Winston T. Boogie
Senior HTF Member
In between his two mega hits teaming him with George Roy Hill and Robert Redford, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, Paul Newman would make 5 films. He was pretty much at the zenith of his career at this point and the projects he chose to star in were all fascinating choices and all deserve to be on blu-ray.
He made two films with his Cool Hand Luke director, Stuart Rosenberg, WUSA (available on blu-ray) and the Terrence Malick scripted Pocket Money with Lee Marvin. Newman also directed his second feature in which he also starred with Henry Fonda, Sometimes a Great Notion (on blu), based on Ken Kesey's (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) novel.
Following these three films Newman chose to make two films in a row with the great John Huston directing. One a twisty spy film scripted by Walter Hill (The MacKintosh Man) and the other a giant mythical western written by John Milius--The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.
Obviously, Newman was enjoying working with the directors he really wanted to make films with and choosing material from some very exciting writers. Scripts by Malick, Milius, and Hill before they went on to make a tremendous body of work as directors and shooting a Ken Kesey novel 5 years before Nicholson and Milos Forman would sear his work into our brains.
Maybe you don't love all these films as much as I do but I think you would have to admit Newman was picking some outstanding material and collaborators in this stretch.
During the early 1970s John Huston was busy being...well...John Huston making films that always had his indelible stamp on them. Hard edged with strong characters and perhaps a bit too dark for audiences at the time, these films, in my opinion, were striking works that were obviously made by a master filmmaker. I mean when you are the guy that made The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, The African Queen, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre people expect a lot from you. What fascinates me though is that no matter the decade Huston always made films that were quintessentially representative of their times. Look at The Kremlin Letter and it perfectly reflects the paranoia, trust no one, anybody could be killed, murky political atmosphere of the time. Probably not the sort of movie experience many people might have wanted at that time but this nasty little spy thriller oozes with 1970s cynicism.
Then there is Fat City, a sort of anti-Rocky, that examines the life of a retired down on his luck boxer that is inspired to make a comeback through his chance meeting with a younger man he seems to feel has some pugilistic talent. Not only is this a fantastic slice of life but at the same time Huston seems to be commenting on the fate of blue collar working stiffs trying (poorly) to transition into the hard times of the Nixon years of the early 1970s. Again the material is dark and downbeat but the film seems as if it was a precursor and major influence on the independent films of later decades. It is a brilliant film which sadly is also not on blu-ray yet.
The same year that Huston would make Fat City he would also get Newman back in the saddle in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. What a one-two punch that pair of films was.
I've always felt that Judge Bean plays like some weird fever dream of a western. A film that blows up the mythic American West with larger than life characters and the tall tales that they inspired. It is all the bluster of American folklore and blasphemous sensationalistic journalism combined with Hollywood's rather heavy hand with artistic license. The American West as dream, legend, myth and reflection of America buried in our wild and weird obsessions. The film seems to both embrace and poke fun at how unhinged we can be and how we often celebrate this behavior and the characters that best embody it.
To me the works of Paul Newman and John Huston are not to be missed and these films where they combined their talents, while perhaps not that beloved at the time, should be recognized for how wonderful they really were now. Hopefully somebody has a blu-ray of The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean in the works...it would be a shame if they did not.
He made two films with his Cool Hand Luke director, Stuart Rosenberg, WUSA (available on blu-ray) and the Terrence Malick scripted Pocket Money with Lee Marvin. Newman also directed his second feature in which he also starred with Henry Fonda, Sometimes a Great Notion (on blu), based on Ken Kesey's (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) novel.
Following these three films Newman chose to make two films in a row with the great John Huston directing. One a twisty spy film scripted by Walter Hill (The MacKintosh Man) and the other a giant mythical western written by John Milius--The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.
Obviously, Newman was enjoying working with the directors he really wanted to make films with and choosing material from some very exciting writers. Scripts by Malick, Milius, and Hill before they went on to make a tremendous body of work as directors and shooting a Ken Kesey novel 5 years before Nicholson and Milos Forman would sear his work into our brains.
Maybe you don't love all these films as much as I do but I think you would have to admit Newman was picking some outstanding material and collaborators in this stretch.
During the early 1970s John Huston was busy being...well...John Huston making films that always had his indelible stamp on them. Hard edged with strong characters and perhaps a bit too dark for audiences at the time, these films, in my opinion, were striking works that were obviously made by a master filmmaker. I mean when you are the guy that made The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, The African Queen, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre people expect a lot from you. What fascinates me though is that no matter the decade Huston always made films that were quintessentially representative of their times. Look at The Kremlin Letter and it perfectly reflects the paranoia, trust no one, anybody could be killed, murky political atmosphere of the time. Probably not the sort of movie experience many people might have wanted at that time but this nasty little spy thriller oozes with 1970s cynicism.
Then there is Fat City, a sort of anti-Rocky, that examines the life of a retired down on his luck boxer that is inspired to make a comeback through his chance meeting with a younger man he seems to feel has some pugilistic talent. Not only is this a fantastic slice of life but at the same time Huston seems to be commenting on the fate of blue collar working stiffs trying (poorly) to transition into the hard times of the Nixon years of the early 1970s. Again the material is dark and downbeat but the film seems as if it was a precursor and major influence on the independent films of later decades. It is a brilliant film which sadly is also not on blu-ray yet.
The same year that Huston would make Fat City he would also get Newman back in the saddle in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. What a one-two punch that pair of films was.
I've always felt that Judge Bean plays like some weird fever dream of a western. A film that blows up the mythic American West with larger than life characters and the tall tales that they inspired. It is all the bluster of American folklore and blasphemous sensationalistic journalism combined with Hollywood's rather heavy hand with artistic license. The American West as dream, legend, myth and reflection of America buried in our wild and weird obsessions. The film seems to both embrace and poke fun at how unhinged we can be and how we often celebrate this behavior and the characters that best embody it.
To me the works of Paul Newman and John Huston are not to be missed and these films where they combined their talents, while perhaps not that beloved at the time, should be recognized for how wonderful they really were now. Hopefully somebody has a blu-ray of The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean in the works...it would be a shame if they did not.
