British Invasion: Boorman Uncorks Psychedelic Noir

Angie Dickinson, Lee Marvin and Carroll O'Connor
in 'Point Blank' (1967).

Why is L.A. the location of choice for so many crime films and stories about the dark side of life? Maybe it’s just because the bulk of all film production is done in Hollywood and it’s cheaper to shoot in your own backyard.

But that doesn’t explain why so many of the great crime novels take place in the City of Angels. A writer can set his story anywhere in the world without a thought of budgets, weather or union constrictions.

Clockwise from top left, Lee Marvin,
Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn and John Vernon.

It might be that L.A. is different from most American cities, especially those that were built long before the two World Wars. They project stability and tradition, while L.A. is still considered part of the Wild West — a desert outpost full of transients, dreamers and hucksters. The city is branded as uncontrolled urban sprawl with a casual atmosphere that fosters a variety of lifestyles and eccentricities. In other words, it’s what the rest of the country thinks is wrong with America. Be that as it may, the city might just be the perfect laboratory in which to examine 20^th century mores.

So, it’s no wonder that British director John Boorman begins "Point Blank" in San Francisco and moves it to the City of Angels. San Francisco may be one of the country’s cradles of personal liberty, but it still has the look and feel of a city built on the bedrock of traditional values.

Staged as a sort of brutally real saga that slips into vaguely hallucinatory passages, "Point Blank" is the sort of altered reality you’d expect to see in a 1967 film, but the director is too good to let meaningless psychedelic spectacle overpower the story.

Walker is double-crossed by his ex.

Lee Marvin’s Walker, the career criminal who wants what is rightfully his, is cool and avoids the obnoxious pleased-with-himself vibe that a lesser actor would bring to the part.  He’s down to earth, deadpan, resourceful and unstoppable.

Some conclude that the entire story is merely Walker’s dream. He’s left alone to die after being double crossed, but of course he gets back on his feet and goes after the ones who did him wrong. 

Keenan Wynn plays Yost, the mysterious agent who always seems to appear on the scene whenever the action is about to be pumped up. Throughout the film, he and Walker never make eye contact — could the agent be a mere figment of Walker’s imagination? But stranger events occur when Walker finds his two-timing wife. Check out the scene with the disappearing furniture – and the disappearing corpse. 

Prior to "Point Blank" Boorman directed only black and white television and the film, "Catch Us If You Can" ("Having a Wild Weekend" in the U.K.), starring The Dave Clark Five. He says that he liked shooting "Point Blank," his first color movie, in the dark because it makes the color palette monochromatic. Trivia fans will want to note that, at one point, the action moves to a house with a swimming pool in Hollywood Hills. It’s the same house that the Beatles lived in during their first tour of America.

Bright yellows and golds prevail in Angie's scenes.

Despite his emphasis on darkness, Boorman uses color as an expressive element throughout the film, and carefully controls the range of tones filling each scene. The film begins in washed out grays and blues, progresses to yellows and golds, especially in Angie Dickinson’s scenes, shifts to greens, and as the action heats up toward the end, reds and oranges prevail. Walker, wearing a red-brick colored jacket seems to fade into the walls as the film comes to its conclusion.

You could call Point Blank a revisionist noir, because it’s in color and is not dialog driven. Perhaps the film's (then) modern-day take on the genre might be the missing link between black and white crime dramas of yesteryear and the sun-drenched Technicolor world of neo-noirs such as "Chinatown" and "L.A. Confidential."

Color aside, "Point Blank" is thoroughly character driven. Walker is relentless in his pursuit of the money he’s owed, but his doggedness only grows more intense even when the money becomes unimportant. He’s driven to get to the bottom of the mystery that has been plaguing him. His world is in shambles, but without this maniacal game of cat and mouse he’s initiated there’s nothing left in his life. Once the battle is over, there will be nothing to celebrate, but he continues because he has no other choice.

'Sopranos' was Groundbreaking Television

It's hard to overstate how important "The Sopranos" was to television and to crime fiction. Before "The Sopranos," was there any show that could make such a morally corrupted character as Tony Soprano, if not likeable, understandable and approachable to a broad audience?

For all of his violence and treachery, we always wanted Tony, the New Jersey mob boss, to somehow get by without getting whacked by rivals or arrested. Maybe it was because James Gandolfini was so entertaining to watch that even though we knew Tony was bad, we couldn't bear to lose our ringside seat at one hell of a sideshow.

The show was also of huge importance to HBO, the cable network that brought the program to millions. It was a huge hit whose popularity would be hard to replicate now. It must have taken guts to present a program that portrayed crime in raw, unfiltered terms, and yet allowed the star to be, at times, quite vulnerable. Also, a lot of Italian-American viewers were less than thrilled with the prospects of another program about Italian mobsters.

