Tough Guys
Encyclopedia
Tough Guys is a 1986
1986 in film
-Events:*April 12 - Actor Morgan Mason marries The Go-Go's Belinda Carlisle.*April 26 - Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger marries television journalist Maria Shriver.*May - Actress Heather Locklear marries Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee....

 comedy starring Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...

, Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...

, Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach
Eli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...

 and Dana Carvey
Dana Carvey
Dana Thomas Carvey is an American actor and stand-up comedian, best known for his work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for playing the role of Garth in the Wayne's World movies.-Early life:...

. It was directed by Jeff Kanew
Jeff Kanew
Jeffrey Roger Kanew is an American film director, writer and editor who early in his career made trailers for many films of the '70s and is probably best known for directing the film Revenge of the Nerds ....

.

Lancaster and Douglas made several films together, including I Walk Alone
I Walk Alone
I Walk Alone is a 1948 film noir starring Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott, and Kirk Douglas. It was the directorial debut of Byron Haskin....

(1948), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957 film)
The film was based on a real event which took place on October 26, 1881. It was directed by John Sturges and featuring a screenplay written by novelist Leon Uris, and the movie's supporting cast included Rhonda Fleming, John Ireland, Jo Van Fleet, Martin Milner, Dennis Hopper, Jack Elam, Lee Van...

(1957), The Devil's Disciple (1959), and Seven Days in May
Seven Days in May
Seven Days in May is an American political thriller novel written by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II and published in 1962. It was made into a motion picture and released in February 1964, with a screenplay by Rod Serling, directed by John Frankenheimer, and starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk...

(1964), becoming something of a team in the public's eye. Douglas was always second-billed under Lancaster but, with the exception of I Walk Alone, their roles were more or less the same size. Tough Guys was their final collaboration.

The film has gained a cult following in recent years. Upon its digital release in 2011, film critic Andrew Moser called Tough Guys "The best film you've never seen", and named it the top film of the 1980s. Boston College law scholar Christopher Pesce calls Tough Guys "A poignant exploration of the American penal system of the 80's, along with the complex dynamics of old age, masculinity, and parole in post-modernity."

Plot

Harry Doyle (Lancaster) and Archie Long (Douglas) are gangsters who have served a 30-year prison sentence for hijacking a Southern Pacific train called The Gold Coast Flyer, ready to collect their Social Security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...

.

Upon release, they are briefed on how their new lives will be. Harry, at age 72, is committed to a retirement community, despite his desire to work (Mandatory retirement age was 70 at the time of this movie, and this law has since changed). Archie, still allowed to work, takes a job at an ice cream parlor and later a restaurant. They're also instructed that they're not to have further contact with each other. It also turns out to be the first of many conditions of their parole that they ultimately violate.

Both are in for a shock at how much the world has changed from 1956 to 1986—clothing, sexual lifestyles (their favorite bar is now a gay club), lack of respect by the younger generation, and the advance of technology. Archie's young manager treats him poorly and Harry is denied proper food by a nasty orderly and the even worse manager.

Harry attempts to recreate a 1940s lifestyle with a woman of his generation named Belle (Alexis Smith
Alexis Smith
Alexis Smith was a Canadian-born stage, film, and television actress. She appeared in several major Hollywood movies in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972.-Life and career:...

), whilst Archie embraces the contemporary scene, asking out a much younger woman and dressing in a much younger man's clothes. Neither he nor Harry seems to fit in anymore.

Their parole officer, Richie Evans (Carvey) seems more a fan of historically notable criminals than a representative of law enforcement. Meanwhile, a hit man of their generation, Leon B. Little (Eli Wallach), still has an outstanding (30-year-old) contract on them, even though he can barely see his targets.

Bored with their new lives, Harry and Archie decide to hijack the Gold Coast Flyer again. The train is on its last run, being pulled by Daylight 4449
Southern Pacific 4449
Southern Pacific 4449 is the only surviving example of Southern Pacific Railroad's GS-4 class of steam locomotives. The GS-4 is a streamlined 4-8-4 type steam locomotive...

, and the two old-timers are going to run it full throttle to the Mexican border.

