Play Dirty

Nigel Davenport and Michael Caine in Play Dirty (dir. André De Toth, 1968).



Nigel Green.



Mohsen Ben Abdallah and Mohamed Kouka: "All they ask is kif and each other."

Another tough little movie from De Toth--maybe his toughest ever. Superficially, it's a Dirty Dozen knock-off, but really it's a brilliant deconstruction of the colorful-gang-of-wartime-scoundrels genre, with its stock theme of camaraderie under fire. As in Aldrich's film, a troop composed mainly of criminals is sent on a secret mission against the Nazis. The one non-reprobate is Michael Caine, an officer who's drafted from his safe duties as a port inspector to lead the group in question across the Egyptian desert to find Rommel's fuel depot and blow it up. Sent along with him to make sure he gets back alive is Nigel Davenport, an arrogant, cynical mercenary.

What you gradually realize as the film goes on is that none of these guys are ever going to bond. All the plot mechanisms are in place for it, but they just spin and whir to no effect as though the script were mocking itself. Nor does Caine ever come down off his high horse and examine the hypocrisy of his anachronistic British investment in decorum. The closest he comes is, in a pinch, to adopt the same disregard for the sanctity of human life as the rest of his outfit ("You're learning," says Davenport when Caine blows away some German ambulance attendants--and that's the closest thing we see to bonding). As for the supporting cast, you think at first they're going to be "colorful"; no, they're just soulless thugs. The two most likeable of the bunch are Hassan and Assine, a couple of gay Arabs. When three of the other men try to rape the German nurse who treated Hassan's injuries, Hassan gallantly shoots one of them in the ass from his stretcher. But even this small moment of decency is subject to an ironic recontextualization as events unfold.

Nigel Green plays the colonel who sends all these guys on their quest, and he is perhaps the movie's most complex, merciless joke. His endearingly dotty eccentricities (wearing sandals, planning attacks by consulting ancient battle maps) eventually give way to a revelation of his true character that is devastating in its offhandedness. In this way he is a microcosm of the film as a whole.

Day of the Outlaw

Robert Ryan in Day of the Outlaw (dir. André De Toth, 1959).



Mike McGreevey and Burl Ives.



Tina Louise.



Robert Ryan.



Frank DeKova as "Denver": "I want to look at you."

Robert Ryan sneers at old flame Tina Louise, who's contemptuous of his lack of mercy: "You won't find much mercy anywhere in Wyoming." De Toth's version of Wyoming (I have no idea where it was filmed) is bleak indeed: with all its snow and long shots and low-contrast black-and-white it looks a lot like Peter Brook's King Lear. That is to say, it looks great.

Ryan looks great too: grizzled, cool, and surly. Tina Louise has not yet surrendered her identity to become Ginger on Gilligan's Island, and at times she takes on the delicate gravity of a Sargent painting. Elisha Cook graces us with his presence for about ten seconds. David Nelson, son of Ozzie and Harriet, plays a clean-cut young outlaw you don't believe could have lasted five minutes among the gang of ruffians he rides into town with on the run from the cavalry. That scurvy crew includes Jack Lambert, who played "The Claw" in Dick Tracy's Dilemma and "Dum Dum Clarke" in Siodmak's The Killers; Lance Fuller, from This Island Earth and Slightly Scarlet; and Frank DeKova, as a grotesque (I think he's supposed to be an Indian) named Denver, who's oddly sensitive in a psychotic way. And, yes, Burl Ives as a renegade Union officer in charge of them all! All we ever find out about Ives' character, Jack Bruhn, is that he led a massacre of Mormon settlers in Utah. We don't learn why, and we're not let very far into the dark chamber of Bruhn's troubled conscience. His men are clamoring for alcohol and rough sex with the local wives and daughters of the townfolk, but he holds them tightly in check, even as he's suffering from a serious bullet wound. This power he has over them isn't really explained either, beyond the casual observation that they "need" him," but he makes it believable. He's a very reasonable outlaw, and scarier for it.

