Point Blank (film)
Encyclopedia
Point Blank is a 1967 American crime film directed by John Boorman
and starring Lee Marvin
and Angie Dickinson
, adapted from the classic pulp novel The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake
, writing as Richard Stark. Boorman directed the film at Marvin's request and Marvin played a central role in the film's development and staging.
The film was not a box office success in 1967 but has since gone on to be a cult classic, eliciting praise from critics like film historian David Thomson
.
) – originally named "Parker" in Stark's novel – works together with his friend Mal Reese (John Vernon
in his first major role) to steal a large amount of cash from a courier transporting funds for a major gambling operation, with the deserted Alcatraz island as a drop point. Reese then double-crosses Walker by shooting him, leaving him for dead. Reese also makes off with Walker's wife Lynne (Sharon Acker
).
Walker recovers. With assistance from the mysterious Yost (Keenan Wynn
), who seems to know everything about everybody, Walker sets out to find Reese, take his revenge and recover the $93,000 he is owed. Reese used all of the money from the job to pay back a debt to a crime syndicate called "The Organization" and get back in its good graces.
With memories of happy times together, Walker goes to Los Angeles to pay back his wife and his best friend for their treachery. He bursts in on Lynne and riddles her bed with bullets, just in case Reese is in it. A distraught Lynne tells him she no longer wants to live, then takes an overdose of pills.
Walker is told that a car dealer named Stegman (Michael Strong
) might know where Reese can be found. He takes Stegman for a wild ride in one of his new cars, smashing the car and terrorizing him until Stegman reveals where Reese is living. He is told that Reese has now taken up with Walker's sister-in-law, Chris.
Breaking in on Chris (Angie Dickinson
), he learns that she actually despises Reese and had considered Walker the best thing ever to happen to her sister. Willing to help in any way, Chris agrees to a sexual tryst with Reese inside his heavily guarded penthouse apartment just so she can gain access and unbolt a door for Walker. Walker ties up some men in an apartment across from the penthouse and has a call made to police to report a robbery, creating a diversion that enables him to slip into the penthouse.
With a gun to Reese's head, Walker persuades him to give up the names of his Organization superiors – Carter, Brewster and Fairfax – so that he can make somebody pay back his $93,000. He then forces a naked Reese off the balcony and watches him plunge to his death.
After next confronting Carter (Lloyd Bochner
) for his money, Walker is set up. A hit man (James B. Sikking
) with a high-powered rifle is assigned to kill him at a money drop in a storm-drain river bed. Walker sees to it that Carter and Stegman are the ones who get shot.
Yost takes him to a home belonging to Brewster (Carroll O'Connor
). Walker visits Chris in her apartment, with it having been trashed by the organization. She greets him but says "you did die at Alcatraz that day", remarking on how cold he seems. He takes her to the home belonging to Brewster. Walker waits for Brewster to return there. Chris makes love with Walker after first fighting with him. The following morning, Brewster comes home and is ambushed by Walker, who demands his money. Brewster insists that no one will pay. Walker says if Brewster won't, he will kill him and try Fairfax next.
They return to Alcatraz, which is still a drop. (The location is actually Fort Point, an old brick fort beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, though the earlier Alcatraz scenes were filmed on the island.). Brewster brings a case that he claims contains the money. Walker doesn't trust him and refuses to show himself. The hit man is also in the darkness with his rifle. Brewster is shot. It is Yost who emerges from the shadows, whereupon Brewster calls out to Walker: "This is Fairfax! Kill him!"
Walker is encouraged to come claim his money but he stays in the shadows instead.
met Lee Marvin
while on the set of The Dirty Dozen
. Boorman and Marvin talked about a script based on The Hunter, which they both hated but loved the main character of Walker. When they agreed to work on the film, Marvin threw the script out the window. The script would be developed during the course of shooting the film.
This was the first film ever to shoot at Alcatraz, the infamous prison which had been shut down since 1963, only three years before the production. 125 crew members were used to shoot for two weeks in the abandoned prison facility. While Marvin and Wynn enjoyed shooting on-location, Wynn was concerned about the weather and the need to loop half the dialogue.
During the shoot, Dickinson and Acker modeled contemporary fashions for a Life magazine exclusive against the backdrop of the prison.
, how it dehumanized him and left him desperately searching for his humanity.
with stylistic touches of the European nouvelle vague. The film features a fractured time-line, disconcerting narrative rhythms (long slow passages contrasted with sudden outbursts of violence) and a carefully calculated use of film space (stylized compositions of concrete riverbeds, sweeping bridges, empty prison cells). Boorman credits Marvin with coming up with a lot of the visual metaphors in the film. Boorman said that as the film progressed, scenes in the film would be filmed monochromatically around one particular color (the chilly blues and grays of Acker's apartment, Dickinson's butter yellow bathrobe, the startling red wall in Vernon's penthouse) to give the proceedings a "sort of unreality".
