The Italian Job (1969)
Get Carter (1971)Pulp (1972)
OK, so this is more of a placeholder posting, as I am still gathering my thoughts on these three films which are criminal in nature and one of which is criminally unfunny and another which is just grim. Perhaps a cup of coffee to jog the ol' brain juices and then we can light into these.
Well now, I've got a bit of the arabica firing through the synapses, so let's walk through these, shall we? Obviously, all three film feature Michael Caine as he was just coming into his stardom. Now the film for which he was going to be most remembered for at this point prior to our films under discussion was Alfie (1966) where he played the titular character - a cocky young Brit who was obsessed with birds (girls) and shirking responsibility in the pursuit of a personal happiness. Sixties hedonism at its finest! It was a very clever movie that had a serious undertone, but was really all about the celebrating the joy of Alfie. So, here comes Michael Caine afterwards, and you don't really want a rehash of what he has already done, yet you don't want to alienate the audience. How about a fun caper flick? And thus we got The Italian Job (1969).
Now for some reason, a lot of people think that The Italian Job is brilliant. The British film magazine Total Film ranks it as #27 on its list of all-time great British movies and the BFI ranks it #36 on its top 100 British films. Frankly, I was let down by the movie. Perhaps the first warning was when I noticed Benny Hill in the opening credits. As it is, the film is trying very hard to be funny, but I wasn't warming to it. I don't have a problem with my suspension of disbelief, so you can't blame me for that. Caine tries his hardest to carry the rest of the cast he is surrounded by, but its either the timing or the delivery or something more intangible which just left me flat. Noel Coward is also in the film as an imprisoned crime lord who is still very much in control and finances the heist of gold from Italy. He loves queen and country almost as much as money, so he endeavors to help our young criminals pull off the heist. Now perhaps here is where some of the love film originates because the movie is very pro-England to the extent that the heist takes place during a football match of England vs. Italy. Rah rah, rule Britannia and all that.
In an earlier post I was commenting how great Quincy Jones' music was in The Anderson Tapes (1971). Here we have an earlier soundtrack by him which I would not call a classic. The song which plays over and over again, "The Self Preservation Society", is a mawkish attempt at humorous music with cockney overtones. To top it all off, the cast was recruited to sing it. Yech. And even the incidental music tries too hard to inject levity. It is a sledgehammer of a soundtrack.
What does work, to a degree, is the car chase which is the climax of the movie with all the little Mini-Coopers racing about Turin, Italy. No doubt the film helped to sell a few extra cars as I know the remake in 2003 did. They do some interesting bits with racing on roof tops which really made me question the safety of the stunts. If you can do that, you are doing something right. However, it is all a little too late to save the film for me. A waste of Caine who does get to deliver the best line of the movie though: "You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"
In stark contrast to the listless humor of The Italian Job comes the gritty revenge thriller Get Carter (1971). Here Caine plays Jack Carter, a London hardman who has come back up north to find out what happened to his brother. Along the way we are slowly immersed in the criminal activities of the area: gambling, prostitution and bit of other extraneous exploitations.
What a great movie! Caine is cool as a cucumber as he extracts the information he needs to find closure. Impecably dressed throughout, no one can sport a shotgun quite as well. I have been wanting to watch this one for years and I'm glad to finally be able to check it off.
One of my first exposures, though, was to the fantastic soundtrack by Roy Budd. There isn't a xlarge orchestra, basically just keyboards, bass and percussion, but the sounds he elicits are funky, but chilling. One of my favorite soundtracks of all time. Here's a bit to tease you with.
Having finished watching the film, I've now embarked upon reading the original novel, Jack's Return Home, which is so far a very similiar to the movie although with much more detail. The way I see it is that the film is a haiku to the epic gangster poetry of the novel. What is intriguing to me though is that the author, Ted Lewis, wrote two more books about Jack Carter. Hmmm. They appear to be out of print and a bit pricey, but I might just have to check those out to see where they could have gone with more movies.
Speaking of more Get Carter, I have yet to see Sylvester Stallone's turn as Carter, nor I did I realize until today that there was a blaxploitation version featuring Pam Grier called Hit Man (1972)! Wow!
To be continued... (check back shortly)...
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