The Italian Job (1969) - Braindead boilerplate heist action-comedy regurgitated by swinging London

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A woman's backside used as a canvas for writing a map, seated on the floor next to an expensively dressed co-star Michael Caine holding a tommy-gun, makes up this eye-catching poster for Peter Collinson's The Italian Job

When a criminal bigshot dies in an accidental explosion, our recently released hero inherits a scheme to steal 4 mil. $ in gold from a money transport in Turin, Italy. The job will require a lot of manpower and four Mini Coopers.

 

The Italian Job is written by Troy Kennedy Martin (The Sweeney (1975-78)) and directed by Peter Collinson (The Penthouse (1967)).

It is a colorful picture in which Michael Caine (Jaws: The Revenge (1987)) plays the thief that no one can resist. Perhaps as a consequence, no other character really make an impression. The film is a sort of trendy, triumphant dance for the swinging London of the 1960s. But it is totally hollow, dumb, - idiotic, in fact. With a terrible ending to boot.

 

Related post:

 

The Italian Job (2003) - Gray impresses with slick heist remake (remake)

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 3 mil. $

Box office: 9.4 mil. $

=  Box office success (returned 3.13 times its cost)

[The Italian Job premiered 5 June (London) and runs 99 minutes. Noël Coward (Paris When It Sizzles (1964)) was paid 25k £ for his performance in the film. Shooting took place from June 1968 - ? in Ireland, including in Dublin, in England, including in London, and in Italy. The film was the 14th highest-grossing of the year in the UK and reportedly not big in North America. It did collect a sizable 9.4 mil. $ gross and was nominated for a Golden Globe. The film was remade with the same title in 2003, and in Bollywood in 2012 with the title Players. Collinson returned with You Can't Win 'Em All (1970). Caine returned in Battle of Britain (1969); Coward retired from acting after the film and continued as a writer until his death by a heart attack in 1973. The Italian Job is fresh at 81 % with a 7.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of The Italian Job? 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) - Leone ends his poncho trilogy with certified classic

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Kept in mostly earthy tones, this hand-painted poster for Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a masterwork

Three gunslingers in the West fight each other in a fierce search for a fortune in buried Confederate gold around the time of the American Civil War.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is written by Agenore Incrocci (Spaghetti House (1982)), Furio Scarpelli (Celluloid/Celluloide (1996)), Luciano Vincenzoni (Count Tacchia/Il Conte Tacchia (1982)) and co-writer/director, Italian master filmmaker Sergio Leone (The Colossus of Rhodes/Il Colosso di Rodi (1961)). It is the final film in Leone's Dollars trilogy, which also contains A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965).
An impressively grand work, this spaghetti western is a complete joy: An epic with big sets, twists, great storytelling and Ennio Morricone's (The Repenter/Il Pentito (1985)) classic legendary score and theme, which returns probably around 20 times through the film without ever getting tiring.
Clint Eastwood (The Bridges of Madison County (1995)) is the clench-jawed Clint we know and love from these films; whereas Eli Wallach (The Toe Tactic (2008)) as Tuco ('the ugly') is especially good in the film, filling out his mischievous and unpleasant yet charming character with bravado.
The desert scenes and the cemetery finale are incredibly handsome pieces of cinema, (cinematography by Tonino Delli Colli (Lovers & Liars/Viaggio con Anita (1979))). The story of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is very uncomplicated, and at its length Leone operates in a space somewhere between grandeur and at the cusp of delusions of grandeur. However that space is wonderful to be in with him here.

Related posts:

Sergio Leone: A Fistful of Dynamite/Giù la Testa, Coglione!/Duck, You Sucker (1971) - Sergio Leone's cinematic cornucopia 
For a Few Dollars More/Per Qualche Dollaro in Più (1965) or, Return of the Poncho Killer A Fistful of Dollars/Per un Pugno di Dollari (1964) or, Killer in a Poncho
 

Watch a clip from the movie here with Van Cleef

Cost: Estimated 1.2 mil. $
Box office: 25.1 mil. $ (North America only)
= Mega-hit (returned more than 20.91 times its cost)
[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly premiered 23 December (Italy) and runs 177 minutes. United Artists reportedly put up 0.5 mil. $ of the budget, following the success of the two previous Dollars movies in Europe especially, (all three were not released in North America until 1967.) Eastwood reportedly negotiated his salary up to 250k $, a Ferrari and 10 % of the US profits. Shooting took place in Spain, including Madrid, and in Italy, including Rome, around July 1966. The cemetery set was built by Spanish soldiers in 2 days. The film is said to have grossed 6.3 mil. $ in its initial North-American release. It was released slowly to more countries into the 1970s and has had many re-releases. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this review. IMDb's users have voted the film in at #9 on the site's Top 250, sitting between Pulp Fiction (1994) and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). Leone returned with Once Upon a Time in the West/C'era una Volta il West (1968). Eastwood returned in The Witches/Le Streghe (1967); Lee Van Cleef (Shotgun Slade (1961, TV-series)) in Death Rides a Horse/Da Uomo a Uomo (1967); and Wallach in Batman (1967, TV-series) and theatrically in The Tiger Makes Out (1967). The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is certified fresh at 97 % with an 8.76/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?

