Film Pairings – Two Classic Buddy Movies, Crime Included

Davis & Sarandon

This is Women’s History Month.  And even if it weren’t, Thelma and Louise is history-making cinema and a cause to celebrate.  Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon are magnificent in this 1991 Ridley Scott film.  Best friends, the two of them. A waitress at a diner and a submissive housewife decide to take a mini-vacation together – just let loose for a while.  Things don’t go well. Thelma (Davis) is assaulted in the parking lot of an Oklahoma roadhouse and Louise (Sarandon) shoots and kills the determined would-be rapist. But that’s only the beginning.  Thinking no one would believe them, the buddies go on the run.  An empathetic cop, Harvey Keitel chases them.  Brad Pitt complicates things, provides comic relief and more than a little eye candy.  Damned and praised as a tribute to the feminist movement, it is a damn fine movie and worthy of the praise heaped upon it.

Redford &  Newman

Country-western gives way to pure western in in one of the most popular buddy movies ever made, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. There are definite similarities.  Both are filmed in big-sky country. But instead of two women fleeing the law in a Thunderbird convertible, the two men do so on horseback.  In both, there are lots of guns, lots of drinking, some sex, some explosions and a constant chase, making sure our eyes stay riveted on the screen. While there is more substance just below the surface in the wonderful tragi-comedy of Thelma and Louise, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid is played more broadly, though very well. No message, pure adventure. Producer John Foreman brought top talent from all disciplines to make this 1969 classic. Veteran George Roy Hill directed. William Goldman wrote the screenplay. The music (“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”) came from Burt Bacharach. Paul Newman played Butch and Robert Redford was Sundance in a pairing that electrified the media at the time.

Usually crime films are male dominated. This is a perfect double feature for those who want equal time for men and women. 

Film Pairings — Exposing The Flaws In Our Legal System And Ourselves

The adversary system we use as the means to determine guilt or innocence may be the best we can do. But much like the rest our democratic process, there is considerable room for improvement. These two courtroom dramas deal with the inherent problems and collateral damage of our deeply flawed justice system.

The Verdict — While this tough, taut film focuses more on one attorney’s personal redemption, it also provides a good look at what money can buy. Paul Newman plays the troubled lawyer caught between conscience and success, between alcoholism and altruism.  The cast is superb. In addition to an incomparable Newman, we are blessed to have Charlotte Rampling, James Mason and Jack Warden. Based on the novel of the same name by Barry Reed, The Verdict was turned into a screenplay by David Mamet and directed by Sidney Lumet.  This 1982 film is highly recommended, especially for its uncanny sense of realism.

… And Justice For All — The Verdict is single minded, intensely focused, dark and gritty. Justice exists in a thinner atmosphere, but has a broader vision. There are moments of humor.  We almost don’t notice as lives are destroyed by injustice, corruption, ambition and greed. We almost don’t notice, much like real life, as the bodies pile up and souls sour. Al Pacino is the prime character in this ironic drama, about an attorney who can’t quite believe there is nothing he can do to make things right. This 1979 courtroom drama was written by Valerie Curtin and Norman Jewison, who also directed. The supporting cast is superb: Lee Strasberg, Jack Warden, John Forsythe, and Jeffrey Tambor.  Recommended

In addition to the courtroom setting and the similar morality tales, we have two of this country’s finest actors as East Coast (Boston and Baltimore) lawyers in somewhat similar roles in movies only a few years apart. For those who imbibe, whiskey was popular then and perhaps even more popular now.  For many, something like a Pomegranate Spritzer might work.

Film Pairing — Private Eyes, Newman Times Two

Ross Macdonald is considered by many to be right up there with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.  Some even consider him better.  Readers are most likely to be familiar with his private eye Lew Archer, who anchored 18 novels.  However, only two of the Archer novels made it to the big screen.*  And in an odd twist, Archer was renamed Harper in the films because, Paul Newman had been lucky with movies that began with the letter “H.” Archer on paper, Harper on celluloid.

Newman had them make another change. (If James Dean had made the movie as originally intended, it probably would have been called The Moving Target, the Macdonald’s first novel and the one the movie was based upon.)  Newman insisted that the movie be called Harper (Think The Hustler and Hud).  It was released in 1966. 

Harper has significant parallels to Chandler’s The Big Sleep. Like Marlow, Harper is called to an elegant LA mansion, where he is hired by the wheel-chair bound owner to find a missing husband.  In this case, the infirmed is Lauren Bacall, who was incidentally the, smart, sexy sister in The Big Sleep. Despite the larger-than-life presence of Bacall, the film is definitely Newman’s. Even so, the producers weren’t stingy with the supporting cast.  You will enjoy Julie Harris, Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner (perfectly cast) and Shelley Winters.  You’ll recognize many other supporting actors as well.  Except or the moment when I felt embarrassed by how silly we looked when we danced in the sixties, Harper is a worthwhile private eye escape. The talented William Goldman wrote the screenplay.

Almost ten years later, Paul Newman does Harper again, this time in Ross Macdonald’s The Drowning Pool (1975).  They didn’t change the name of the movie, but Hollywood has a penchant for thinking it knows better than the person who wrote the book.  They moved Archer, I mean Harper, from LA to New Orleans. Personally, I love New Orleans.  That alone would get me to watch the movie.  And I can’t help but think this setting makes a much more interesting backdrop.  I also like the slightly more mature Newman, who (cliché alert), like a fine wine (or fine cheese, I guess) improved with age.  Much like Harper, The Drowning Pool is also Newman’s film. But the co-stars are notable here as well.  Joanne Woodward and Melanie Griffith are key, and Anthony (Tony) Franciosa gives a subdued and finely nuanced performance as the main cop.  Again Harper is called to a mansion to get his assignment. But instead of a kidnapping and murder, we have blackmail and murder.

Apparently Ross Macdonald didn’t mind the Hollywood interference. Not only did he go along with The Drowning Pool switch from L.A. to New Orleans, he also approved of Paul Newman playing his famous protagonist.  Many authors had been disappointed in Hollywood’s choices.  I think it’s difficult not to approve of Newman, especially as a P.I.  His late-in-life performance in the minor masterpiece, Twilight, was perfect, for example.

If you are considering libations for the evening, you might consider the Ramos Gin Fizz or a Hurricane, the official New Orleans cocktail.  If the heat wave is dominating your part of the world, you might try a Mint Julep.  And Absinthe might not be totally out of the question.

* Macdonald’s The Underground Man was filmed for NBC as a pilot in 1974. It featured Peter Graves as Lew Archer and had an all-star cast — Celeste Holm, Jim Hutton, Vera miles, Dame Judith Anderson and Jack Klugman.  It isn’t available on Netflix. Also, according to the Thrilling Detective web site, there were six, hour-long episodes broadcast in 1975 called “Archer,” starring Brian Keith. I’ve also read that there might be a new series in the making.