Again, lots of good new DVDs today. A box set of five Yasujiro Ozu films, Joe Dante's The Screwfly Solution, the third season of Deadwood--all worthwhile.
The release I'm most excited about is the long-delayed DVD debut of John Frankenheimer's adaptation of Elmore Leonard's 52 Pick-Up. Produced by the notorious Golan-Globus organization in 1986 (a weird period in their history, when they funded bad ideas by esteemed auteurs--Altman's Fool For Love, Godard's King Lear--amidst the usual Bronson and Norris vehicles), this sank without a trace in its theatrical run. It should have reignited the careers of everyone involved.
Roy Scheider stars as a variation of the action-movie lead he'd done plenty, only this time his character is not quite so pure. He's a successful businessman caught up in a blackmail scheme which threatens the career of his well-connected wife, nicely played by Ann-Margret. The blackmailers are unforgettably portrayed by John Glover, Robert Trebor and Clarence Williams III, and they are possibly the scariest villains in movie history. Glover is the totally unpredictable ringleader, Trebor is a weak, pathetic (and therefore dangerous) loser, and Williams will kill someone just because he can. These guys are great.
In a perfect world, 52 Pick-Up would have been a springboard to bigger things for them. They all still work, of course--Glover is a Tony-winning stage actor, and was a ubiquitous on-screen presence in the early nineties, while Trebor and Williams find steady employment in small parts unworthy of their talent. For that matter, this was one of the last starring roles for Scheider, and the fact that he was working for Golan-Globus shows his career as a lead was coming to an end. In his case, that was probably not a bad thing; it freed him up to become the character actor he was always meant to be. (See his unforgettable Dr. Benway in Naked Lunch.)
John Frankenheimer's career was on the skids in '86, too, and even though 52 Pick-Up is easily one of his best films, it did his career no favors. He continued to languish in obscurity, cranking out the likes of the awful Don Johnson thriller Dead-Bang until a series of respectable cable TV movies brought him back to prominence. And as for Elmore Leonard, who gets a screenwriting credit here, even though he became a Hollywood darling in the late nineties (with fine adaptations of his work like Jackie Brown and Out Of Sight), 52 Pick-Up remains the very best filmed version of his work.
It's not perfect by any means--it has a cheesy synth score, and it looks like a product of the mid-eighties, with truly hideous wardrobe and hair. And even on its own terms, the third act is relatively weak, a flaw it shares with Leonard's book. But it's endearingly nasty, and cold-blooded to its very heart. The best thing about 52 Pick-Up is, I don't think it even has a heart.