Eureka (1983) - Roeg's tiring gold-and-greed epic

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One of the few posters for Nicolas Roeg's Eureka is this hideous concoction

QUICK REVIEW:

Jack McCann's (Gene Hackman (The Royal Tenenbaums (2001))) passion is the hunt for gold. But when he in 1925, after a 15 years long search, finally hit a big ore, he metaphorically dies.

SPOILER He later dies literally: After getting beaten vehemently, his head is burned with a blow torch, he is covered in feathers and then decapitated in what may be one of cinema's ugliest death scenes.
Eureka, written by Paul Mayersberg (The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)), based on Marshall Houts' non-fiction book Who Killed Sir Harry Oakes?, and directed by Nicolas Roeg (Walkabout (1971)), is a film which is carried out in a demonstratively expressive, loud, Freudian palette with excessive use of zoom and a trite orgy scene. What Roeg tried to do here seems very old-fashioned today in the shadows of such much superior, related films as Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007).

Related review:

Nicolas Roeg: Don't Look Now (1973) or, Grief in Venice

In lieu of a trailer for the movie, which isn't on Youtube, here's an interview with Roeg about his David Bowie-starring The Man Who Fell to Earth

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 123k $ (North America only)
= Mega-flop
[Eureka was released May 20 (UK) and runs 130 minutes. It is loosely based on the life and death of Sir Harry Oakes, who was murdered in the Bahamas in 1943. The film was shot in England, Florida, Jamaica and Canada. As of 1986, it  was only released theatrically in 4 countries. It was produced during troubled times for its American distributor MGM/UA, who "dumped it" in a few theaters in the fall of 1984. Millions of dollars were lost on Eureka, which, nevertheless, didn't end Roeg's career. 1,948 IMDb-users have given Eureka a 6/10 average rating.]

What do you think of Eureka?

Deadwood - season 1 (2004) - Milch presents a new f-ing take on the old frontier west

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+ Best New TV-series of the Year + Best Western Title of the Year

Five characters from David Milch's Deadwood stare you down on this poster for the first season

Deadwood is an HBO TV-series in 3 seasons from creator David Milch (NYPD Blue (1993-05)), based on the real town of Deadwood, South Dakota. The season comprises 12 48-60 min. episodes.

Season one takes place within approximately two weeks of 1876 in the raw gold-digger camp, which is more or less run by Al Swearengen (Ian McShane (Sexy Beast (2000))), owner of the brothel and saloon The Gem. Our other protagonist is the former sheriff Seth Bullock (Timothy OIyphant (The Grinder (2015-16))), who founds a lumber store in the town with his business partner Sol (John Hawkes (The Sessions (2012))) and rich New Yorker madam Alma Garret (Molly Parker (House of Cards (2014-15))), whose husband SPOILER gets pushed to his death on the land he bought cheap.Western legend Wild Bill Hickok arrives with his companions; the drunken, miserable Calamity Jane and Charlie Utter, who opens a post office, SPOILER after Hickok gets shot dead by an embittered poker enemy by the name Jack 'the Coward' McCall, who is freed after a mock trial in town.

The details:

Powers Boothe (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2015-16)) is spectacular as Cy Tolliver, the entrepreneur who opens Swearengen's competing brothel, The Bella Union, where he gets into trouble with a young conman couple, SPOILER who he later murders brutally in front of his closest employees, a soft, lesbian prostitute and a gay card shark, who consequently lose sympathy for their employer.
Other festive elements of Deadwood include the priest, who has some kind of brain tumor, which gives him seizures and makes him increasingly pitiful, until Swearengen shows mercy SPOILER and strangles him to death. - And the doctor (splendidly portrayed by Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975))), a choleric but honest man, who helps and falls for an invalid who works in The Gem.
The last of the town's residents I feel implored to mention is Mister Wu (Keone Young (Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos (1986), TV-series)), who runs the Chinese part of town similarly as Swearengen, whom he respectfully calls 'Swegen!', runs the town general.
McShane is a force to be reckoned with and has one of his career's best parts in Swearengen. The show features raw aesthetics and innovative, refreshing (and very, sometimes even exaggeratedly expletive-laden) dialog. It is refined if psychologically somewhat flat, and not unlike a western soap opera, a good one though, mind you.

Best episode:

12. Sold Under Sin - written by Milch and Ted Man (NYPD Blue (1994-99)), directed by Davis Guggenheim (He Named Me Malala (2015))
The season's last episode is a royal finisher, in which Bullock goes against Garret's vile father and accepts the sheriff's star of Deadwood, while Swearengen cements his power, despite the town getting itself a mayor.

 

Related post:

 

2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the first season here 

Cost: Reportedly 4.5 mil. $ per episode, or 54 mil. $
Box office: None (TV-series) 
= Unknown
[Deadwood was an expensive show to produce, and it was finally canceled because of this I suspect. I have not been able to find its viewer ratings, (shoot me a comment with a link, if you do.) The season received 80 % positive reviews, according to Metacritic, based on 26 of them, which is the lowest of the three seasons. It is #69 on IMDb's Top 250 TV-shows where 60k+ users have given it an 8.8 average rating.]

What do you think of Deadwood season 1?
Other good western TV-series?