Winston T. Boogie
Senior HTF Member
So, I probably could have posted this in the "obscure movies" thread as I have wanted to see this film for years but did not want to purchase any of the lousy DVD versions of it. This is not a film that has been shown much and I would say for good reason. It's a pretty heinous wallow in pig poop of a film...the kind of thing that a moron like Quentin Tarantino would call a masterpiece. Know that Tarantino feels John Ford was a piece of crap and thinks The Searchers was total garbage. Hey, everybody is welcome to his own opinion and I do tend to enjoy Tarantino's films...in general for his pure exuberance for the art form...but I think the man himself is a complete buffoon and mental midget.
If someone told you there was a film directed by the man that directed Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Thunderball...three stone cold Bond classics...starring Richard Burton and Lee Marvin you would likely think you might have a minor classic or at least very solid early to mid 1970s action film on your hands.
Um...no, that's not the case.
What this film is notable for, according to legend and many first hand accounts, is the amount of alcohol consumed during the making of the picture and the fact that Burton was often so wasted he had to perform his scenes either sitting or lying down. No, that's not a joke and you can during the film occasionally hear him deliver lines in a drunken slur. Burton by his own admission was drinking at least 3 bottles of vodka a day at this point and Marvin was right there with him in terms of his own consumption however he managed to remain standing and could perform his scenes...but make no mistake when Marvin at one point opens a new bottle of whiskey and chugs from the bottle, that's not a prop. He's downing the real deal.
Watching this picture you have a lot of moments where you think "Who the hell thought this was a good idea?" and you certainly wonder how Terence Young came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to make a film which put two of the world's greatest drunks together. There are two stories about this film that sum up how insane this was.
First, they rented an entire motel to house crew and some cast (not Marvin and Burton who had rented houses to stay in while apparently Burton was banging some local hausfraus which led to some major issues with his wife, some broad named Elizabeth Taylor) but one of the rooms in the hotel was dedicated entirely to housing floor to ceiling, including the bathroom, cases of liquor. Yes, that's right they had to have a motel room loaded with booze to get Marvin and Burton to even show up.
The second story about this debacle (and this may just be legend but seems like it could quite likely be true) is a few years after making this film Burton and Marvin were at the same party and the host said to them that he knew he did not need to introduce them because they had worked together on a film...at which point both Marvin and Burton denied this and said they had never met before...which later Burton discovered was untrue but he realized the two had been so drunk during the entire shoot that they could not recall making the film together.
Now, that's just the backstage stuff. In terms of what went on in front of the camera I have a hard time believing any of these people read this script and thought "Wow, what a great idea for a film."
First of all a major focus of the film is rape. Like rape for fun, rape as a plot device, rape as revenge and rape between friends or by accident...like "Hey, I tripped and accidentally raped her. It was just a mistake."
Or rape just to teach people a lesson but it was just a friendly rape that you know we didn't mean anything by. At one point early in the film Marvin's sheriff (ah, and he is supposed to be one of the good guys) stumbles upon a group of locals that are standing in a circle having a mentally challenged man rape a woman as just afternoon entertainment and Marvin breaks this up by telling them to knock it off and go home...like this was a common Sunday activity. And the local hicks reply "Oh come on sheriff, we was just havin' a little fun."
So, politically correct this film is not. In fact I think one of the reasons this film has been shown so little is even in 1974 when it was made it was considered fairly vile.
Another hilarious aspect of this film is that women are falling all over the Burton character including a pretty young woman that ridiculously tells him that he is the most handsome man in the county and every woman wants him. I laughed out loud at this as Burton clearly looks like a drunken wreck that most women would cross the street to avoid...not jump into the sack with. The film presses on with the idea that Burton is irresistible to all the local ladies as he sleeps with several of them including one as a "favor" because nobody else will sleep with her because she has been raped.
Saying all this however the film does feel and look like some 1970s drive-in B movie and it is sort of fun to see both Burton and Marvin slumming in this thing. This really does play like some sort of Tarantino dream film with exactly his bizarre style of writing and sleazy sensibilities. Plus there is a scene that Burton performs lying in bed, slurring his words that has to be seen to be believed.
I can't say I would recommend this to anybody except Quentin and anybody that loves sleaze as much as he does.
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