozark series, 2017-2022) who can make characters come alive through the inconsequential, almost the inheritor of the Quentin Tarantino mantle for the memorably off-beat, who can also build on tetchy pairings – it would be a buddy movie if the main characters weren’t brothers – and throw in a just wonderful dance sequence that will become a classic. And that’s forgetting the setting up of a school where autistic children, with a different kind of a particular set of skills, can thrive.

But we’ve also got the super-smart deduction that’s the hallmark of the superior type of detection thriller, the working through a morass of details, the jigsaw that doesn’t fit, until our hero, having waited patiently for lesser minds to become flustered, steps in and shows it as clear as day.

So we start off with mystery and keep going with it for quite a long time, right down to the climactic pay-off involving the whistling of “Pop Goes the Weasel.” Former top Government official now part-time private eye King (J.K Simmonds) is bumped off while trying to locate a family from El Salvador. Before he dies King scribbles on his wrist “Find the Accountant” sending Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), the chief of an obscure treasury department, off on a wild goose chase to find Christian Woolf (Ben Affleck) who solves part of the problem thanks in part to a code-breaking computer-hacking backroom team.

Woolf calls in estranged brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal), a top-notch hitman who lives out of a suitcase, and whenever the plot slows down this pair are at it with the bitching, settling old scores, creating new reasons for discontent. Soon they are tracking down Anais (Daniella Pineda), Braxton’s equal in the assassination department, at the same time as some thugs who want to kill her.

There’s a good few alleys to go down, some of them blind, while the brothers, to the despair of the devoutly law-abiding Medina, employ illegal tactics to uncover information from drug dealers, money-launderers, sex traffickers and pimps. But part of the joy of the film is that their tactics are always unusual, you never know what’s coming next.

Balancing this out is the bitching. Braxton is sore never to get a call and at having had to look after in his early days a brother who couldn’t conceive of showing gratitude. Christian constantly identifies flaws in his brother’s character, even to the point of determining that if he ever wanted a pet, he’d be better off with a cat rather than a dog.

There’s plenty action, fisticuffs and serious weaponry, and sometimes the bad guys get what’s coming to them and sometimes it’s the good guys. Both brothers are seeking emotional commitment without the foggiest idea how to achieve it, Christian making a breakthrough when after using his obsessive study of detail is rewarded by getting a girl’s name at a line dance, Braxton pure coincidence that they pick up a stray cat.

But this is mightily finely thought-out. We are introduced to Christian as he manages to game a dating club, ending up with all the candidates lining up at his table. For Braxton, we think at the very least he’s working himself up, Taxi Driver style, to face up to a killing or maybe at least an estranged wife until we discover that he, too, is trying to game the system, in this case desperate to buy a puppy ahead of schedule.

Braxton has two other distinctively-written scenes. In the first, we think he has lined up a sex worker, and he maybe has a reputation for violent sex, and that he’s getting a mite ornery, not realizing that she, being German, doesn’t quite catch what he’s saying. Eventually, her fear is explained as Braxton leaves and walks past the people he’s killed. The cat I mentioned, they’re sharing transport with a young boy and Braxton starts moaning that the child is getting to hold the cat more than him. Your heart bleeds. In case you were worried, the brothers do reconcile, all mysteries are solved and there’s a cracking final shoot-out.

Ben Affleck (Air, 2023) benefits from being withdrawn rather than showy. Jon Bernthal (The Amateur, 2025) is all scene-stealing at the outset but soon calms down. Cynthia Addai-Robinson (People We Hate at the Wedding, 2022) has a more cliché role, and having a thing about chairs doesn’t do much to build her character. Daniella Padina (Plane, 2023) is as kick-ass as they come. Wish J.K. Simmons (Red One, 2024) got more roles.

Directed with style and restraint by Gavin O’Connor (The Way Back, 2020).

Saw this in a double bill with Sinners – that’s what going to the movies is all about.

Terrific.