Director Steven Soderberg has said that he used stylistic touches from Point Blank many times in his filmmaking career.
review of Bonnie and Clyde
, Pauline Kael
wrote: "A brutal new melodrama is called Point Blank, and it is." Kael later called the film "intermittently dazzling". Roger Ebert
gave the film three out of four stars and said "as suspense thrillers go Point Blank is pretty good." Leonard Maltin gave the film three and a half stars: "Taut thriller, ignored in 1967, but now regarded as a top film of the decade."
Slant Magazine
reviewer Nick Schager notes in a 2003 review: "What makes Point Blank so extraordinary, however, is not its departures from genre conventions, but Boorman's virtuoso use of such unconventional avant-garde stylistics to saturate the proceedings with a classical noir mood of existential torpor and romanticized fatalism."
The film has a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes
.
calls the film a masterpiece. Thomson adds, "[...] this is not just a cool, violent pursuit film, it is a wistful dream and one of the great reflections on how movies are fantasies that we are reaching out for all the time—it's singin' in the rain again, the white lie that erases night."
The Hunter was also the basis for the 1999 film Payback, starring Mel Gibson
. Director Boorman has joked that Payback was so bad that Mel Gibson
must have taken the original script for Point Blank that Boorman and Marvin had thrown out.
movie theaters in order to protest the murder of 18-year-old high school student Edson Luís de Lima Souto
by the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro
. Souto was shot at point-blank range
. Phrases such as "Does bullets kill hunger?", "Old people in power, young people in coffin", and "They killed a student... what if it was your son?" were written by protesters in the movie posters. The aftermath of Souto's death was one of the first major public protests against the Brazilian military dictatorship.
John Boorman
John Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...
and starring Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
and Angie Dickinson
Angie Dickinson
Angie Dickinson is an American actress. She has appeared in more than fifty films, including Rio Bravo, Ocean's Eleven, Dressed to Kill and Pay It Forward, and starred on television as Sergeant Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson on the 1970s crime series Police Woman.-Early life:Dickinson, the second of...
, adapted from the classic pulp novel The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake
Donald E. Westlake
Donald Edwin Westlake was an American writer, with over a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction or other genres...
, writing as Richard Stark. Boorman directed the film at Marvin's request and Marvin played a central role in the film's development and staging.
The film was not a box office success in 1967 but has since gone on to be a cult classic, eliciting praise from critics like film historian David Thomson
David Thomson (film critic)
David Thomson is a film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books, including The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.-Career:...
.
Plot
Walker (Lee MarvinLee Marvin
Lee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
) – originally named "Parker" in Stark's novel – works together with his friend Mal Reese (John Vernon
John Vernon
John Keith Vernon was a Canadian actor. He made a career in Hollywood after achieving initial television stardom in Canada.-Early life:...
in his first major role) to steal a large amount of cash from a courier transporting funds for a major gambling operation, with the deserted Alcatraz island as a drop point. Reese then double-crosses Walker by shooting him, leaving him for dead. Reese also makes off with Walker's wife Lynne (Sharon Acker
Sharon Acker
Sharon Acker is a film, stage and television actress.Acker began her acting career in theater, and made her film debut when she recreated her stage role in Lucky Jim . Her first American film appearance was in the Lee Marvin action film, Point Blank .-Movies:*Lucky Jim .....
).
Walker recovers. With assistance from the mysterious Yost (Keenan Wynn
Keenan Wynn
Keenan Wynn was an American character actor. His bristling mustache and expressive face were his stock in trade, and though he rarely had a lead role, he got prominent billing in most of his film and TV parts....
), who seems to know everything about everybody, Walker sets out to find Reese, take his revenge and recover the $93,000 he is owed. Reese used all of the money from the job to pay back a debt to a crime syndicate called "The Organization" and get back in its good graces.
With memories of happy times together, Walker goes to Los Angeles to pay back his wife and his best friend for their treachery. He bursts in on Lynne and riddles her bed with bullets, just in case Reese is in it. A distraught Lynne tells him she no longer wants to live, then takes an overdose of pills.
Walker is told that a car dealer named Stegman (Michael Strong
Michael Strong
Michael Strong was an American stage, film and television actor.He was born Cecil Natapoff in New York City and had extensive stage experience. He was a member of the Actors Studio. Among his film credits are Point Blank, Patton, and The Great Santini...
) might know where Reese can be found. He takes Stegman for a wild ride in one of his new cars, smashing the car and terrorizing him until Stegman reveals where Reese is living. He is told that Reese has now taken up with Walker's sister-in-law, Chris.
