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- Richard W
I wish MGM would consider releasing THE LAST RUN (1971) to DVD. Although it has aired two or three times in the last decade on TCM, it never had a home video release.
George C. Scott plays Harry Garmes, a middle-aged getaway driver for the mob in Chicago. After doing one last job to get everything he wanted, Garmes retired to a house on the beach in a small fishing village on the coast of Portugal with his wife and son. Nine years later, his wife has left him, his son has died, and his fishing boat is captained by a Portuguese who knows how to catch fish. Garmes finds himself facing the rest of his days bored, alone, and depressed in what he thought would be a paradise. So he decides to do one last job for a new employer, as much to make himself feel alive again as to transport an assassin and his girlfriend to safety. Garmes proves himself to be a brilliant getaway driver not lacking in personal courage and professional loyalty. But there are temptations and betrayals along the way, and Garmes' last run turns into a flee for his life behind the wheel of a super-charged 1956 BMW-503.
THE LAST RUN was released in 1971, at a time when college students and film makers were rediscovering the vintage films of Bogart and Huston. Those were the days when everyone quoted Bogart's dialog by heart at cocktail parties and dinner tables. In fact the tagline for the one-sheet, "In the tradition of Hemingway and Bogart," indicates that the film makers were conscientiously tapping into this then-current trend. Although THE LAST RUN unfolds like something John Huston might have written for Bogart back in the 1940s, it never sinks to the level of a remake or an imitation.
The script is a fresh original that evokes the world of Hemingway, Bogart and John Huston. In fact it was written for John Huston to direct. I don't know which films the screen writer, Alan Sharp, watched or which books he read, but he fashioned another link in the chain with THE LAST RUN. Sharp nails 1940s noir down to the very last nuance and then makes it relevant to a younger 1970s generation. Sharp specialized in writing laconic, existential genre films. His work was rich in subtext, plotted with unpredictable logic, short on dialog, long on prolonged action and sustained tension, with multi-layered characters that audiences could relate to. A highly accomplished dramatist, the only other screen writer I would compare Sharp to is perhaps David Mamet, only Sharp's characters don't talk as much. Some of his best early scripts included ULZANA'S RAID, THE HIRED HAND, NIGHT MOVES, and BILLY TWO HATS. But THE LAST RUN is my favorite.
George C. Scott modulates his way from disillusion to elation to ferocious rage. But it's a quiet, introspective performance of escalating intensity, delivered with gravel in the voice and a dull glint in the eye. He projects a weariness that's not just acting. Harry Garmes is every bit a career-defining character for George C. Scott as Patton was. Not even Bogart could have played the character better. In only two scenes Colleen Dewhurst shines as a prostitute whose cold intimacy provides Garmes with no comfort. Tony Musante is spontaneous as Rickard. He plays this assassin as a thoughtless, mocking, petulant, unfeeling killer who's always on the verge of pulling the trigger. It's quite a chilling performance. As the girlfriend who gets passed from one man to another and back again, Trish Van Devere replaces French actress Tina Aumont, who had originally been signed to play the part. Van Devere's inexperience shows, but she provides all the empathy and insight that her boyfriend Rickard is lacking. In several scenes Alan Sharp's dialog suggests more to their relationship than meets the eye:
Rickard: I'll be glad when we get rid of him.
Claudie: He's alright.
Rickard: What makes you say that, he's old. He's past it.
Claudie: He's not so old.
Rickard: You're not telling me you could make it with Garmes? It would be like lying under a side of beef.
Claudie: You think you're the only one who can do it, don't you.
Rickard: I think I'm the only one who can do it the way you like it.
Claudie: I didn't like it that way before I met you.
This subtext is never realized because Van Devere chickens out during the two love scenes, something Tina Aumont would have easily finessed. Yet the film succeeds in generating plenty of heat. The tension in this romantic triangle is best summed up in a previous scene when Garmes begins to feel attracted to Rickard's girlfriend:
Garmes: You ever think he might not show up?
Claudie: No, I knew he'd come.
Garmes: You have faith in him, huh?
Claudie: It's not that. I know him. He's very determined. He'll kill to get what he wants. You should know that.
Garmes: He won't kill me. Not until I get him across the border.
Claudie: Well, he's some other things before he's smart, so I wouldn't count on that.
When Scott quarreled with John Huston over the director's improvisational approach, Huston walked off the set, and MGM sent Richard Fleischer to replace him. Fleischer generally shot what was on the page, and he knew how to bring out the best in actors. Huston may have prepared and planned the film, but Fleischer makes it his own. THE LAST RUN is a Richard Fleischer action-noir up to the same high standard he had established twenty years earlier in THE NARROW MARGIN.
