Richard Fleischer (director)
Eureka! (studio)
Cert PG (certificate)
90min (length)
21 April 2014 (released)
29 April 2014
This utterly engaging crime noir tale cum melodrama is as cool as it is brutal, sporting unforgettable performances by Lee Marvin, Stephen McNally, Victor Mature and Ernest Borgnine.
Set against the blazing heat of the Arizona landscape, the action takes place in a small mining town called Bradenville. The mountains we see at the horizon take symbolical significance as the story unfolds and we, the viewer, come to learn that they resemble the repressed lives of some of the town’s inhabitants. On the surface all seems pleasant, but as so often in small town life, dark undercurrents gradually emerge stronger and stronger as we find out about the private lives of some of the citizens.
The movie begins with a car approaching a copper mine at the town’s outskirts, seconds later there is an explosion and the credits start to roll. This sudden flash of violence immediately sets the tone for the film, for three bank robbers arrive in this part of the country to carry out a bank robbery. The first one, Harper (Stephen McNally), poses as a traveling salesman, and the other two are Dill (Lee Marvin), a former addict with a dislike for children, and Chapman, who looks so harmless one could mistake him for a teacher. These three criminals provide the frame story and the main plot. But as they begin to scout the area and gather much needed information from various locals, the subplots also unfold… and in the end they become entwined with the main plot.
Foremost there is copper mine manager Boyd Fairchild (Richard Egan), who loves his philandering wife (Margaret Hayes) as much as he likes a drink or two, although out of frustration he seems to have a bit of thing going with attractive young nurse Linda (Virginia Leith). This scenario is responsible for one of the most acid-laced catfights between two women in film history, with particularly vicious one-liners (“Oh! More wrinkles… No wonder Boyd likes his drink!”).
Meanwhile, bank manager Harry Reeves (Tommy Noonan) has his eyes set (literally) on nurse Linda, and in true Peeping Tom style watches her at night undressing in front of her window. Then there’s Boyd Fairchild’s associate Shelley Martin (Victor Mature), whose domestic life is in fact a happy one, though his little son looks down on Dad for not having served in WW2.
Rounding up this motley crew are Elsie Braden (Sylvia Sidney), a librarian who has fallen on hard times, thus who ends up stealing someone’s purse in the library, and Stadt (Ernest Borgnine), a deeply religious Amish who lives with his family on a remote farm… the very farm the gangsters have chosen as their hideout. Ironically, some thirty years later Borgnine would play another austere religious character, a Hittite, in Wes Craven’s Deadly Blessing.
On the day of the actual robbery, some of the aforementioned characters happen to be in the bank and go about their business. We learn that Mrs. Fairchild and her husband agreed to give their crumbling marriage another chance, hence she is in the building to obtain travellers cheques for a joint holiday. Elsie Braden, the librarian, is in the bank to pay in the very money she stole back at work, and so on. As the robbery takes its course and the violent Saturday truly kick into action, things don’t go exactly to plan… Mrs. Fairschild gets killed, whilst Elsie Braden has the money that she stole taken away by one of the gangsters. Bank manager Reeves gets wounded but not killed. At this point, the film also turns into a morality tale as all the wrongdoers get their comeuppance. Mind you, the gangsters get theirs big time in the movie’s gripping showdown, which takes’ place at Stadt’s Amish farm…
This dual format edition (Blu-ray and DVD) includes the following Special Features:
• Stunning HD master, with 4.0 and 2.0 soundtracks
• A video appreciation by Richard Fleischer fan, director William Friedkin
• A new video examination of the making of the film by Nicolas Saada