The Last Run
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"The Last Run" (1971) (Richard Fleischer)
A really hard to get and seemingly forgotten melancholy and sublime existential genre-faced masterpiece. (That’s two in one year for screenwriter Alan Sharp; who also scripted the sublime “The Hired Hand” (1971); which also got made the same year by an equally eclectic and talented team behind and in front of the camera.) George C. Scott is great as an aging, restless, time-bled ex-getaway driver living out a tick tock aimless existence in a Portugese coast town fishing village. After a long time away, and a bid at an idealistic life turned tragic and meaningless, he decides to take a job driving a prison break convict Paul Rickard (played with counteracting unwarranted youthful zeal by Tony Musante) across the border; mostly just to see if he can still do it. Along the way they pick up Paul’s waiting girlfriend and the three form an unusual triangle of straying and converging lines of life lived, philosophies made and meaning obscured. With a great script by Sharp, meaningful melancholy and charismatic cool by Scott (as well as great performances by Tony Musante and Trish Van Devere as well), bare and modest style by Fleischer, haunting score by Jerry Goldsmith and appropriate cinematography by Sven Nykvist.
Also of interest to Kiyoshi Kurosawa fans, as he often oddly references, when asked about influences, an over-looked and unusual in-between period in American studio entertainment films in the early to middle 70’s that came in-between and during the “New Hollywood Auteur” films (that everyone talks too much about) and the late 70’s blockbusters that changed the whole system of what got made and how it was distributed. This in-between limbo period where Hollywood was a little confused as to what stories and films to produce saw many old veteran, and seemingly modest, studio directors (like Richard Fleischer, Don Siegel, Robert Aldrich, etc.) working with unorthodox techniques and complex themes inside specific genres, mixing confusion and sophistication. “The Last Run” definitely falls in this period and parameters and one can easily see, if one wants, alternate plane parallels to Kurosawa’s style and sensibilities and what he might have liked (if indeed this is one of the films he was talking about); the melancholy existential dread, vague enemies, blunt but brutal violence, bare style, genre elements……all are Kurosawa-ian in nature. Highly Recommended.
1971 / 91mins. / Original Aspect Ratio (2.35:1 Widescreen) / English Language / Color / USA
Picture Quality: A (Source: Rare Television Broadcast)
A really hard to get and seemingly forgotten melancholy and sublime existential genre-faced masterpiece. (That’s two in one year for screenwriter Alan Sharp; who also scripted the sublime “The Hired Hand” (1971); which also got made the same year by an equally eclectic and talented team behind and in front of the camera.) George C. Scott is great as an aging, restless, time-bled ex-getaway driver living out a tick tock aimless existence in a Portugese coast town fishing village. After a long time away, and a bid at an idealistic life turned tragic and meaningless, he decides to take a job driving a prison break convict Paul Rickard (played with counteracting unwarranted youthful zeal by Tony Musante) across the border; mostly just to see if he can still do it. Along the way they pick up Paul’s waiting girlfriend and the three form an unusual triangle of straying and converging lines of life lived, philosophies made and meaning obscured. With a great script by Sharp, meaningful melancholy and charismatic cool by Scott (as well as great performances by Tony Musante and Trish Van Devere as well), bare and modest style by Fleischer, haunting score by Jerry Goldsmith and appropriate cinematography by Sven Nykvist.
Also of interest to Kiyoshi Kurosawa fans, as he often oddly references, when asked about influences, an over-looked and unusual in-between period in American studio entertainment films in the early to middle 70’s that came in-between and during the “New Hollywood Auteur” films (that everyone talks too much about) and the late 70’s blockbusters that changed the whole system of what got made and how it was distributed. This in-between limbo period where Hollywood was a little confused as to what stories and films to produce saw many old veteran, and seemingly modest, studio directors (like Richard Fleischer, Don Siegel, Robert Aldrich, etc.) working with unorthodox techniques and complex themes inside specific genres, mixing confusion and sophistication. “The Last Run” definitely falls in this period and parameters and one can easily see, if one wants, alternate plane parallels to Kurosawa’s style and sensibilities and what he might have liked (if indeed this is one of the films he was talking about); the melancholy existential dread, vague enemies, blunt but brutal violence, bare style, genre elements……all are Kurosawa-ian in nature. Highly Recommended.
1971 / 91mins. / Original Aspect Ratio (2.35:1 Widescreen) / English Language / Color / USA
Picture Quality: A (Source: Rare Television Broadcast)