Breaking in on Chris (Angie Dickinson
Angie Dickinson
Angie Dickinson is an American actress. She has appeared in more than fifty films, including Rio Bravo, Ocean's Eleven, Dressed to Kill and Pay It Forward, and starred on television as Sergeant Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson on the 1970s crime series Police Woman.-Early life:Dickinson, the second of...
), he learns that she actually despises Reese and had considered Walker the best thing ever to happen to her sister. Willing to help in any way, Chris agrees to a sexual tryst with Reese inside his heavily guarded penthouse apartment just so she can gain access and unbolt a door for Walker. Walker ties up some men in an apartment across from the penthouse and has a call made to police to report a robbery, creating a diversion that enables him to slip into the penthouse.
With a gun to Reese's head, Walker persuades him to give up the names of his Organization superiors – Carter, Brewster and Fairfax – so that he can make somebody pay back his $93,000. He then forces a naked Reese off the balcony and watches him plunge to his death.
After next confronting Carter (Lloyd Bochner
Lloyd Bochner
Lloyd Wolfe Bochner was a Canadian actor, usually playing the role of suave, rich leading men.- Career :...
) for his money, Walker is set up. A hit man (James B. Sikking
James Sikking
James Barrie Sikking is an American actor known for his role as Lt. Howard Hunter on the 1980s NBC TV series Hill Street Blues. He also starred on the ABC TV series Doogie Howser, M.D. as Dr. David Howser and on the short-lived 1997 CBS drama series Brooklyn South as Captain Stan Jonas...
) with a high-powered rifle is assigned to kill him at a money drop in a storm-drain river bed. Walker sees to it that Carter and Stegman are the ones who get shot.
Yost takes him to a home belonging to Brewster (Carroll O'Connor
Carroll O'Connor
John Carroll O'Connor best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades...
). Walker visits Chris in her apartment, with it having been trashed by the organization. She greets him but says "you did die at Alcatraz that day", remarking on how cold he seems. He takes her to the home belonging to Brewster. Walker waits for Brewster to return there. Chris makes love with Walker after first fighting with him. The following morning, Brewster comes home and is ambushed by Walker, who demands his money. Brewster insists that no one will pay. Walker says if Brewster won't, he will kill him and try Fairfax next.
They return to Alcatraz, which is still a drop. (The location is actually Fort Point, an old brick fort beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, though the earlier Alcatraz scenes were filmed on the island.). Brewster brings a case that he claims contains the money. Walker doesn't trust him and refuses to show himself. The hit man is also in the darkness with his rifle. Brewster is shot. It is Yost who emerges from the shadows, whereupon Brewster calls out to Walker: "This is Fairfax! Kill him!"
Walker is encouraged to come claim his money but he stays in the shadows instead.
Cast
- Lee MarvinLee MarvinLee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
as Walker - Angie DickinsonAngie DickinsonAngie Dickinson is an American actress. She has appeared in more than fifty films, including Rio Bravo, Ocean's Eleven, Dressed to Kill and Pay It Forward, and starred on television as Sergeant Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson on the 1970s crime series Police Woman.-Early life:Dickinson, the second of...
as Chris - Keenan WynnKeenan WynnKeenan Wynn was an American character actor. His bristling mustache and expressive face were his stock in trade, and though he rarely had a lead role, he got prominent billing in most of his film and TV parts....
as Yost - Carroll O'ConnorCarroll O'ConnorJohn Carroll O'Connor best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades...
as Brewster - Lloyd BochnerLloyd BochnerLloyd Wolfe Bochner was a Canadian actor, usually playing the role of suave, rich leading men.- Career :...
as Frederick Carter - Michael StrongMichael StrongMichael Strong was an American stage, film and television actor.He was born Cecil Natapoff in New York City and had extensive stage experience. He was a member of the Actors Studio. Among his film credits are Point Blank, Patton, and The Great Santini...
as Stegman - John VernonJohn VernonJohn Keith Vernon was a Canadian actor. He made a career in Hollywood after achieving initial television stardom in Canada.-Early life:...
as Mal Reese - Sharon AckerSharon AckerSharon Acker is a film, stage and television actress.Acker began her acting career in theater, and made her film debut when she recreated her stage role in Lucky Jim . Her first American film appearance was in the Lee Marvin action film, Point Blank .-Movies:*Lucky Jim .....
as Lynne - James B. SikkingJames SikkingJames Barrie Sikking is an American actor known for his role as Lt. Howard Hunter on the 1980s NBC TV series Hill Street Blues. He also starred on the ABC TV series Doogie Howser, M.D. as Dr. David Howser and on the short-lived 1997 CBS drama series Brooklyn South as Captain Stan Jonas...
as Hired Gun
Production
Director John BoormanJohn Boorman
John Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...
met Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
while on the set of The Dirty Dozen
The Dirty Dozen
The Dirty Dozen is a 1967 film directed by Robert Aldrich and released by MGM. It was filmed in England and features an ensemble cast, including Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas, and Robert Webber. The film is based on E. M...
