“Gun Crazy” (1950)
One of the frequent accusations leveled at this subgenre of film is that the two-people-against-the-world narrative runs the risk of glamorizing or romanticizing the central couple, even though they’re criminals, often murderous ones. And judging by this absolutely scorching, brilliant offering from underrated stylist Joseph H. Lewis, it’s a debate that spans more than half a century, even back into the Hayes Code era, as there can be no doubt that, as sticky their end and as morally tortured, weak and manipulated as both are, Laurie (Peggy Cummins) and Bart (John Dall), the gun-toting, bank-robbing, wildly in love duo here, are just unbelievably fucking cool. Loosely inspired by the real-life Bonnie and Clyde (Laurie occasionally sports that classic beret-and-mac look), the story follows the troubled, gun-obsessed but non-violent Bart from a prologue set during his childhood, just before he’s sent to reform school, to him meeting and falling in with carnival sharpshooter Laurie, as her promise to “try really hard to be good” comes to naught and they sink further into a life of armed robbery and narrow escapes. Dall gives a terrifically sympathetic and conflicted performance as the decent man who sacrifices his decency to be a big guy in the eyes of the woman he loves, but, as her top billing and the film’s original title (“Deadly is the Female”) suggests, this is Cummins’ film, despite Bart’s greater screen time and better-drawn background. Baby-faced, blessed with a talent for marksmanship and troubled by none of Bart’s squeamishness about killing, what stops Laurie from simply being the most fatale of shrewish femmes is the genuineness of her love for Bart and her remarkable self-awareness. The film itself is pretty much a masterpiece, a career high for Lewis, who has a retrospective reputation for managing to hone and craft even the schlockiest of B-movies that came his way into films of astonishing style and even formal experimentation (take the oddly compelling robbery scene which is filmed from the back seat of the car as Laurie drives and she and Bart bicker gently and naturalistically about how to get there, where to park, how heavy the traffic is, etc.) By the poetic end, there’s no doubt where Lewis’, and our, sympathies lie — not with the world outside, the dead bodies that litter their trail or the family and friends betrayed by their conversion to criminality, but with Laurie and Bart and the private world they create in which, as Bart sums up, only they “are real. Everything else is a nightmare.” [A-]
“Drugstore Cowboy” (1989)
Gus Van Sant’s breakthrough indie classic isn’t quite a by-the-letter lovers-on-the-run film, and much more a drug-addiction story about redemption and self-discovery via Matt Dillon‘s lead character Bob Hughes. That said, it does fulfill the basic requirements of the genre enough that we decided to include it. Dillon plays the leader of a misfit troupe of drug addicts who rob pharmacies to support their habits. His team includes his superstitious girlfriend Dianne (Kelly Lynch) and a pair of young lovers played by James Le Gros and Heather Graham. Together the quartet travels across the Pacific Northwest pilfering narcotics from unsuspecting drug stores all the while trying to avoid Gentry (James Remar), a detective who is hot on their trail. High on the hog, tragedy strikes and Bob decides to go straight which is effectively a different movie from the familiar paradigm, but only enriches what came before it and gives the film an emotional and spiritual weight that it likely wouldn’t have possessed otherwise. At their worst, lovers-on-the-lam movies can glorify the romantic violence of couples above the law and deliver nothing else; at their most basic they can be truly shallow if the romance doesn’t feel true, heartbreaking and utterly crushing. Van Sant uses the model as a vibrant launching pad for something deeper, more textured and ultimately far more memorable than most. [A-]
“Zabriskie Point” (1970)
Michelangelo Antonioni’s infamous folly is legendary. Here we have the maestro of Italian cinema who had made five stone-cold cinema classics in a row—his modern alienation tetralogy (“L’Avventura,” “La Notte,” “Eclipse,” Red Desert“) and of course, his enigmatic swinging London murder mystery masterpiece “Blow Up.” Having conquered the U.K. with the aforementioned seminal ‘60s picture, Antonioni set his sights on America. His first and only U.S. film, “Zabriskie Point” examines the restless youth of the Vietnam-era counter culture, but with few-to-no transformative results. Writers on the screenplay included Sam Shepard, regular collaborator Tonino Guerra and Bernado Bertolluci’s wife Clare Peplo, but even as written by committee, the script was perhaps the least of the movie’s problems (though the dialogue is tone-deaf). High on the list of issues were the two unknown and inexperienced leads Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin, whose film credits before and after are basically negligible. Featuring Rod Taylor and G. D. Spradlin in supporting roles (Harrison Ford also has an uncredited part as one of the student demonstrators), “Zabriskie Point” is rebel-without-a-cause-y with a documentary style (at least at first). When a police officer is killed in a student protest, Frechette (who may or may not be responsible), goes on the lam, steals a plane and eventually crosses paths with Halprin’s disaffected character. The two of them eventually (randomly) fall in love and spend time fucking in Death Valley to songs by Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Kaleidoscope, The Rolling Stones, John Fahey, etc. While the dreamy desert sequences shot by Alfio Contini are beautiful to look at, there’s not a lot more to endorse about this sluggish and aimless movie. A critical and commercial failure upon release, there have been several attempts over the years to reassess the movie as a misunderstood classic and while it’s not as horrible as it’s sometimes made out to be, we’re thankful (even as major Antonioni-ites) that revisionist history never took. [C]
“The Sadist” (1963)
A black and white exploitation film in the vein of Roger Corman, “The Sadist” is a brutal but pulpy, fun B-movie that’s loosely based on the Charles Starkweather murders that also spawned Terrence Malick’s “Badlands.” Directed by James Landis, more significantly it was the first U.S.-shot picture by estimable cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (Steven Spielberg‘s “Sugarland Express,” Michael Cimino‘s “Heaven’s Gate,” Robert Altman‘s “The Long Goodbye,” Brian De Palma‘s “Blow Out” to name just a few) and as you can guess, it looks fantastic; the dust and the blood given palpable texture even in black and white. Three unlucky high school teachers on their way to a baseball game are sidetracked along the way when their car breaks down. In an abandoned gas station/junkyard they have the misfortune to run into a delinquent psychopath (Arch Hall, Jr.) and his equally unhinged girlfriend (Judy Bradshaw). The “twist” on the genre this time is that the lovers on the run are the violent villains of the picture and the movie is entirely stationary, as opposed to the road trip blueprint most of these pictures follow. Essentially keeping the trio captive and then mercilessly abusing and torturing them while hiding out from the law that’s on their tail, “The Sadist,” is appropriately named. Arch Hall, Jr. as the young, handsome, James Dean-esque killer is deliciously good as the over-the-top psychotic lunatic who just couldn’t give a damn. And sure, a lot of it is a bit ridiculous and unintentionally funny now, it’s still a helluva entertaining B-movie. Recommended to watch with friends over beers with lots of whooping, hollering and yelling at the screen. [B]
