The Last Embrace (1979)

Director: Jonathan Demme
Writer: David Shaber
Genre: Spy Thriller
Duration: One Hour, 42 minutes
Other Actors: Roy Scheider, Janet Margolin, John Glover, Sam Udell
Similar Films: Notorious, Marathon Man, Three Days of the Condor
Movie in a Sentence: Harry Hannan (Scheider) was a top-notch American spy until he got his wife killed by accident, which brought on a nervous breakdown, but now he's out of the hospital and someone's trying to kill him and they're sending him death threats in ancient Aramaic, and his only friends are a cute graduate student (Margolin) who moved into his apartment while he was away, her college Professor boyfriend (Glover), and a mysterious old man (Udell) who is a member of a secret Jewish organization, but can he be trusted, can she be trusted...
Can ANYONE be trusted?

Scheider about to give the ol' knife-hand to a quivering Patinkin

MPAA Rating: This movie got an 'R' rating, and I'd have to agree. There's some profane language, a barrage of not-very-bloody violence, and a handful of nipple-shots, but really, the scene where Margolin has sex with a guy in a bathtub, pushes him under the soapy water and doesn't stop riding him until his death-twitches are over, that probably has to push it past a PG-13, right? It's so hard to tell these days.

FUN FACT: Margolin, Glover and Walken were in ANNIE HALL together, though they didn't share a scene. Glover was Annie's boyfriend (the one that wanted to die getting ripped apart by animals), and Margolin was one of Woody's girlfriends, the one that wanted him to join the party when all he wanted to do was watch the basketball game on tv!

My Score: I'll give it a 7 out of 10. Nothing about this film is amazing, but it does alright. It could have been sharper, tighter, better. But it's entertaining, and nothing about it angers me, so yeah, good story, if not a little silly, while taking itself very seriously.
Available to Own: Only on VHS! This is yet another of Walken's films that still hasn't made the leap to DVD. If you're curious, I'm keeping track of these as-yet-un-DVDed films through the tag 'VHS only'. I believe there will be about a half dozen of them all-told.

FUN FACT: Walken works with director Jonathan Demme again in 1982 in the short-film 'WHO AM I THIS TIME?' based on a Kurt Vonnegut short-story. A little something that any Walken-ite should definitely check out!

Should You Watch This? Yes, though I have trouble getting excited about it. It's right on the line between 'ooh and ehh.' You should watch it, but walk, don't run towards it. Lower your expectations and it'll be fine.
Walken Content: A single, isolated, two-minute scene. Just a wee little bit o' the Walken.  He plays Eckart, Harry's condescending boss at the Agency. Though it's short, it is a good little scene. Eckart chides Harry for demanding his job back after three months of "vacation". Walken wears these over-sized plastic-framed rounded rectangular '80s glasses in the beginning of the scene. And he sports a thin cop-moustache, looking a lot like he did almost 20 years later in NICK OF TIME (a fantastic film btw, but I'll get to that one later). Unfortunately, that is the last we see of Walken in this film.

Walken in The Last Embrace

Walken Quote: Let me set it up. Okay, so like I said, Harry Hannan goes in to see his old boss about getting some work. Harry keeps trying to smooth over the messy details of his last departure: why he left, how long he's been gone, etc. Finally, Walken can't take anymore of this:

            "Hannon, you had a breakdown. You were in a sanitarium.
                  It wasn't a leave [of absence] it was a breakdown. Why do you
                  force me say these things? Do you honestly think we'd send one
                  of our people up to a railroad station in Connecticut just to push
                  you under a train?"

Then he does this great thing: Walken flares his eyes at him, and then asks, "Okay?" in this I'm-cutting-the-malarkey kind of way. It's subtle, the eye thing, but it adds a nice touch of humanity to their encounter.

General:  This film seems like it wants to be Hitchcock, but it ends up looking more like De Palma trying to be Hitchcock. That is a distinction that doesn't kill it as a good film, it just helps to illustrate why it isn't a great film. I don't hate De Palma's films. He has his moments. I love 'Scarface' (the soundtrack is lame though) and of course 'The Untouchables', and I actually liked 'The Bonfire of the Vanities' even though that seems to be an unpopular opinion. But he's just so mainstream and, I don't know...flashy? Chintzy? Gaudy? None of those are the right word, but you get the idea. And not that I'm a huge fan of Hitchcock either btw. I think 'The Birds' (among others) is highly overrated. Whatever. I digress. It's a bit derivative is all.

But don't let me discourage you. There are a good number of scenes worthy of watching this for. There is a fun quick scene where someone chases Scheider through a park while a chill-looking dude kicks back on a park bench and plays some chase music on his ukulele.

George Hillman ukes it up

There is another scene where Scheider thinks someone is trying to push him under a train, so he almost drives his knife-hand through the jugular of Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin), but he is stopped in time by the dad from Alf (Max Wright). Fun stuff.

There is another scene where the bad-guy cowboy from the 'Blues Brothers' movie (Charles Napier) attacks Scheider up in the belltower. Death by bells!!! 'Nuff said.

And then we have Margolin. The female lead. I don't want to ruin any surprises talking about what happens with her, so I'll just say that, like this film, Margolin has her moments where she shines, but she also falls flat at times as well. So. Just saying.

Despite some fun tangents, The Last Embrace mainly takes itself quite seriously, to its own detriment. It gets melodramatic at times, and never recognizes its own absurdity. For example, I thought it was funny that Scheider, the super-capable secret agent, spends the entire film garbed in a very dapper, very conspicuous all-white suit. Quite the urban chameleon, this guy. In fact, he can't enter a room without screaming at someone, manhandling a stranger, crying, or spilling hydrochloric acid on himself.

