Parkerizing

So, when I was 18 or 19 I worked in a gun shop. We built machine guns for wealthy collectors and the guns we used were not the sort to figure into random handgun crime. The point is, I worked in what we called The Sandblaster Room. (Eventually it was just the blaster room, which was the sort of miserablist humor we had in that place. I think it became the blaster room after my friend blew his face off in an industrial accident, but that's another story.) I worked in the blaster room, sandblasting rifle receivers, and then dipping them for 10 minutes in a boiling acid called Parkerizing Solution. It was pretty foul stuff and seriously, it was boiling. I used to have to wear these gloves that went up to my elbows and I'd carefully lower the receiver into the acid and then leave it on blocks of plastic at the bottom, hoping that the acid was the right temperature, hoping that I had place the metal on the right bits of plastic, hoping, basically, that I hadn't screwed the whole thing up. Probably 1 out of every 4 guns had to be redone. It was back-breaking, irritating work.

All of this to say, I watched Point Blank last night.

It's a John Boorman adaptation of a book called The Hunter (1962), by a guy named Richard Stark, which is a pen name for Donald Westlake (and if you think that's confusing, you should see the movie.). In the book the main character is a fellow named Parker, which is the whole circuitous point of the above story, which I will now be drawing parallels to. In the book, the first of a long series, Parker has been double-crossed in an armed robbery, by his wife no less. She takes up with another crook, shoots him in the back, and leaves him for dead, taking his share of the loot. I can't remember what the amount is in the book, but it was reasonably piddly, even for the standards of the day. (A site I looked up said that it's $45,000. I could go for $45,000, don't get me wrong, but for the trouble he goes through, it's not that much.)

Parker is a GREAT character. He's really smart, really clever, he's always getting in trouble and always taking up with rotten characters who try to do him dirt. The greatest thing about him is that he is so single-mindedly focused on what he is doing that nothing really gets in his way at all. He just batters down anything in front of him and get what he wants. The story of The Hunter is how he comes back from the dead, get his wife, gets his money and gets the other crook. It's a tough as nails story of revenge and pain and Parker never, ever gives up and is never, ever without a plan. He looks at the situation and figures it out, figures out how he's going to handle it, figures out how he's going to achieve his goal. There's never a time when he's at a loss. There are times when he gets beaten up, times when he gets outsmarted, times when he loses what he was going for, but he never doesn't have a plan.

But then there's this movie Point Blank. I REALLY wanted to like this one. The great granddaddy of American Cinema Reviewers, my hero, Vern says that it's a good one. He said that it's better than either version of Payback (The Mel Gibson/Brian Helgeland take on the same story.) But honestly, I can't see it. It's ok. Lee Marvin has a great face. There is a scene during the opening credits, after he has been shot, where he is hanging on the razor-wire fencing at Alcatraz, trying to get out, and his face is so hauntingly scary that it's awesome. He seems tough. He has a quiet, well a REALLY quiet, demeanor and he just seems like he's ready for anything. But then he just kind of floats for the rest of the film. And while Parker is quiet a lot of the time, it is a lot less cinematic than you might think to see a guy sit around and not talk.

There is maybe one scene of him being tough, he beats up some guys in a nightclub. But the whole scene is silly. The nightclub is supposed to be a not-so-hot jazz club, but it mostly consists of this really over-the-top insane funk band and a singer who apparently only screams. I don't know who his lyricist is, but he should NOT be given more work. Maybe John Boorman just never heard songs before, I don't know. Anyways, Walker, (he's named Walker, not Parker in this one) beats up a couple of guys, but it's not really all that impressive. It lacks pizazz and I don't care what anyone has to say about the shaky-cam movement in today's action cinema, placing a fight with a steady-cam in the middle of some sort of psychedelic light show is not more effective story-telling. (And, again, what about this says jazz?)

(And why is the main character's name Walker? And in Payback, why is it... what ever it is, not Parker? Porter? In both movies it says that they got the story from The Hunter, so why not use the name? Parker is a really good name. They had the rights, why not just keep a good name? I can't figure it out. And I guess Porter and Walker are cool names, too. But there is no reason to change them. It's like Walt Disney with all his little changes to the great stories he was telling, why do that?)

The whole point I want to make here is NOT to tear apart a movie that people seem to love and is widely regarded as one of the classics of 70's pulp cinema, but to say that I don't understand what they're doing with the character/story. See, Parker thinks things through. He knows what he's gonna do because he's seen it and done it all before. He knows who is going to doublecross him because it's been done before, though as near as we can tell, the only time anyone ever puts one over on him it's his wife. But this Walker guy has Napoleon's Battle Plan, he shows up and sees what happens. Whatever it is is ok with him. He just lets it happen and hopes he ends up on top. He does sometimes, and in the movie it is left ambiguous as to whether or not he gets what he set out to. It's a real bummer of an ending. And I'm not one of these guys who likes everything spelled out for him. I get it, I don't need to be told why the caged bird sings. But some sort of an ending would be a lot better than an atmospheric shot of the San Francisco Bay.

I know a lot of you haven't seen this movie, but you probably ought to. It's by John Boorman, who made some really good, iconic films. It has a really brooding soundtrack, except for the jazz scene, and one of the funniest musical interludes in a sex-scene, ever. The sex-scene is very PG, by the way, no nudity or anything. But I just can't recommend it from an enjoyment standpoint. To use a phrase that I like, it's a broccoli movie. It's probably good for you, for your filmic education and all, but it's just not a great film to watch.

I really was going to tie it all together with Parkerizing, but then I just lost interest in that part. One time I burned the whole side of my arm doing it, though. I tipped my glove too far into the tank and got a huge blister. I guess that's how I felt when I watched this movie? I don't know. I had a point but I lost it. If I was better at self-editing I'd cut out the beginning, but I kind of like it. It's a good story, or at least it's atmosphere. Think of it as my shot of the Bay.