Springfield Rifle

Gary Cooper in Springfield Rifle (dir. André De Toth, 1952).

Perfectly entertaining Civil War western directed by the sporadically great André De Toth. It's a Hollywood heel-rider on at least two levels: it's Gary Cooper's next role after High Noon, once again as a guy who has to prove he's not a coward; and the title at least is an attempt to cash in on Winchester 73. People have complained that the title is misleading, since the eponymous rifle plays a relatively small part in the story. Those would be people who don't understand metonymy. The real subject of the film is counter-espionage as a military tactic, which like the gun in question was a relatively untried quantity at the time (at least the filmmakers work under the assumption that it was--beats me if it's true).

As I said, it's diverting enough, though no masterpiece. Lon Chaney, Jr. is good as a big dumb brute (surprise). Max Steiner's score is interesting: most of the time it hums along predictably with variations on "Battle Hymn of the Republic," but every once in a while it breaks out into stylized Coplandesque flourishes for no discernable reason.

Crime Wave

Let it ring: the hands of Phyllis Kirk and Gene Nelson in Crime Wave (dir. André De Toth, 1954).



Jim Hayward, the maniacal Timothy Carey, and Charles Buzinsky (Charles Bronson).



Sterling Hayden.

It may be all you need to know about Crime Wave that noirologist and (apparently) full-time DVD commentator Eddie Muller is joined in the commentary track by James Ellroy, and that Ellroy just about has kittens. Yes, it does hurt his credibility a bit that he's such a complete spaz (he pants excitedly when he sees locations he likes, and growls so loudly at the mere mention of attractive actresses that he hurts Muller's ears). The same might be said for his off-the-cuff declaration mid-viewing that De Toth's film is not only better than Kubrick's The Killing (which was inspired in part by it), but better than Chinatown. It might be said, except that part of me agrees with him. Yes, it's the impetuous part. I would give anything to have been at the dinner Ellroy promised to buy Muller after the commentary, at which, he said, he would defend his provocative claim at length.

All right, it's just a low-budget heist flick shot in thirteen days. But everything in it clicks. Sterling Hayden as toothpick-chewing monster cop Det. Lt. Sims (Ellroy takes one look at him and says, "Fuck Russell Crowe in LA Confidential; that's Bud White!"). Phyllis Kirk, who plays the devoted wife of ex-con Gene Nelson as though she were a three-dimensional character, despite all attempts by the script to sabotage her. Gene Nelson's souped-up Deuce Coup. Ted de Corsia (the rabbit-punching Willie the Harmonica from Naked City) as a bullying gangleader (though his bullying comes in second to Hayden's). The young Charles Bronson, going by Charles Buzinsky, as a scary punk. And the even scarier Timothy Carey (who, along with Hayden and de Corsia, was drafted by Kubrick for the aforementioned The Killing).

Then there's the location shooting in Los Angeles and environs. The opening sequence of the gas station hold-up alone is a work of art. (During the titles, you see the gangsters' car pull up to the station window as the attendant raises his head to greet them--then, after the director's credit, the last ten or so seconds of film runs all over again, the attendant raising his head for a second time! And immediately following this, there is a severe change of camera angle that almost gives the effect of a jump cut. I don't know if this was an intentional stab at artsiness by De Toth and/or veteran John Ford cameraman Bert Glennon, but I can just see Godard watching it and flipping his lid.) Just about every frame in the film is composed as though it were being made for the Academy's consideration, and the settings are used to full advantage, from the actual interior of the LA Police Department to a grimy lunchroom to a little animal hospital to a big barn of a bank in Glendale. There's one scene that begins in total darkness, and suddenly a door at the right of the frame bursts open like a rectangular lightning bolt as the police bust in, throwing their shadows around in dramatic ways. I had to replay it three times.

I watched this a couple of nights ago, and I'm still high on it. It's on a double-bill DVD with Jack Bernhard's Decoy, which I'll talk about in my next post.