#475: YATES, Peter: The Friends Of Eddie Coyle (1973)
YATES, Peter (United States)
The Friends Of Eddie Coyle [1973]
Spine #475
DVD
DVD
In one of the best performances of his legendary career, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie "Fingers" Coyle in Peter Yates's film of George V. Higgins's acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. World-weary and living hand to mouth, Coyle works on the sidelines of the seedy Boston underworld. But when he finds himself facing a second stretch of hard time, he's forced to weigh loyalty to his criminal colleagues against snitching to stay free. Directed with a sharp eye for its gritty locales and an open heart for its less-than-heroic characters, this is one of the true treasures of 1970s Hollywood filmmaking — a suspenseful crime drama in stark, unforgiving daylight.
102 minutes
Color
Color
Monaural
1:85:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2009
Director
Based on the novel by George V. Higgins.
Screenplay by Paul Monash.
Peter Yates was 44 when he directed The Friends of Eddie Coyle.
The Film
The Film
Higgins:
Coyle was his first novel — sorta.
Published in 1970, it was actually his 15th — but he destroyed the previous 14 because they weren’t good enough, apparently.
Higgins certainly knew what he was writing about — he was an assistant district attorney and prosecutor for organized crime cases for many years before entering private practice as a defense attorney.
Coyle is truly a work of genius — with carefully patterned dialogue that is as natural to the ear as the real thing — except better, on the page.
**
And even better yet on the screen. Monash and Yates didn’t change much of Higgins’ work … it’s all there in the vivid characterizations.
Robert Mitchum inhabits Eddie Coyle; you can feel the desperation, the nervousness, the awareness of something dark around the corner. And the perfect Boston accent …
Equally vividly portrayed is Dillon (Peter Boyle), a more relaxed, nuanced character — all cool on top, and deeply sinister underneath …
Richard Jordan (Dave) is the cop; Alex Rocco — fresh off the Moe Greene role in The Godfather (1972) — is Scalise; and Steven Keats (tragically dead at 49 from suicide) is the shady Jackie Brown.
This is an edge-of-your-seat thriller, with a terrific score by Dave Grusin, that keeps you that way for 102 minutes!
The entire film was shot on location; there are no studio shots whatsoever.
Boston locations — including an NHL game between the Bruins and the Blackhawks.
Film Rating (0-60):
The Booklet
Forty-two page booklet featuring an essay by film critic Kent Jones and Grover Lewis’s 1973 Rolling Stone profile of Mitchum, from on the set.
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The ExtrasThe Booklet
Forty-two page booklet featuring an essay by film critic Kent Jones and Grover Lewis’s 1973 Rolling Stone profile of Mitchum, from on the set.
Jones:
“Young film fans raised in the multiplex era might look back and lament the fact that no one is making movies like The Friends of Eddie Coyle anymore. The truth is that they never did. There’s only this one.”
Lewis:
The early 70s was a great time writers of a particular breed — especially when given the chance to write a feature story for Rolling Stone.
The Last Celluloid Desperado appeared in the March 1973 edition of the magazine.
It’s an unbelievable piece — a great snapshot portrait of Mitchum, warts and all.
“I went to Nam in ‘67, I guess it was. To find out what was happening. Some people in the Defense Department kept nudgin’ me — ‘why don’t you go find out?’ Next thing I knew, I was fallin’ off an airplane at Tan Son Nhut — February 3, and it’s 117 degrees. I went ‘Waughhh,’ and they said, ‘Wait’ll summertime, man. It gets hot.’ It was hot all the time, and I was very impressed. I was very encouraged, enormously encouraged by what I saw. You get semi-sophisticated or cynical, you know, and it’s quite humbling to find that there are still people of high purpose and straight direction.”
Then there’s the story of the time he pissed on David Selznick’s rug.
Commentary
Yates.
One of the reasons this film works so well is that Yates rehearsed the cast for two weeks.
He gives a lot of credit to Marion Dougherty (casting) and Grusin.
Give the guy credit — he had a huge hit with Bullitt (1968), and could have kept “remaking” it — but instead he says he wanted more to work with real actors (much of the Coyle cast were from the theatre) …
He also describes the difficulty of shooting an entire film on location, and the cooperation he received from the city of Boston.
Stills gallery
Stills gallery
The usual.
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