. Boorman and Marvin talked about a script based on The Hunter, which they both hated but loved the main character of Walker. When they agreed to work on the film, Marvin threw the script out the window. The script would be developed during the course of shooting the film.
This was the first film ever to shoot at Alcatraz, the infamous prison which had been shut down since 1963, only three years before the production. 125 crew members were used to shoot for two weeks in the abandoned prison facility. While Marvin and Wynn enjoyed shooting on-location, Wynn was concerned about the weather and the need to loop half the dialogue.
During the shoot, Dickinson and Acker modeled contemporary fashions for a Life magazine exclusive against the backdrop of the prison.
Themes
Director Boorman believes the film is about Lee Marvin's experiences in World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, how it dehumanized him and left him desperately searching for his humanity.
Style
Point Blank combines elements of film noirFilm noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
with stylistic touches of the European nouvelle vague. The film features a fractured time-line, disconcerting narrative rhythms (long slow passages contrasted with sudden outbursts of violence) and a carefully calculated use of film space (stylized compositions of concrete riverbeds, sweeping bridges, empty prison cells). Boorman credits Marvin with coming up with a lot of the visual metaphors in the film. Boorman said that as the film progressed, scenes in the film would be filmed monochromatically around one particular color (the chilly blues and grays of Acker's apartment, Dickinson's butter yellow bathrobe, the startling red wall in Vernon's penthouse) to give the proceedings a "sort of unreality".
Director Steven Soderberg has said that he used stylistic touches from Point Blank many times in his filmmaking career.
Box office
The film flopped at the box office, grossing $3,500,000 in US rentals against an estimated $3,000,000 budget.Reception
In her 1967 New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
review of Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde (film)
The film was originally offered to François Truffaut, the best-known director of the New Wave movement, who made contributions to the script. He passed on the project to make Fahrenheit 451. The producers approached Jean-Luc Godard next...
, Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
wrote: "A brutal new melodrama is called Point Blank, and it is." Kael later called the film "intermittently dazzling". Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film three out of four stars and said "as suspense thrillers go Point Blank is pretty good." Leonard Maltin gave the film three and a half stars: "Taut thriller, ignored in 1967, but now regarded as a top film of the decade."
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
reviewer Nick Schager notes in a 2003 review: "What makes Point Blank so extraordinary, however, is not its departures from genre conventions, but Boorman's virtuoso use of such unconventional avant-garde stylistics to saturate the proceedings with a classical noir mood of existential torpor and romanticized fatalism."
The film has a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
Legacy
Point Blank is hailed in the book 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die as "The perfect thriller in both form and vision." Film historian David ThomsonDavid Thomson (film critic)
David Thomson is a film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books, including The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.-Career:...
calls the film a masterpiece. Thomson adds, "[...] this is not just a cool, violent pursuit film, it is a wistful dream and one of the great reflections on how movies are fantasies that we are reaching out for all the time—it's singin' in the rain again, the white lie that erases night."
The Hunter was also the basis for the 1999 film Payback, starring Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
. Director Boorman has joked that Payback was so bad that Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
must have taken the original script for Point Blank that Boorman and Marvin had thrown out.
Influence
On March 29, 1968, Point Blank was screened at CinelândiaCinelândia
Cinelândia is the popular name of a major public square in the centre of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Its official name is Praça Floriano Peixoto, in honour of the second president of Brazil, Floriano Peixoto.-History:...
movie theaters in order to protest the murder of 18-year-old high school student Edson Luís de Lima Souto
Edson Luís de Lima Souto
Edson Luís de Lima Souto was a Brazilian teenager student killed by the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro after a confrontation in the restaurant Calabouço, in downtown Rio de Janeiro...
by the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro (state)
Rio de Janeiro is one of the 27 states of Brazil.Rio de Janeiro has the second largest economy of Brazil behind only São Paulo state.The state of Rio de Janeiro is located within the Brazilian geopolitical region classified as the Southeast...
. Souto was shot at point-blank range
Point-blank range
In external ballistics, point-blank range is the distance between a firearm and a target of a given size such that the bullet in flight is expected to strike the target without adjusting the elevation of the firearm. The point-blank range will vary with the firearm and its particular ballistic...
. Phrases such as "Does bullets kill hunger?", "Old people in power, young people in coffin", and "They killed a student... what if it was your son?" were written by protesters in the movie posters. The aftermath of Souto's death was one of the first major public protests against the Brazilian military dictatorship.