Point Blank (1967)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

John Boorman

Writers:

Donald E. Westlake (novel)
Alexander Jacobs (writer) ...
(more)

Release Date:

30 August 1967 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Thriller | Drama

Tagline:

There are two kinds of people in his up-tight world: his victims and his women. And sometimes you can't tell them apart.

Plot:

Based on the theme of the individual pitted against the large, impersonal organization. Here the central...

Plot Keywords:

Vengeance | Betrayal | Neo Noir | Organized Crime | Money

Cast

Lee Marvin	...	Walker
Angie Dickinson	...	Chris
Keenan Wynn	...	Yost
Carroll O'Connor	...	Brewster
Lloyd Bochner	...	Frederick Carter
Michael Strong	...	Stegman
John Vernon	...	Mal Reese
Sharon Acker	...	Lynne
James Sikking	...	Hired Gun
Sandra Warner	...	Waitress
Roberta Haynes	...	Mrs. Carter
Kathleen Freeman	...	First Citizen
Victor Creatore	...	Carter's Man
Lawrence Hauben	...	Car Salesman
Susan Holloway	...	Girl Customer
Sid Haig	...	First Penthouse Lobby Guard
Michael Bell	...	Second Penthouse Lobby Guard
Priscilla Boyd	...	Receptionist
John McMurtry	...	Messenger
Ron Walters	...	Young Man in Apartment
George Strattan	...	Young Man in Apartment
Nicole Rogell	...	Carter's secretary
Rico Cattani	...	Reese's guard
Roland La Starza	...	Reese's guard (as Roland LaStarza)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Casey Brandon	...	Dancer (uncredited)
Jerry Catron	...	Man (uncredited)
Bonnie Dewberry	...	Dancer (uncredited)
Carey Foster	...	Dancer (uncredited)
Bill Hickman	...	Guard (uncredited)
Chuck Hicks	...	Guard (uncredited)
Karen Lee	...	Waitress (uncredited)
Joseph Mell	...	Man (uncredited)
Andrew Orapeza	...	Desk clerk (uncredited)
Felix Silla	...	Bellhop (uncredited)
Guy Way	...	Mob chauffer (uncredited)
Louis Whitehill	...	Policeman (uncredited)
Ted White	...	Football player (uncredited)
Roseann Williams	...	Dancer (uncredited)

Directed by
John Boorman

Writing credits
Donald E. Westlake		(novel "The Hunter") (as Richard Stark)
Alexander Jacobs		(writer) and
David Newhouse		(writer) &
Rafe Newhouse		(writer)

Produced by
Judd Bernard	....	producer
Robert Chartoff	....	producer

Original Music by
Johnny Mandel

Cinematography by
Philip H. Lathrop

Film Editing by
Henry Berman

Art Direction by
Albert Brenner
George W. Davis

Set Decoration by
F. Keogh Gleason		(as Keogh Gleason)
Henry Grace

Costume Design by
Margo Weintz		(uncredited)

Makeup Department
Sydney Guilaroff	....	hair stylist
William Tuttle	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Edward Woehler	....	unit production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Al Jennings	....	assistant director
Christopher Seitz	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Franklin Milton	....	recording supervisor
Van Allen James	....	sound editor (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
J. McMillan Johnson	....	special visual effects

Stunts
Boyd Cabeen	....	stunt double (uncredited)
Jerry Catron	....	stunts (uncredited)
Bill Hickman	....	stunts (uncredited)
Chuck Hicks	....	stunts (uncredited)
Carey Loftin	....	stunts (uncredited)
Ted White	....	stunts (uncredited)

Editorial Department
William Stair	....	color consultant

Music Department
Billy Byers	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Patricia Casey	....	production associate
Rafe Newhouse	....	assistant to producer
David Steen	....	special photographs for production
Norman Stuart	....	dialogue coach

Production Companies

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Distributors

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1967) (USA) (theatrical)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1968) (France) (theatrical)
• MGM/UA Home Entertainment (1995) (USA) (VHS) (pan/scan)
• Action Gitanes (????) (France) (theatrical)
• Chapel Distribution (1997) (Australia) (theatrical) (35mm print Panavision)
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1968) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Neue Visionen Filmverleih (????) (Germany) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Living Colour Entertainment (2008) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2005) (USA) (DVD) (widescreen)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2005) (USA) (VHS) (widescreen)
• MGM/UA Home Entertainment (????) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• NGN
• R.C.V.2001 Video (1982) (Belgium) (VHS)
• Süddeutsche Zeitung (2006) (Germany) (DVD)

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Germany:16 (re-rating) | West Germany:18 (original rating) | Australia:M | Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 (cut) | Norway:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (re-rating) (1998) | UK:18 (video rating) (1993) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:Approved

Filming Locations:

Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, California, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

