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Post by Derrick on Jun 6, 2010 19:02:24 GMT -5
FACE/OFF was okay, I didn't see ONCE A THIEF. HARD-BOILED and THE KILLER are the ones. I was thinking about your show it occured to me that you two, along with my childhood friends and I, are the only people I know of that will throw out a name like Ed Lauter in mid-conversation without feeling any need to explain who he is. Despite all the movies and TV shows he's been in (and he's been in a LOT) whenever I hear Ed Lauter's name I think of DEATH WISH 3
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Post by grubl on Jun 6, 2010 19:26:02 GMT -5
I always think immediately of THE LONGEST YARD, because that was what my friend Brundage and I were watching when he told me who Ed Lauter was (Brundage's Dad was an unemployed wino and kind of sleezy, but he knew movies, he passed a lot of it on to his son).
I also think of THE CHICKEN CHRONICLES (1977), because he got second billing (under Phil Silvers) and was listed prominently in the newspaper ad. I doubt that ever happened again.
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Post by tombitd on Jun 6, 2010 19:33:19 GMT -5
[ Despite all the movies and TV shows he's been in (and he's been in a LOT) whenever I hear Ed Lauter's name I think of DEATH WISH 3 I can never shake my first impression of Lauter--namely as the SWAT leader in Hill Street Blues.
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Post by james on Jun 7, 2010 6:09:45 GMT -5
Lauter had a role in Alfred Hitchcock's last film (which I really like), Family Plot.
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Post by grubl on Jun 7, 2010 16:37:26 GMT -5
Yeah, FAMILY PLOT had a great, quirky cast. Too bad it was his worst outing as a director.
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Post by james on Jun 7, 2010 16:42:07 GMT -5
No, it's great. Topaz, on the other hand...
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Post by Eddie Love on Jun 7, 2010 21:12:52 GMT -5
Topaz, on the other hand... Topaz may still hold my personal record for the film I've tried to watch the most and never made it all the way through. (Just edging out the former champion Olivier's Hamlet, which I did recently make it to the end of.) Once Topaz leaves Harlem, I usually stop watching.
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Post by grubl on Jun 7, 2010 22:17:59 GMT -5
I just remember FAMILY PLOT seeming very cheap and feeling almost already dated in it's own time. Goofy ending. as well. To think that this was a follow up to his most cutting edge and gritty film, FRENZY.
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Post by Derrick on Jun 8, 2010 1:33:16 GMT -5
Topaz, on the other hand... Topaz may still hold my personal record for the film I've tried to watch the most and never made it all the way through. (Just edging out the former champion Olivier's Hamlet, which I did recently make it to the end of.) Once Topaz leaves Harlem, I usually stop watching. You and me both. The best part of TOPAZ is watching Roscoe Lee Browne bullshit his way into that Harlem hotel to get the info he needs and watch him escape. TOPAZ is all downhill, deadly dull stuff after the Harlem sequence.
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Post by james on Jun 8, 2010 5:35:25 GMT -5
Derrick - the story goes that the only thing Hitchcock enjoyed about the making of Topaz was having conversations with Roscoe Lee Brown when the cameras weren't rolling.
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Post by Eddie Love on Jun 8, 2010 5:45:30 GMT -5
I just remember FAMILY PLOT seeming very cheap and feeling almost already dated in it's own time. Goofy ending. as well. True, FP looks really cheap, with lots of car scenes done with process shots. And that ending is pretty lame. It still manages to be pretty atmospheric and enjoyable. Clearly Hitch loved the notion that the villainous couple are intelligent and glamorous and the "heroes" are corrupt, bedraggled, and sexually frustrated. (Just like the conceit about food seems to inform every frame of FRENZY.)
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Post by james on Jun 8, 2010 5:52:39 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure that the obvious rear projection in Family Plot was intentional. It's too obvious, and Hitchcock was too talented a director to let that pass unless he wanted it there. He was a director who often wanted the viewer to acknowledge that they were watching a film, and not something that was supposed to be "real" (which is one reason why certain films like Rope and Rear Window work as well as they do - the viewer is implicated in the story). Also, Hitchcock directed Family Plot around the same time Jaws (which he saw) was released. I don't know which came first, but I'd like to think that Hitch knew that a new kind of action/suspense film was on the rise, one that emphasized verisimilitude and "realism" and he wanted Family Plot to be a throwback to an older style that had really died out by 1976.
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Post by Derrick on Jun 8, 2010 11:22:24 GMT -5
Lauter had a role in Alfred Hitchcock's last film (which I really like), Family Plot. I like FAMILY PLOT a lot myself. It's got a wonderfully twisty plot that goes in totally unexpected directions and as grubl mentioned in his post, it's a nice switch that the bad guys are highly disciplined, intelligent, professional, glamorous and sophisticated while the good guys are disorganized, disheveled, grungy and just plain dumb. Barbara Harris walks away with the acting honors in this one and I simply love the ending where she gives us a mischievous grin and flirty wink. FAMILY PLOT has gotten a bad rap as the worst of Hitchcock's films but I'd give that honor to THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY. There's a couple of excellent reasons why this movie was buried for so long: it's not funny and it's boring.
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Post by james on Jun 8, 2010 11:52:57 GMT -5
Those are fighting words, Derrick. The Trouble with Harry is another favorite of mine. ;D
(And it came in the middle of what was probably Hitchcock's most sustained streak of great pictures, starting with Rear Window and ending with Marnie)
The thing about TTWH is that it's not really a suspense film (though it was probably promoted as one). It's a funny character study disguised as a murder mystery - in the end, Harry is just another MacGuffin, and what's important is the funny character bits, not the murder. All I can say is that I don't find it boring at all, and I think it's hilarious. It was an experiment, in that Hitchcock deliberately cast non-stars (at the time) John Forsythe and Shirley MacClaine as the leads, because he wanted to try something out of the star formula.
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Post by Eddie Love on Jun 8, 2010 18:13:02 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure that the obvious rear projection in Family Plot was intentional. It's too obvious, and Hitchcock was too talented a director to let that pass unless he wanted it there. Hmmmmmmm. I'm not so sure about this. I just picked this up from the library so I'm gonna revisit the film. Personally, I suspect he didn't realize usage of this out-dated technique wouldn't be noticeably jarring to audiences of the time, and didn't care as long as things looked like they should based on his storyboards. You could be right though, as he routinely injected some deliberately dodgy elements into his films, often anchoring them on the shoulders of performers with seriously middling talents .
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