Excessive tanning may induce paranoia

Oh, and did I mention Scheider is friggin' crazy in this. He's intense all the time and he flips out at the slightest thing. He runs around looking funny, attacking anyone who looks at him funny. And also he's, well... He's a bit of a dick. Really. He's mean to everyone, including his "love" interest, which makes it a little hard to connect to him on an emotional or sympathetic level.

Overall, I think this can be a fun film experience, as long as you don't take it as seriously as they want you to. Twists and turns and colorful characters, oh my! I wouldn't have minded more Walken, big surprise, but the little that was there was solid. Enjoy.

Shoot the Sun Down (1978)

Director: David Leeds
Writer: David Leeds and Richard Rothstein
Genre: Western
Duration: One hour, thirty-three minutes
MPAA Rating: Someone gave this movie a PG. But I gotta say this is kind of a dark film for just PG. This is no children/family movie. The language is 'salty'. Margot Kidder competes in a one-woman wet t-shirt contest. And the violence is not muted, cartooney or distanced at all. It's right up in your face, close, jarring and bloody. Also, the main bad guy in this is the charming sociopath mercenary-type, a smiling bastard killing multitudes for profit and a giggle. I would feel more than justified in raising that rating to at least a PG-13.
 Available to Own: Only on VHS. Yup. Outrage. Scandal. I repeat: NOT released on dvd yet. Maybe it'll skip the dvd and jump straight to blu-ray. I'm not saying it's a perfect movie, but since when was that the criteria? C'mon Hollywood, get it digitalized. It's got stars. Thrills. Sex and violence. It's got a friggin' knife-throwing-cowboy Walken in it for crissakes! Put it on DVD. Just do it.

 Other Actors: Margot Kidder, Geoffrey Lewis, Bo Brundin

Lewis, in High Plains Drifter

FUN FACT: You may recognize Geoffrey Lewis from a plethora of other Westerns, as Eastwood's friend in a bunch of his later non-cowboy films, or more recently as one of the victims in Rob Zombie's THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, but what you may not know is that he is Juliette Lewis's father!

Similar Films: Stage Coach, Treasure of Sierra Madre, 3:10 to Yuma, The Dollars Trilogy

Movie In a Sentence: Mr. Rainbow (Walken) is a knife-throwing cowboy-type, wandering around Mexico in 1836 when he becomes intrigued by the plight of a young English lady (Kidder) who, unfortunately, is the indentured slave of an erstwhile navy captain (Brundin) who is now consumed with finding the buried treasure of Montezuma, an act which arouses the interest of the local filthy scoundrel (Lewis) who will stop at nothing to get the gold for himself.

Should You Watch It: Yes. It isn't a perfect film, I know, but (1) Lewis is suuuuuuch a bastard here, ya gotta see it. (2) Margot Kidder was adorable back then. For more convincing, please refer to the gratuitous bath scene. And the clincher (3) Walken is an unstoppable bad-ass. He survives getting tied to the desert floor and attacked by vultures. He brings a knife to a gunfight and wins. And he steals Superman's soon-to-be girlfriend. Boo-ya.

She doesn't believe you for a second. C'mon, don't kid a Kidder.

FUN FACT: Both stars of this film, Walken and Kidder, made their (arguably) biggest movies immediately after this one, Walken of course in The Deer Hunter, and Kidder as Lois Lane in Superman.                   

My Score: 8 out of 10. Geez, ehh I don't know, maybe '8' is too high. The editing is choppy. It's reeeeeeeally slow in parts. I'd be hard-pressed to say it's a "great" movie... But no, enough equivocating! It is good enough. I will stick with the ocho. And eight is great.

Walken thru the desert like the man with no name

Walken Content: High. 80%, an hour, whatever. He's in it. He's all over it. He is the romantic lead and it suits him quite nicely. His character is this great, laconic, troubled, cowboy, loner, anti-hero. He has his own code that he lives by, loves by -- and kills by!

Walken Quote: This is how he haggles a deal with the bad-guy when a four-foot solid-gold wagon wheel is on the line:

      " It's two against one. A three-day ride to Santa Fe. Under those
      circumstances you're dead. I'll even the odds for a quarter-share
      of the wheel."    ~  Rainbow

Walken doesn't need guns, he shoots the sun down with his steely-eyed stare.

FUN FACT: Originally, Walken was supposed to wear a pair of "colored" sunglasses (his character's name is Mr. Rainbow), but the director took one look at Walken in the glasses and said, "Forget it. They just looked weird, not cool or believable at all." But he still kept the name!

GENERAL: This film is an obscure little gem that's been all but swallowed by time. Practically no one's even heard of it, never mind seen it. And that's a shame. This is the kind of movie that doesn't get made anymore. The drawn out, quiet stretches of time that are punctuated with quick, savage bursts of violence.

Actually, no. I exaggerated. They do get made, but just not very often and they tend to fly under the main-stream radar. Two recent examples are Takashi Miike's 13 ASSASSINS and Nicolas Winding Refn's VALHALLA RISING, both are amazing films that share a common pace and tone with this one. Come to think of it, THE AMERICAN fits the bill too. So okay, they're out there, you just have to find them.

All of these films somehow manage to be both brutal and contemplative. Whether about samurai, vikings, contemporary hit-men or knife-throwing cowboys, at heart these are the patient stories of quiet men who possess quick bloody hands and are driven by a peculiar sense of honor that won't let them walk away from the fight.