The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

June 26, 1973, release date

Directed by Peter Yates

Screenplay by Paul Monash

Based on the novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins

Music by Dave Grusin

Edited by Patricia Lewis Jaffe

Cinematography by Victor J. Kemper

Robert Mitchum as Eddie “Fingers” Coyle

Helena Caroll as Sheila Coyle

Peter Boyle as Dillon

Richard Jordan as Dave Foley

Steven Keats as Jackie Brown

Alex Rocco as Jimmy Scalise

Joe Santos as Artie Van

Mitchell Ryan as Waters

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

DVD distributed by The Criterion Collection

 The Friends of Eddie Coyle is based on the debut novel of the same name by George V. Higgins, who worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston. The parallels between the plot of this film and some of the stories surrounding Whitey Bulger and his reign over the Boston crime world in the 1970s are chilling. Anyone living in the greater Boston area will likely recognize the parallels from newspaper and television accounts of Bulger’s trial.

I watched The Friends of Eddie Coyle on the DVD distributed by The Criterion Collection. The DVD included the director Peter Yates’s commentary about the film, and he made several points about the film, including the following:

• The entire film was shot on location in the Boston area. None of it was shot on studio sets.

• The Boston crime world reminded Yates of the London crime world because the criminals wouldn’t shoot noncriminals. As he observed it, the Boston criminals were rather civil about it all, a rather jovial friendly lot. (As I observe it, that may have been true of the book and the film, but I think many would disagree with that depiction of the Boston crime world.)

• The use of different types of masks for the different robberies and heists came from Higgins’s book.

I took special notice of these details because of another neo-noir that is a favorite of mine: The Town, which was directed by Ben Affleck and in which he had the leading role. The Town was based on a 2004 book Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan. (I have read Hogan’s book, but I have not read Higgins’s—not yet anyway.) I have always wondered if Chuck Hogan borrowed from George V. Higgins because of the similarities between the two movies. Here are some examples:

• Use of masks in the heists.

• The robbers don’t want to hurt anyone; they just want the money. In The Town, Jem Coughlin is an exception.

• The bank manager, Mr. Partridge, is blindfolded in the first heist in The Friends of Eddie Coyle, as is Claire Keesey, also the bank manager, in The Town.

• After the first heist in each movie, the bank manager is left at the beach. In The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Mr. Partridge (the bank manager) is told to walk until he finishes counting to 100, and he heads toward the water. In The Town, Claire Keesey (the bank manager) is told to keep walking until she feels the water on her toes (she is barefoot because the robbers took the bank employees’ shoes during the heist inside the bank).

(This blog post about The Friends of Eddie Coyle contains spoilers.)

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a darker film. It has everything that the crime world of 1970s Boston had: betrayal, murder, robberies, gun running, corruption in law enforcement. Eddie Coyle is alone as far as his work as a gun runner is concerned. He’s abandoned by everyone, including the law enforcement officer who offered him a deal for his information. Eddie feels like he’s being abandoned, but the viewer, who has more information than Eddie does, can really feel his increasing isolation and the dangerous position he is in. Eddie may feel abandoned, but he doesn’t realize how dangerous his position has become.

It seems that Eddie Coyle’s fate is determined from the beginning of the film. A crime that he committed in the past (before the film starts) comes back to haunt him again and again. He can’t catch a break from his fellow criminals or from the law enforcement officer to whom he gives his first tip. Everyone seems corrupt in Eddie’s business. But even Eddie is pushed to the limit when it comes to informing on others’ illegal activities. In spite of this, I found myself rooting for him throughout. As his situation becomes more and more dire, I kept rooting for him.

Robert Mitchum, as Eddie Coyle, captures all the nuances of a man who leads a criminal life but who does the best he can to provide for his family. The world-weariness on Mitchum’s face, especially when Eddie Coyle must choose between helping himself and remaining loyal to his friends, gives the film an extra bit of realism that makes Mitchum a joy to watch.

Several intertwining threads to this story make the plot a bit difficult to follow. The film demands that the viewer pay attention; in fact, the viewer (and Eddie Coyle) cannot take anything for granted. The viewer has more information than Eddie does, which makes the sense of impending doom even more poignant. Keeping track of the story’s details is so rewarding, though. And then there’s Mitchum’s wonderful performance.

Fallen Angel (1945)

Directed by Otto Preminger

Screenplay by Harry Kleiner

Based on a story by Marty Holland

Music by David Raksin

Cinematography by Joseph LaShelle

Alice Faye as June Mills Stanton

Dana Andrews as Eric Stanton

Linda Darnell as Stella

Charles Bickford as Mark Judd, police detective

Anne Revere as Clara Mills

Bruce Cabot as Dave Atkins, jukebox salesperson

John Carradine as Professor Madley

Percy Kilbride as Pop, owner of Pop’s

Produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox

The opening of Fallen Angel starts right away with the perfect setup for a film noir. And, of course, it starts at night. The camera shoots over a bus driver’s shoulder, then switches to the driver’s point of view to show travel along a dark road. Street signs, one after the other, show the film’s credits. Once the credits end, the camera shoots again from over the bus driver’s shoulder. It’s a very effective way to draw the viewer in and establish the ambience.

