Lee Marvin in a series of dapper suits with a revolver in hand is enough for a 1960s neo-noir like Point Blank (1967) but the actor’s collaboration with young British director John Boorman offered them both a chance to push the crime genre into pop art experimentation. Revisiting Point Blank, it feels like Steven Soderbergh wouldn’t exist without it (and he made his own version of it with The Limey). It’s a classic example of style being used to take pulp fiction – Richard Stark’s crime novel The Hunter and his trademark character, Parker – into a sensory, temporal, subjective cinematic space; style becomes the substance. Of course, there are antecedents before Point Blank, whether it’s Robert Aldrich’s apocalyptic take on Mickey Spillane’s Kiss Me Deadly or the French New Wave’s delight in B-movies. The movie brings a European art sensibility to violent thieves and criminal organisations within the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles. Marvin plays Walker, left for dead in a deserted Alcatraz cell block, double crossed by an old friend (John Vernon) on a night-time heist, a double cross on top of another double cross, as his friend also runs away with Walker’s wife (Sharon Acker). Backed by a mysterious sponsor (Keenan Wynn), the surviving Walker sets loose in Los Angeles for revenge on those who wronged him as well as settling the score – his share of the loot, $93,000 – from the Organisation. From an opening image of Marvin’s face painted with psychedelic lighting, weary in a hectic night club, and the use of time cuts in the editing, there’s an impressionistic vibe that short circuits the usual plot moves. Walker is an implacable ghost haunting the corporate chain. Marvin’s performance allows for human deviations, expressing silent alienation to childish confusion, all of it in the face of TV commercials and boardroom speakers. Great support from Angie Dickinson, Carol O’Connor and James Sikking. There’s also a wonderful documentary Boorman made about Lee Marvin that’s worth checking out, Lee Marvin: A Personal Portrait (1998), which displays great affection to the actor for throwing his star clout around to protect Boorman from the producers and guaranteeing the young director final cut on this cult oddity, right down to its weird anti-climax ending. It’s a very cool movie. Available to rent on iTunes. Recommended.
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