The Last Detail (1973)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Hal Ashby

Writers:

Robert Towne (screenplay)
Darryl Ponicsan (novel)

Release Date:

12 December 1973 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

No *#@!!* Navy's going to give some poor **!!@* kid eight years in the #@!* brig without me taking him out for the time of his *#@!!* life.

Plot:

Two Navy men are ordered to bring a young offender to prison but decide to show him one last good time along the way.

Plot Keywords:

Navy | Bar | Military | Teen | Boston Massachusetts

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 5 wins & 6 nominations

Cast

Jack Nicholson	...	SM1 Billy 'Bad Ass' Buddusky
Otis Young	...	GM1 'Mule' Mulhall
Randy Quaid	...	Seaman Larry Meadows
Clifton James	...	M.A.A.
Carol Kane	...	Young Whore
Michael Moriarty	...	Marine O.D.
Luana Anders	...	Donna
Kathleen Miller	...	Annette
Nancy Allen	...	Nancy
Gerry Salsberg	...	Henry
Don McGovern	...	Bartender
Pat Hamilton	...	Madame
Michael Chapman	...	Taxi Driver
Jim Henshaw	...	Sweek
Derek McGrath	...	Nichiren Shoshu Member
Gilda Radner	...	Nichiren Shoshu Member
Jim Horn	...	Nichiren Shoshu Member
John Castellano	...	Nichiren Shoshu Member
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Hal Ashby	...	Bearded Man at Bar in Darts Scene (uncredited)
Henry Calvert	...	Pawnbroker (uncredited)
Donald Warnock	...	Combat Zone Patron (uncredited)

Directed by
Hal Ashby

Writing credits
Robert Towne		(screenplay)
Darryl Ponicsan		(novel "The Last Detail")

Produced by
Gerald Ayres	....	producer
Charles Mulvehill	....	associate producer
Joel Chernoff	....	co-producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
Johnny Mandel

Cinematography by
Michael Chapman

Film Editing by
Robert C. Jones

Casting by
Lynn Stalmaster

Production Design by
Michael D. Haller		(as Michael Haller)

Costume Design by
Theodore R. Parvin		(as Ted Parvin)

Makeup Department
Maureen Sweeney	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Daniel McCauley	....	unit production manager (as Dan McCauley)
Marvin Miller	....	unit production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Alan Hopkins	....	second assistant director (as Al Hopkins)
Wesley J. McAfee	....	assistant director (as Wes McAfee)
Gordon Robinson	....	second assistant director
Samuel C. Jephcott	....	third assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
George Dunkel	....	scenic
Sidney H. Greenwood	....	properties (as Sid Greenwood)

Sound Department
Tom Overton	....	sound
Richard Portman	....	sound re-recordist
Sharron Miller	....	sound editor (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Robert Barrere	....	assistant film editor

Music Department
George Brand	....	music editor
Dan Wallin	....	score mixer (uncredited)

Other crew
Bob Forrest	....	script supervisor
Nicholas Kudla III	....	assistant to producer (as Nicholas Kudla II)
Velda Reimer	....	production secretary
Sheila Woodland	....	production secretary

Production Companies

• Acrobat Productions
• Bright-Persky Associates
• Columbia Pictures Corporation

Distributors

• American Broadcasting Company (ABC) (1976) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• Columbia Pictures

Other Companies

• Edit-International Inc.  sound effects editing

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Singapore:M18 (cut) | Netherlands:16 | Australia:R | Finland:K-16 | Norway:15 | Norway:16 (original rating) | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:16 | Canada:R

Filming Locations:

Boston Common, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Company:

Acrobat Productions

Trivia:

Feature film debut of Gilda Radner.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, prayer beads include two strands which hang on the left hand and three strands on the right while chanting with palms pressed together. When Donna is seen in profile chanting for Meadows, her prayer beads appear opposite from the correct arrangement with three strands on the left hand.

Quotes:

Meadows: [looking at porn] Are they really doing that when they take that picture?
Buddusky: [pause] Well kid, there's more things in this life than you can possibly imagine. I knew a whore once in Wilmington. She had a glass eye... used to take it out and wink people off for a dollar.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in The Search for Pink October (1990)

Soundtrack:

Sing Us Another Song

They don't seem to make movies like this anymore, do they?

While the question is a bit rhetorical, I do mean it- you don't see that many movies made anymore like this, The Last Detail by Hal Ashby (Being There) and Robert Towne (later to write another Nicholson gem, Chinatown), where the story is just a baseline to the characters studied in subtle and not so subtle ways. It even grows on the viewer if seen multiple times, where what seems to be dragging on is loaded with nuance. There's a level of existentialism to it: how free are Buddusky and Mulhall, or their choices? Probably not much at all, at least not any more or less than the doomed Meadows. But this is not the only method of Ashby on the material, there are also superlative performances from Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, and a newcomer at the time, Randy Quaid.

Nicholson and Young play Buddusky (Bad-ass), and Mulhouse (Mule), who are assigned "chicken-s*** detail", to transport petty thief Quaid, sent up for eight years in a naval brig. On the way up the Eastern seaboard, the three stop in Washington, New York, and Boston, and the two try to show the youngster a good time before imprisonment. Probably one of the most under-looked pictures of the 1970's, though one of the more note-worthy, especially for it's attitude delivered ten-fold by Nicholson's Cannes winning Buddusky, and Towne script. A scene in a bar in Washington and a scene at a Nichiren Shosu meeting steal the lot, though there's plenty to look for. It's one of my favorite tragic-comic sleepers, and one of Ashby's best.