The driver stops and throws Eric Stanton off the bus because he didn’t pay enough to go past the last stop. He’s let off in Walton. Crickets are chirping as Stanton walks to a diner: Pop’s diner. The viewer learns that Walton is a seaside town. The camera follows Stanton, and the beach can be seen behind Pop’s diner. The film’s soundtrack now includes the sound of waves rolling in on the beach. Stanton enters the diner and tries to order a hamburger, even though the place is closing. Pop gives in, but grudgingly.

Stella’s missing. The viewer doesn’t know yet who she is, but all the men in the diner (Judd, Pop, a police officer) are concerned about her disappearance. Atkins is in the diner servicing the jukebox, but he is not privy to the conversation among the three other men. Pop wonders if Stella committed suicide, but Judd says that she is not the type.

And then Stella walks in, and her entrance into the diner and into the movie tells a lot about her character. All the men are overjoyed at her return. Judd tells her, “I knew you’d be back.” Stella’s response and the look she gives Judd expresses her disappointment about that fact. Pop waits on her—and gives her Stanton’s hamburger.

Stanton is a con artist. Preminger shows how good Stanton is at his game because he cons his way into the racket by two other con artists who just arrived in town to stage a spiritualist show. He promises to get their tickets sold, and he does. The two con artists are so happy with his work that they want him to stay on, but he refuses. Someone else’s con game is too confining for him. People in Walton are a little suspicious of Stanton, and he’s the likely suspect when a murder is discovered in town. But there’s plenty of tension between Stella and practically every man in town—including Stanton—to keep the plot going before the murder.

My DVD included commentary by Eddie Muller and Susan Andrews, Dana Andrews’s daughter. Muller pointed out the long takes for which Preminger is famous. I did notice the swinging circle shot of the police car making a U-turn and taking June Mills Stanton away, and then the camera lighting on Eric Stanton as he realizes what just happened. Dana Andrews’s expression in this tight close-up, and in many other scenes, gives so much depth to a great performance in this movie.

The performances by the other actors are also superb. I got caught up in the story so easily because I didn’t find a false note anywhere in the film. The characters of June and Eric Stanton change and grow by the end of the movie, and I found it easy to believe the subtle transformations in both of them.

Some maintain that June is innocent and is taken in by Eric Stanton’s con game, but I’m not so sure. She’s no femme fatale (there probably isn’t room for more than one Stella in Walton!), but she’s smitten with Eric from the moment she sees him, when he comes calling on her sister Clara to convince her, and through her, the rest of the town, to come to the séance hosted by another con artist. June spots Eric from the top of the stairs, and the camera lingers on her as she descends, with her eyes lingering on him. She wants what she sees, and she gets what she wants. She’s the one who convinces her sister to go to the show. And it’s not because she believes in communing with the dead.

Little details count for a lot in Fallen Angel. For example, when Judd interrogates June Stanton, he paces around the interrogation room and runs the ring on his finger along the radiators—twice. The sound is grating and adds to the tension. When Stanton and Judd are talking at the counter back in Pop’s diner toward the end of the film, the shot includes the ocean waves rolling in on the beach that can be seen through the window behind them. Those waves were rolling in when Stanton first arrived in Walton and entered Pop’s diner, and they are rolling in again at the very satisfying conclusion.

Hollywoodland (2006)

September 8, 2006, release date

Directed by Allen Coulter

Screenplay by Paul Bernbaum

Music by Marcelo Zarvos

Edited by Michael Berenbaum

Cinematography by Jonathan Freeman

Adrien Brody as Louis Simo

Diane Lane as Toni Mannix

Ben Affleck as George Reeves

Bob Hoskins as Eddie Mannix

Robin Tunney as Leonore Lemmon

Kathleen Robertson as Carol Van Ronkel

Lois Smith as Helen Bessolo

Larry Cedar as Chester Sinclair

Caroline Dhavernas as Kit Holliday

Kevin Hare as Robert Condon

Molly Parker as Laurie Simo

Zach Mills as Evan Simo

Neil Crone as Chuck

Seamus Dever as Phillip

Gareth Williams as Del

Dash Mihok as Detective Sergeant Jack Paterson

Veronica Watt as Rita Hayworth

Joe Spano as Howard Strickling

Jeffrey DeMunn as Art Weissman

Produced by Focus Features, Miramax Films, Back Lot Pictures, TJ Film Productions

Distributed by Universal Studios (United States), Buena Vista International (international distribution)

DVD distributed by Universal Studios Home Entertainment

It is June 16, 1959. Hollywoodland’s opening music, with its persistent beat, sets up a feeling of tension from the start. The camera takes viewers on a fly-in to the opening scene, where the police are investigating George Reeves’s death. The viewers and the camera start in the clouds, and it is hard to tell if the clouds are storm clouds or they are dark because of the fly-in to a night scene. In either case, the technique makes viewers identify almost immediately with George Reeves, with Superman, with the superhero who could fly.