To their surprise, Leon has arrived and forms a truce with the two and Richie (feeling bad for his new friends poor treatment) is driving the train. Unfortunately the tracks end a few feet from the border. Harry throws Leon from the cab with the hit man saying he'll get them even if it takes another 30 years. Archie takes Richie up to the coaches and uncouples the train telling Richie that if he gets into touble tell the police that he was kidnapped. Harry and Archie drive the 4449 through a fusillade of bullets from U.S. border police. They crash the fence, burying the engine partially in the soil of Mexico a few feet across the border, surviving without a scratch, tough guys to the end, just as the Mexican border patrol arrives to arrest them. However, they appear to cheat the law once more as they dupe the Mexicans, leading into the closing credits.

Music

  • Kenny Rogers
    Kenny Rogers
    Kenneth Donald "Kenny" Rogers is an American singer-songwriter, photographer, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur...

     sings the song's opening theme, They Don't Make Them Like They Used To
    They Don't Make Them Like They Used To
    They Don't Make Them Like They Used To is a 1986 album by country music superstar Kenny Rogers.- Overview :The album was generally regarded among country fans as a huge departure from his usual style...

    .
  • The Red Hot Chili Peppers
    Red Hot Chili Peppers
    Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...

     play themselves in the movie. They play a song never heard outside of this movie "Set It Straight". As no soundtrack album was released, there is great fan demand for this track. Frontman Anthony Kiedis
    Anthony Kiedis
    Anthony Kiedis is an American vocalist/lyricist, and occasional actor best known as the lead vocalist of the Grammy-winning American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Kiedis spent his youth in Grand Rapids, Michigan with his mother before moving, shortly before his 12th birthday, to Hollywood,...

     was quoted as saying they recorded it solely for inclusion in the movie and had no intention of releasing it themselves.

Train

  • The locomotive Southern Pacific 4449 was also used to pull the American Freedom Train
    American Freedom Train
    The United States has seen two national 'Freedom Trains'. The 1947–1949 Freedom Train was a special exhibit train that toured the United States in the later half of the 1940s. A similar train called the American Freedom Train toured the country for the United States Bicentennial celebration in...

     exhibit during the Bicentennial
    United States Bicentennial
    The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to the historical events leading up to the creation of the United States as an independent republic...

    , now based in Portland, Oregon
    Portland, Oregon
    Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

    .
  • The locomotive engineer is played by Doyle L. McCormack, the man most responsible for the actual restoration of SP 4449.
  • A portion of the Eagle Mountain Railroad
    Eagle Mountain Railroad
    The Eagle Mountain Railroad was a private railroad in California, owned by the Kaiser Steel Corporation, and is owned today by Kaiser Steel's successor, Kaiser Ventures, Inc. of Ontario, California. The EMRR is long and is located in Riverside County, California...

     was used in the filming of the movie. During the filming of the exterior shots of Southern Pacific 4449
    Southern Pacific 4449
    Southern Pacific 4449 is the only surviving example of Southern Pacific Railroad's GS-4 class of steam locomotives. The GS-4 is a streamlined 4-8-4 type steam locomotive...

     the train was stored nightly at the Eagle Mountain
    Eagle Mountain, California
    Eagle Mountain, California is a modern day ghost town, in the Colorado Desert, in Riverside County founded in 1948 by noted industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. The town is located at the entrance of the now-defunct Eagle Mountain iron mine, once owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad, then Kaiser Steel,...

     rail yards. The local school children from Eagle Mountain School took a field trip in early 1986 to see and tour the train on the location of the shoot along the Eagle Mountain Railroad
    Eagle Mountain Railroad
    The Eagle Mountain Railroad was a private railroad in California, owned by the Kaiser Steel Corporation, and is owned today by Kaiser Steel's successor, Kaiser Ventures, Inc. of Ontario, California. The EMRR is long and is located in Riverside County, California...

     south of Interstate 10
    Interstate 10
    Interstate 10 is the fourth-longest Interstate Highway in the United States, after I-90, I-80, and I-40. It is the southernmost east–west, coast-to-coast Interstate Highway, although I-4 and I-8 are further south. It stretches from the Pacific Ocean at State Route 1 in Santa Monica,...

    .

External links

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