When news of his death came yesterday, it brought shock and regret. He was only 51, and a fine actor who won a place in our hearts. And we would never see if he could somehow top his performance as Tony in another series -- maybe one that had nothing to do with crime.

Tony tears into Dr. Melfi.

That question will go unanswered, and James Gandolfini will forever be most remembered as Tony Soprano, the troubled mob boss who sought solace in weekly meetings with his therapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco).

The Writer's Guild of America recently voted "The Sopranos" as the best written TV show of all times, and with good reason. But it would never have been as good without Gandolfini. He and the writers continually amazed us over the show's 10 year run by creating TV that went far beyond what others achieved. We won't see that again for a long time.

I Should Have Killed You Yesterday

Leonetti: Not a fan of Whitey.

Philip Leonetti, author and former underboss of the Philadelphia/Atlantic City mob, has never been a fan of James "Whitey" Bulger, the Boston crime boss who's cooling his heels in a Massachusetts jail.
Leonetti penned a missive about the former head of the Hub's Irish mob in the Huffington Post. He crossed paths with Whitey years ago and sized him up as a lowlife drug dealer whom he did not want to do business with. Furthermore, he recommended that the Providence R.I.-based Patriarca crime family give Whitey the big sleep.
Leonetti's story is fascinating reading. It was no secret that Whitey and the Italian mob were anything but paisanos, but it's still a bit enlightening to learn the Genovese crime family's low opinion of Bulger. Read all about it here:

Killing the Myth of Whitey Bulger and Why I Suggested Killing Him 30 Years Ago

Shot in the Rear End: Mickey's Close Shave with Destiny

Michael "Mickey" Cohen needed a new bulletproof Cadillac for several reasons: His home was bombed in February 1950 and his previous Cadillac acquired some bullet holes outside Sherry's Restaurant, 9039 Sunset Blvd., on July 20, 1949. Mickey didn't get hit. He bent over to inspect a scratch on his Cadillac when they began shooting.

High Mass: Whitey Bulger, LSD and a Devil's Deal

Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger? Yup, the actor who played Dillinger in "Public Enemies" is going to play another crime icon, and the movie is slated for release next year. More about that later.

Dick Lehr, a former Boston Globe reporter and co-author of a new book about the life of James "Whitey" Bulger was in L.A. last night, and he brought along screenwriter Mark Mallouk who has adapted Lehr and Gerard O'Neill's previous tome, "Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal" for a movie that is to begin filming in Boston this summer. Depp and director Barry Levinson are both attached. Levinson is also in pre-production with "Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father."

James "Whitey" Bulger, 1956

Whitey, the crime boss who went on the lam and got busted here in Santa Monica, was an outstanding figure among underworld bosses, said Lehr. "His gang had reach." Whitey not only controlled Boston rackets, he had a hand in fixing horse races up and down the East Coast, and had a money skimming scam netting him $10,000 per week from World Jai Alai. He is a suspect in 19 homicides, including that of World Jai Alai owner Roger Wheeler.

Lehr read from his latest book, recounting Whitey's prison years in Atlanta in the 1950s, where he volunteered to participate in studies on what was a new drug in the United States, LSD. Psychiatrists thought that LSD might be a useful tool in the study of criminal psychopaths. However, Lehr says the CIA also got into the act and tested numerous other drugs on prisoners. We'll likely never know which substances were used in the testing because all records were destroyed. As you might expect, the agency's shadowy behavior during that study resulted in quite a scandal.

Whitey is probably most noted for having compromised the nation's leading law enforcement agency, the FBI. The G-Men protected him from prosecution for the crimes he committed in return for information he provided that helped smash Boston Mafioso operations. FBI agent John Connolly, who came from Whitey's South Boston neighborhood, was instrumental in setting up the quid pro quo deal between Whitey and the FBI. Connolly said of his first meeting with the infamous Whitey, "It was like meeting Ted Williams," the legendary Red Sox slugger.

Lehr noted that, aside from the FBI, Whitey conned other notable figures into helping him sidestep the penalties due to him, including speaker of the U.S. House John McCormack, and Father Robert Drinan, a Catholic priest and dean of Boston College Law School, who would later become a Massachusetts congressman.

"McCormack's fingerprints are all over Whitey's records," noted Lehr. The House speaker stepped up to the plate for Whitey, as did Drinan, and saw to his early release from detention, including two years served in Alcatraz when the norm for most inmates was an eight year stretch.

Whitey's most commonly heard refrain was, I'm no angel, but I'm not ... fill in the blanks: As bad as they say. A drug pusher. A murderer. Of course, his self-assessment was dubious at best.

