L.A. NOIR shadOws in pAradise
Point Blank (1967)
In 1965 English director John Boorman landed in Los Angeles for the first time. “I rented a car at the airport and drove the length of Sunset Boulevard in time to see the sun sink into the Pacific. I spend days aimlessly driving the freeways. It was concrete over sand. I longed to make a film there. I met Lee Marvin in London and we discussed the idea of a Point Blank film. By 1967 Lee was a big star with a lot of clout, and we sat down with studio heads and producers to work out the film’s details. Marvin asked, ‘I have script approval, cast approval and technician approval?’ The producers all said, ‘Yes,’ and Lee said, ‘I defer all these approvals to John Boorman.’ Lee’s backing me all the way was a great inspiration.”
Ralph O’Hara, bartender at Malibu’s The Raft:
I could tell Lee felt the world of Angie Dickinson. He really liked her, and she did the same. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. If someone had come up and tried to hit on her, she wouldn’t hear a word they had to say.
Angie Dickinson:
On Point Blank we did have an eye thing. Oh, it was wonderful! But Lee never made any kind of move of any kind, emotional, physical, or anything towards me that would make me think he was ever interested in me. I would say if you asked me, “Do you think Lee digs you?” I would have said at the time, “No, I don’t think so.” If he did, I wasn’t aware. My guess would be that from him, a look would be comparable to a pass from somebody else. Hard to read Lee.
Jeff Bridges, who made The Iceman Cometh with Lee Marvin:
Lee taught me a valuable lesson. He said, “In acting there are certain unspoken rules. One is that when the camera moves in for a close-up, you have to be subtle in your performance because your face is going to be forty feet high on the screen.” But then he said, “That’s when I play it big. You have to learn the rules, and then you can do what you want with them to make them work for your performance.”
Lee Marvin:
People get a vicarious thrill out of what I do, I know that. But I reckon my films don’t have a bad influence on anyone; they won’t send people out into the streets with axes, or anything. The Shirley Temple movies are more likely to do that; after listening to “The Good Ship Lollipop” you just gotta go out and beat somebody. Stands to reason. I choose projects that have a certain quality I call the white eye, the inescapability of danger or death.
Angie
Lloyd
Michael Strong as Stegman
John Vernon as Mal Reese
Sharon Aker as Lynne
James Sikking as Hired Gun
Sandra Warner as Waitress
FILM NOTES BY TOVA GANNANA
Of this we can be certain: Walker (Lee Marvin) has no home to go home to; he could kill, but doesn’t; he has no other name. Walker is singular in his meaning: He wants the cash he’s owed to right the wrong done to him. Point Blank (1967) begins at the bottom, with a botched robbery, two men killed when they were meant to be only knocked out, and Lynne (Sharon Acker)— Walker’s wife— and Reece (John Vernon)—Walker’s best friend— double-crossing him and leaving him for dead.
Walker in a prison cell, shot multiple times, has risen. No mother or father to witness, he comes to on the island of Alcatraz with only birds and barbed wire. Walker will eventually return as the sole survivor; the film will swing itself in a circle.
Los Angeles is a city with multiple dimensions. There’s the apartment building housing ordinary people across the street from the building that houses “The Organization.” There’s the jazz club where the performer in sunglasses shares the mic with a man chosen from the audience; the go-go dancers who dance like jackknives on stage while Walker rumbles with hit men behind the curtain. Point Blank feels like a notebook of doodles, of phone numbers, of half-cracked phrases. Walker is putting together everyone’s motives. It seems to be not just about making money, but about longevity, which in Point Blank turns out to be unattainable.
Walker’s methods: surprise, and force. His actions are ruled by instinct. He naps when needed. He’ll break down a door if he doesn’t have a key. When Lynne’s sister Chris (Angie Dickinson) beats him with her purse and fists, he stands as still as a tree trunk. As he unloads his gun into Reece and Lynne’s empty bed, the look on his face says he was expecting someone to be in it. Walker listens more than he talks. Alcatraz taught him to use both violence and silence. Point Blank is all about perspective. Even when Walker is not on the screen, we feel his presence. The Organization discusses in a boardroom, at a car lot, on a landing strip, how to trap Walker and what his next move may be.
The images of memories in the film are Walker’s, and he’s burdened with all that he remembers. When he and Chris embrace first on the floor and then in a bed with silver sheets, they roll on top of one another, and each time they turn, it’s a new set of couples: Walker and Lynne, Lynne and Reece, Reece and Chris, Chris and Walker. It’s as if the film is boring a hole into the earth, and as it is written, from whence they came and to where they will return. Memory and fate, sealed like a handshake.
“Well,” Reece begins his sentences; he doesn’t put out his cigarettes. The sisters Lynne and Chris go with the flow: Lynne drowns, Chris floats. Neither stay with Walker: He’s not someone who can be held onto. The first line of the film in Alcatraz belongs to Reece; the rest of the film is Walker’s. Reece changed the course of Walker’s path, so Walker takes a different route, stalking Reece from a higher vantage. All are in a prison of their own making: Reece in a penthouse with guards on the roof and in the lobby; Lynne without sleep; Chris sleeps with pills; Walker has no address. Both Reece and Lynne beg
Walker to kill them. Walker looks through a window, but sees only himself: The city is his mirror.
Walker grows weary. When he finds Lynne—his first break—he comes in blazing, no greeting. By the time he gets to Chris, he lays his gun on her pillow. On the one hand, he wants answers. On the other hand, receiving the money he is owed is sufficient. It’s only when the money is in front of him that he hides in the shadows. He knows somehow that he’s different, but that he could become like The Organization.
It all comes down to a phone call, a hitman who wants to be paid. It comes down to a bureaucratic waste of time, to a man who carries no cash in his pockets, but organizes cash drops into Alcatraz. It comes down to a city crowded with people who, whether they’re on a boat or in a crowd, don’t know the reason. Money in Point Blank is not there for need, but for want. The sum Walker wants back—$93,000 stolen from him by Lynne and Reece—he didn’t earn, but also stole.
Lynne’s nails are painted the color of silver dollars. The house she shared with Reece is decorated in silver tones like tinfoil. One of the heads of The Organization has a kitchen full of gadgets: Everything is automated, meant to provide precision. Walker and Chris eat their dinner of French fries and burgers in a pristine fast food restaurant, where the artificial light makes every surface gleam. Chris wears marigold yellow, like a dandelion before it blooms.
Rarely does Walker smile, but in one memory with Lynne, he’s smiling. She undoes her long braid and lets her hair hang loose. The mist from the waterfront pier baptizes them. Walker’s memory acts as a reminder. He searches the city for Reece, and when he finds him, he lets him fall. •