When Walker, in Chris' company, switches on the TV at Brewster's house, the music you hear is the overture to Richard Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg"

Quotes:

Brewster: You're a very bad man, Walker, a very destructive man! Why do you run around doing things like this?
Walker: I want my money. I want my $93,000.
Brewster: $93,000? You threaten a financial structure like this for $93,000? No, Walker, I don't believe you. What do you really want?
Walker: I - I really want my money.
Brewster: Well, I'm not going to give you any money and nobody else is. Don't you understand that?
Walker: Who runs things?
Brewster: Carter and I run things. I run things.
Walker: What about Fairfax? Will he pay me?
Brewster: Fairfax is a man who signs checks.
Walker: No, cash.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Paybacks Are a Bitch (2007) (V)

Soundtrack:

Mighty Good Times

A genre movie unlike any other.

When I worked in a psychiatric hospital I noticed that one or two of the patients had a peculiar tendency to stand up, start walking purposefully across the ward, stop and look around, then begin walking just as purposefully in another direction, then sit down again. A kind of ambulatory non sequitur.

This whole movie is like that. I mean that to be a compliment. People break up the interactive script they've initiated and do something completely unpredictable. I'll just give one example. Walker (Marvin) and his companion (Angie Dickenson) have an argument and she begins whacking him across the head with her purse. At first he guards himself with his arms but then lowers them and stands silently and without any expression as she beats him, slaps him, and pounds his chest, finally slumping to the floor exhausted. At that, he strides wordlessly to the couch, plops down, turns on the TV and begins surfing the channels.

It's a neo-noir film if there ever was one. There is betrayal, a false woman, suicide, multiple double crosses, revenge, an urban setting, and an ambiguous ending.

So, although it is a genre film, it is nevertheless unique. Everything comes together. The production designer gives us sterile urban vistas, featuring bland cement boxes and the Los Angeles River, without which no noir would be complete. The apartments these people live in look like ordinary arid gray middle-class bourgeois digs. Wardrobe, too, has fitted these performers out in ordinary suits and ties, and the women are always rather chic looking.

The direction and editing are splendid. I'll give an example of what I mean here, too. Lee Marvin throws John Vernon out on the roof of his penthouse, wrapped only in a bed sheet. Vernon begins to tumble over the edge, Marvin grabs for him but winds up holding only the sheet while Vernon plunges some dozen floors to the street below. (His body winds up impossibly intact. A cat might have survived such a fall but a full-grown man would have splashed.) In an ordinary movie, we'd get a cut from the body hitting the street to Marvin staring down at it over the railing. But here, Marvin is still holding the sheet. Not only that but it's WINDY on the fourteenth floor roof and the wind is whipping the sheet up into billows around Marvin, like some demonic object with its own malevolent life force, before he is finally able to unwrap himself and fling it away.

The editing gives us a couple of brief flashbacks, but not just to evoke a mood. They are instrumental in letting us know what Marvin is thinking. Marvin is holding a gun to his ex-pal's, Vernon's, face and the poor guy faints until Marvin slaps him awake, and then he begs Marvin to trust him. A flashback lasting only a few seconds reminds us of an earlier scene in which Vernon begged Marvin's help in carrying out a heist and shouted at him, "Walker! Trust me!" The editing is so precise that in this -- and in a dozen other scenes -- a few seconds more or less would drain them of their impact.

The score is by Johnny Mandel, an arranger and composer whose work I've admired for years. He was a child prodigy, played both trumpet and trombone with Tommy Dorsey's band before turning to composing and arranging. He's never edgy or irritating. His music is smooth and melodic and sometimes strangely orchestrated. Here he suits his talents to the demands of the scene. When a man is trying to seduce a woman, a romantic piano melody tinkles behind them. At other times, again depending on the context, the score glides from Henry Mancini to Gil Evans. Nicely done.

So is the acting. Marvin has been this good in other films but never better. The plot has to do with his regaining $93,000 that "the organization" has cheated him out of. (There is no mafia-ness to the movie. The only foreign language we hear is Portugese.) And $93K was a lot of money then. You could find gas at 29 cents a gallon. Marvin more or less kills his way up the ladder searching for someone in a position to "pay me my money." He finally gets to Carrol O'Connor who explains to him that in a huge corporation like this, nobody ever handles any money. O'Connor has got maybe eleven dollars in his wallet. And Marvin, holding a gun on him, hesitates and looks genuinely put out -- puzzled, the way a child might be puzzled by a disappointing reply. ("No, there's no Santa Claus.") I think I'll leave it at that before I run out of space. I've pretty much skipped the plot but that must be adequately covered elsewhere. Besides, the plot is either extremely simple or very complicated indeed, depending on how far you want your conjectures to dig. (Is the whole movie nothing more than the fantasy of Marvin as he lies dying on Alcatraz after being shot at the beginning of the story? See what I mean?) Don't miss it.