Ed Harris, left, Whitey, right

As for the movie, both Lehr and Mallouk have no control over casting, so they can't be blamed for the choices that have been made. While I like Johnny Depp, I can think of few actors less suited to play Whitey -- how about Ed Harris instead? Of course, Harris doesn't have Depp's A-List credentials, and in Hollywood that's the only thing that counts. I thought Depp was also miscast as Dillinger, and of course the movie bombed. But in tinseltown, A-Listers are allowed to repeat their mistakes -- until they're no longer A-Listers.

Whitey, being the notorious narcissist that he is, is undoubtedly aware of and concerned about the movie project. Someone last night asked Lehr if a special screening is in the cards for Whitey, who is sitting in a Plymouth County jail cell awaiting trial. "Whitey isn't going to be having any special screenings," the author said.

This Scarface is in Chicago, Not Miami

Living dangerously, Tony Camonte muscles in on his boss's girlfriend.

"Scarface" (1932) is one of the seminal American gangster films of the 1930s, along with "Little Caesar," "The Roaring Twenties" and "The Public Enemy." Each one tells the story of a gangster's rise in the bootlegging business and his assent to the top of a powerful crime syndicate. After tasting success, each of the crime lords has a precipitous fall back to earth due to errors in judgment and his own hubris. 

The films are a study in how criminal empires are built on the sale of whisky, gin and beer to a willing Prohibition-era public. The 1930s "Scarface was remade in 1983 with Al Pacino in the title role. Both films tell similar stories but could hardly more different in content, tone and style. The Pacino "Scarface," directed by Brian De Palma, is a good deal more graphically violent and involves cocaine trafficking rather than rum running.

Howard Hawks directed the original and Ben Hecht wrote the break-neck paced script that is as witty as his screwball comedy, "His Girl Friday" — Hawks directed that one, too.  

Hawks's film had to sit on the shelf for two years after its completion. The studio was reluctant to release it because of the violence it depicts. But compared with the Pacino film, the original "Scarface" is almost a Sunday school picnic. Although Hawks's film is hardly violence-free it seems mild compared with the bullet-riddled 1983 film, which contains, among other atrocities, a chainsaw murder. 

Paul Muni is terrific as the wisecracking Tony Camonte, a gangster who wants to control all of Chicago's booze biz. He must step over or crush many other hoods to get the job done, and like many a successful gangster he'll rub out even a longtime pal who stands in the way.

Tony flirts with his boss's girlfriend and talks of taking over the North Side of Chicago's bootlegging business that's run by a powerful rival gang — both actions suggest a death wish at the core of his being. But pretty soon he makes good on his ambitions.

Tony (Paul Muni) likes the feel of a machine gun in 'Scarface.'

Despite his penchant for deep-sixing his rivals, Tony has a goofy side that might have seemed out of place in such a dubious movie hero, but here it doesn't.

The newly rich Tony shows off his fancy new digs to the girl he's taken a shine to and she tells the vocabulary-challenged mobster it's sort of gaudy, which he takes as a compliment.

When Tony gets his hands on a Thompson machine gun, the first one he's ever seen, he's delighted with the weapon's raw destructive power. He takes adolescent delight in spraying the room with bullets, but it doesn't take long before he starts training the weapon on human targets.

Tony is devoted to his mother — do all wiseguys have mother issues? He's also a fierce overlord to his younger sister, demanding that she never go on dates with young men. His fixation with his attractive sibling is a bit creepy and ultimately becomes a key part of his undoing.

Tony's fancy townhouse is equipped with steel shutters, making the joint a fortress to stave off bullets and bombs that rivals and the police might fire in his direction. But he can never completely shut out the threats that will ultimately rain down upon him.

Racked by paranoia, he ultimately finishes off his friends as well as other hoods looking to put out his lights. Alone, he's no longer a force to be reckoned with and he pays the ultimate price for his misdeeds. A fitting end to a strange bad guy who we can't help but like.

Whitey Not a Rat? Shelley Murphy on Whitey Bulger

The James "Whitey" Bulger saga continues, and here's an interesting interview with reporter Shelley Murphy about the incarcerated 83 year old Boston mob boss. Check out Shelley's accent -- sounds like she's right out of Southie.
Shelley Murphy on Whitey Bulger - RadioBDC blog - Boston.com

You may remember that Whitey was on the lam from Boston Police, and wanted for some 19 murders he is accused of committing or ordering others to commit. But Whitey's luck ran out in June 2011 when authorities busted the gang overlord in Santa Monica, Calif. The crime kingpin is widely believed to have received immunity from prosecution courtesy of the Boston branch of the FBI, because he was informing on his mob brethren. But hold the phone -- now Whitey says he ain't no canary!