Fleischer does things with a car chase that hadn't been done before, or since. When Garmes wants to find out if the car ahead is merely traffic or working in tandem with the car behind, he speeds up, passes it, and waits to see if it matches his speed. It does, and the chase is on. Fleischer visualizes the chase in terms of closing and expanding distances with unerring pictorial compositions of rural villages and highways whizzing by and flawless editing. These car chases don't punctuate the story, they are the story. No special effects or lazy CGI or obvious back-screen projection, either. The cameras are mounted in cars driving at actual high speeds.
What makes the car chases unusual is how Fleischer brings the eight-cylinder engine of the 1956 BMW-503 to life. The sound crew must have recorded the engine noise at different gears and on different roads. No library sounds in this movie. The faster the BMW goes the higher the pitch. Uphill sounds different than downhill. Straightaways sound different than turns. Dirt roads sound different than tarmac. No wonder Harry Garmes refers to his car as a she instead of an it. Listening to the engine drone in this film is a pleasure, and it was accomplished without digital technology.
I particularly like how Sven Nykvist captures the light of Spain. the scenery is another pleasure. So far as I know THE LAST RUN is Nykvist's only action film and his only noir. His night-for-night lighting is a treat to see; no day-for-night phoniness to undermine the authenticity of the film. The third act, a downhill chase to the beach at night, is impeccably directed, edited, photographed, and scored. Facial expressions are captured, eyelines are riveted, relationships are expressed in how characters are grouped or isolated, and the duration of each shot relates to what comes before and after. It's too bad Fleischer and Nykvist never worked together again. Every action-noir should look this good.
It was thought that Scott's refusal to accept the Academy Award for best actor (in PATTON) hurt this film's box office in the summer of 1971. Or maybe audiences just didn't connect with the underlying theme of a man in his 40's facing personal failure and trying to overcome a preoccupation with death by taking risks to make himself feel alive. It may be that Sharp overstated his case for 1971 audiences, but his sublime existentialism is a logical extension of the film noir universe in which a plot unfolds in accord with the fatal flaw in its lead character. A lot of films in the early 1970s were no more fatalistic than THE LAST RUN. The time is right to rediscover this classic sleeper on DVD.
Everyone who made THE LAST RUN is dead now, except Alan Sharp who is still living in Scotland, still an articulate writer who must be as full of memories as Harry Garmes. Let's hope MGM or Warner Brothers or Sony or whomever will put a transfer on DVD at least as good as the widescreen print that airs occasionally on Turner Classic Movies, and invite Alan Sharp to do a commentary.
George C. Scott plays Harry Garmes, a middle-aged getaway driver for the mob in Chicago. After doing one last job to get everything he wanted, Garmes retired to a house on the beach in a small fishing village on the coast of Portugal with his wife and son. Nine years later, his wife has left him, his son has died, and his fishing boat is captained by a Portuguese who knows how to catch fish. Garmes finds himself facing the rest of his days bored, alone, and depressed in what he thought would be a paradise. So he decides to do one last job for a new employer, as much to make himself feel alive again as to transport an assassin and his girlfriend to safety. Garmes proves himself to be a brilliant getaway driver not lacking in personal courage and professional loyalty. But there are temptations and betrayals along the way, and Garmes' last run turns into a flee for his life behind the wheel of a super-charged 1956 BMW-503.
THE LAST RUN was released in 1971, at a time when college students and film makers were rediscovering the vintage films of Bogart and Huston. Those were the days when everyone quoted Bogart's dialog by heart at cocktail parties and dinner tables. In fact the tagline for the one-sheet, "In the tradition of Hemingway and Bogart," indicates that the film makers were conscientiously tapping into this then-current trend. Although THE LAST RUN unfolds like something John Huston might have written for Bogart back in the 1940s, it never sinks to the level of a remake or an imitation.
The script is a fresh original that evokes the world of Hemingway, Bogart and John Huston. In fact it was written for John Huston to direct. I don't know which films the screen writer, Alan Sharp, watched or which books he read, but he fashioned another link in the chain with THE LAST RUN. Sharp nails 1940s noir down to the very last nuance and then makes it relevant to a younger 1970s generation. Sharp specialized in writing laconic, existential genre films. His work was rich in subtext, plotted with unpredictable logic, short on dialog, long on prolonged action and sustained tension, with multi-layered characters that audiences could relate to. A highly accomplished dramatist, the only other screen writer I would compare Sharp to is perhaps David Mamet, only Sharp's characters don't talk as much. Some of his best early scripts included ULZANA'S RAID, THE HIRED HAND, NIGHT MOVES, and BILLY TWO HATS. But THE LAST RUN is my favorite.
