BEFORE: Linking from "Compulsion", Orson Welles was also in the film "The Black Rose" with Robert Blake.
THE PLOT: After a botched robbery results in the brutal murder of a rural family, two drifters elude police, in the end coming to terms with their own mortality.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Capote" (Movie #674)
AFTER: A lot of similarities to last night's film - two male killers, an implied sexual relationship between them, committing murder together. There's also an implication that the two men, acting together, create this sort of third personality, or group mind, that takes over. I'm not sure if I've heard of this before, but it kind of explains the actions of criminal partners during bank heists and such. Also, both films were based on novels that were written about prominent real-life murders.
It feels like I saw a version of this same story as the making of this movie was referenced in "Capote" - they showed Truman Capote meeting with and interviewing convicted killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. You get the feeling that he was perhaps interested in their story because some implied connection, possibly a homosexual one - some kind of relationship between the two killers is hinted at here, but not directly shown. Perhaps it's just because they were in jail, and we all know what can happen there.
Other than that, this is a rather straightforward story about two killers on the run - only they're not really running, because they seem fairly sure that they've gotten away with their crime. They don't make much effort to stay out of Kansas, for example, even though for one of them, entering that state constitutes a parole violation.
What I'm struggling with is the passage of time in the film - the time spent avoiding the police after the murder and before the arrest was about a month and a half, and constitutes the vast majority of this film. By contrast, the killers were incarcerated for five years, (SPOILER ALERT) which constituted several stays of execution, and this period passes by in about 5 minutes of screen time.
The film succeeds, however, in getting into some of the WHY of a murder, rather than just the WHAT. At first we learn that the criminals are staking out the house in order to rob a farmer's safe, and later, after the full details of that night are eventually revealed, it also delves into some of the mental motivations that may be driving them. A lot of that seemed to be missing from "Compulsion".
Of course, you can't look at this film now without thinking about Robert Blake, who was later accused in the killing of his own wife. I should point out he was acquitted at his criminal trial, but then held accountable in a civil trial (Hmm, where have I seen that combination before...?) It's tough to determine whether life imitated art, or vice versa - or perhaps it's just coincidence. Killing one's spouse and killing a family on a farm while robbing them could be two vastly different things, after all...(or, maybe not?)
I'd be remiss if I didn't make some reference to the fact that Roger Ebert died yesterday - a true movie reviewer, which is what I am not, nor what I claim to be or hope to become. Anyway, my paltry 1,397 "reviews" (which, really, they're not) are a drop in the bucket compared to Roger's stats: 7,202 reviews, 3 screenplays and 1 Pulitzer. I never met the man, but he was a friend of a friend (F of my BFF), so I felt connected tangentially (sorry, Roger, I met him first).
For a much more professional review of today's film, please visit:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19680206/REVIEWS/802060301/1023
In 1968, Ebert said this film was "fantastically powerful despite its flaws" and that "the story itself emerges as bleak and tragic as the day the murders first occured". He also said that "the actors, Robert Blake and Scott Wilson, are so good they pass beyond performances and almost into life". It's impossible for anyone to see the future, but whaddaya know - he nailed it.
Also starring Scott Wilson (last seen in "In the Heat of the Night"), John Forsythe, Jeff Corey, Charles McGraw, with a cameo from Will Geer.
RATING: 5 out of 10 deposit bottles
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