The film cuts from George Reeves’s nighttime death scene to daytime and to a man, Mr. Sinclair, who is looking for Louis Simo’s detective services. He’s dismayed to find Simo’s office now located in a seedy motel. Louis Simo has come down in the world. He was fired from the detective agency where he used to work. He’s separated from his wife. (Or are they divorced? That’s never made entirely clear.) And Mr. Sinclair interrupts him and his assistant having sex inside “the office” on a bright sunny afternoon.

Right away, Hollywoodland sets up the parallel stories of George Reeves, the actor who never got the parts he wanted, and of Louis Simo, the average guy who wants to live the life of a hard-boiled detective like the ones in the movies. I must confess I didn’t notice all the parallels until I listened to the DVD commentary by the director Allen Coulter. Coulter points out what he calls the major theme: Louis Simo and George Reeves both want to be a player in life and neither one can accept what life has thrown in their way, and so they miss their opportunities.

Hollywoodland is a great story. I was completely absorbed in it when I saw the film in the theater, and I felt the same way about it watching it on DVD. It was great to hear the director’s commentary because the film has many layers. After seeing it four times (including listening to Coulter’s commentary), the film seems to have more and more to offer, which is something I appreciate in a film, in any story.

(This blog post about Hollywoodland contains spoilers.)

The more Simo delves into the circumstances surrounding Reeves’s death, the more he is convinced that the Los Angeles police have it wrong: It’s not a suicide but a murder. He creates a lot of trouble for himself by asking questions and taking Helen Bessolo’s money. Bessolo is Reeves’s mother, and she has hired Simo to probe more deeply because she is convinced that her son would not commit suicide.

At first, Simo’s investigations are like a game to him. He does not care about anyone else or the effect he has on other people. He continues to take Sinclair’s money, even though there is no basis for Sinclair’s suspicions about his wife having an affair. Simo needs the money, and he strings Sinclair along partly because Sinclair insists that his wife is cheating on him. Sinclair ends up killing his wife because no one is checking on Mr. Sinclair, even though his wife warned Simo about him. Simo is indirectly responsible, and he knows it. The death of Mrs. Sinclair makes Simo begin to realize how his actions have consequences.

Simo’s investigation into Reeves’s death is also like a game to him at first. The film intercuts between the investigation and the details of Reeves’s life. George Reeves is a kept man. His mistress, Toni Mannix, is wealthy and buys him everything that he needs, including a house, gifts, and a gun to protect himself. He accepts the role of Superman partly because his agent, Art Weissman, insists that he should have his own money, but he hates every minute of playing the superhero. When Weissman asks Reeves: “What do you want from life?,” Reeves tells him, “Oh, I don’t know. I’d settle for Clark Gable’s career.” He has more grandiose ideas than the role of Superman.

A turning point comes for Simo when he goes to Reeves’s house, now a crime scene, to try to imagine Reeves’s last actions. The film intercuts between the past and the present: Reeves’s last night alive and Simo imagining the events. At one point, Reeves turns directly toward the camera, almost as if he knows that Simo is in his home and that they are now there together. I think Simo begins to identify with Reeves and the circumstances of his life more closely.

Another turning point comes for Simo when he watches a home movie of Reeves given to him by Art Weissman. Weissman originally filmed it with the intention of getting Reeves a spot on a wrestling show, but it’s clear from the home movie that Reeves is not in good physical condition. Simo also watches a home movie of himself with his wife and son, and this home movie is a direct contrast with the one about Reeves. It’s clear that Simo and his wife were once in love and that they were happy. And it seems to me that Simo begins to realize that he had lost something very valuable when his marriage broke apart.

I interpreted the ending, when Simo shows up outside the home he once shared with his wife and son, as being very optimistic. Simo is wearing a suit for the first time. His wife smiles at the camera, at Simo, from just inside the front screen door and then gets their son Evan. Evan comes out the door and starts toward the camera, toward his father.

But Hollywoodland is a neo-noir: The ending is left open to interpretation, and life could go either way for Louis Simo. But the shift in Simo’s level of compassion for George Reeves and for the people in his own life convinced me that things would work out. The future appears a lot more hopeful for Louis Simo than it did for George Reeves.