George C. Scott modulates his way from disillusion to elation to ferocious rage. But it's a quiet, introspective performance of escalating intensity, delivered with gravel in the voice and a dull glint in the eye. He projects a weariness that's not just acting. Harry Garmes is every bit a career-defining character for George C. Scott as Patton was. Not even Bogart could have played the character better. In only two scenes Colleen Dewhurst shines as a prostitute whose cold intimacy provides Garmes with no comfort. Tony Musante is spontaneous as Rickard. He plays this assassin as a thoughtless, mocking, petulant, unfeeling killer who's always on the verge of pulling the trigger. It's quite a chilling performance. As the girlfriend who gets passed from one man to another and back again, Trish Van Devere replaces French actress Tina Aumont, who had originally been signed to play the part. Van Devere's inexperience shows, but she provides all the empathy and insight that her boyfriend Rickard is lacking. In several scenes Alan Sharp's dialog suggests more to their relationship than meets the eye:
Rickard: I'll be glad when we get rid of him.
Claudie: He's alright.
Rickard: What makes you say that, he's old. He's past it.
Claudie: He's not so old.
Rickard: You're not telling me you could make it with Garmes? It would be like lying under a side of beef.
Claudie: You think you're the only one who can do it, don't you.
Rickard: I think I'm the only one who can do it the way you like it.
Claudie: I didn't like it that way before I met you.
This subtext is never realized because Van Devere chickens out during the two love scenes, something Tina Aumont would have easily finessed. Yet the film succeeds in generating plenty of heat. The tension in this romantic triangle is best summed up in a previous scene when Garmes begins to feel attracted to Rickard's girlfriend:
Garmes: You ever think he might not show up?
Claudie: No, I knew he'd come.
Garmes: You have faith in him, huh?
Claudie: It's not that. I know him. He's very determined. He'll kill to get what he wants. You should know that.
Garmes: He won't kill me. Not until I get him across the border.
Claudie: Well, he's some other things before he's smart, so I wouldn't count on that.
When Scott quarreled with John Huston over the director's improvisational approach, Huston walked off the set, and MGM sent Richard Fleischer to replace him. Fleischer generally shot what was on the page, and he knew how to bring out the best in actors. Huston may have prepared and planned the film, but Fleischer makes it his own. THE LAST RUN is a Richard Fleischer action-noir up to the same high standard he had established twenty years earlier in THE NARROW MARGIN.
Fleischer does things with a car chase that hadn't been done before, or since. When Garmes wants to find out if the car ahead is merely traffic or working in tandem with the car behind, he speeds up, passes it, and waits to see if it matches his speed. It does, and the chase is on. Fleischer visualizes the chase in terms of closing and expanding distances with unerring pictorial compositions of rural villages and highways whizzing by and flawless editing. These car chases don't punctuate the story, they are the story. No special effects or lazy CGI or obvious back-screen projection, either. The cameras are mounted in cars driving at actual high speeds.
What makes the car chases unusual is how Fleischer brings the eight-cylinder engine of the 1956 BMW-503 to life. The sound crew must have recorded the engine noise at different gears and on different roads. No library sounds in this movie. The faster the BMW goes the higher the pitch. Uphill sounds different than downhill. Straightaways sound different than turns. Dirt roads sound different than tarmac. No wonder Harry Garmes refers to his car as a she instead of an it. Listening to the engine drone in this film is a pleasure, and it was accomplished without digital technology.
I particularly like how Sven Nykvist captures the light of Spain. the scenery is another pleasure. So far as I know THE LAST RUN is Nykvist's only action film and his only noir. His night-for-night lighting is a treat to see; no day-for-night phoniness to undermine the authenticity of the film. The third act, a downhill chase to the beach at night, is impeccably directed, edited, photographed, and scored. Facial expressions are captured, eyelines are riveted, relationships are expressed in how characters are grouped or isolated, and the duration of each shot relates to what comes before and after. It's too bad Fleischer and Nykvist never worked together again. Every action-noir should look this good.
It was thought that Scott's refusal to accept the Academy Award for best actor (in PATTON) hurt this film's box office in the summer of 1971. Or maybe audiences just didn't connect with the underlying theme of a man in his 40's facing personal failure and trying to overcome a preoccupation with death by taking risks to make himself feel alive. It may be that Sharp overstated his case for 1971 audiences, but his sublime existentialism is a logical extension of the film noir universe in which a plot unfolds in accord with the fatal flaw in its lead character. A lot of films in the early 1970s were no more fatalistic than THE LAST RUN. The time is right to rediscover this classic sleeper on DVD.
Everyone who made THE LAST RUN is dead now, except Alan Sharp who is still living in Scotland, still an articulate writer who must be as full of memories as Harry Garmes. Let's hope MGM or Warner Brothers or Sony or whomever will put a transfer on DVD at least as good as the widescreen print that airs occasionally on Turner Classic Movies, and invite Alan Sharp to do a commentary.
