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Afghanistan banana stand
When I heard tonight about Robert Redford, I did not think first of the immortal freeze-frame of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) or the righteous paranoia of All the President's Men (1976) or even the perfectly anachronistic jazz of The Sting (1973) where I almost certainly first saw him, effortlessly beautiful even before he shines up from street-level short cons to the spectacular wire of the title grift. I thought of The Hot Rock (1972), a freewheelingly dumb-assed caper film of which I am deeply fond in no small part because of Redford. Specifically, his casting makes it look at first like the inevitable Hollywood misrepresentation of its 1970 Donald E. Westlake source novel, a cool jazz glow-up of the canonically, lankily nondescript Dortmunder whose heists always look completely reasonable on paper and in practice like a Rube Goldberg machine whose springs just sprang off. Only as the setbacks of the plot mount past aggravation into absurdity approaching Dada, of which the attempt to sneak into a precinct house via helicopter must rate highly even before the crew land on the wrong roof and the siege-minded lieutenant mistakes their break-in for the revolution, does the audience realize that this Dortmunder has the face of a screen idol and the flop sweat of a shlimazl, a man whose charisma is not an asset when it makes people think he knows what he's doing. "I've got no choice," he says doggedly of the eponymous diamond which he did at least once successfully steal, whence all their troubles began. "I'm not superstitious and I don't believe in jinxes, but that stone's jinxed me and it won't let go. I've been damn near bitten, shot at, peed on, and robbed, and worse is going to happen before it's done. So I'm taking my stand. I'm going all the way. Either I get it, or it gets me." When he acquires an incipient ulcer at the top of the second act, who's surprised? He glumly chews antacids as one of his meticulously premeditated schemes trips over its own shoelaces yet again. It may be the only time Redford played so far against his stardom, but he makes such a gorgeous loser with that tousle of coin-gold hair and an ever more disbelieving look in the matinée blue of his eyes, the Zeppo of his quartet of thieves who only looks like the normal one and no slouch in a stack of character actors from Moses Gunn and Zero Mostel through Lee Wallace and even a bit-part Christopher Guest, not to mention George Segal by whom he is characteristically almost run into a chain-link fence, trying to collect him from his latest stint upstate in a hot car with too many accessories. "Not that you're not the best, but a layman might wonder why you're all the time in jail." Harry Bellaver figured in so many noirs of the '40's and '50's, why should he not have retired to run a dive bar on Amsterdam Avenue patronized by exactly the kind of never-the-luck lowlifes he might once have played? The photography by Ed Brown goes on the list of great snapshots of New York, the screenplay by William Goldman is motor-mouthed quotable, the score by Quincy Jones never sounds cooler than when the characters it accompanies are failing their wisdom checks at land speed. Watching it as part of a Peter Yates crime trilogy between Bullitt (1968) and The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) may induce whiplash. It may not be major Redford, but it is beloved Redford of mine, and worthwhile weirdness to watch in his memory. This stand brought to you by my jinxed backers at Patreon.
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The heist goes wrong multiple times! And on the Internet Archive!
(All the President's Men is my favorite Redford film, but Three Days of the Condor is a very close second.)
I need to rewatch both of those. I haven't seen the second since
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As ever, you're a joy to read.
Nine
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Thank you!
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*hugs*
(I’m between Sneakers and Quiz Show, myself, although in the case of the latter Redford just happens to be there between the nebbishkeyt guy and the Harvard macher.)
I sincerely keep forgetting he's in Sneakers because David Strathairn and Sydney Poitier and Dan Aykroyd and Stephen Tobolowsky are also in it, which is not his fault!
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I shall just have to rewatch it, a tragedy.
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They could just have been mutual friends of John Sayles.
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I don't know if under the circumstances I will still be able to catch it in theaters, but I want to see A Little Prayer (2023) almost entirely because Strathairn said it reminds him of Sayles' films.
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Godspeed! If you make it, I look forward to your report.
(I'm glad Nobody 2 was still fun.)
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the attempt to sneak into a precinct house via helicopter must rate highly even before the crew land on the wrong roof and the siege-minded lieutenant mistakes their break-in for the revolution --LOLLLL, great. Yeah, those Rube Goldberg springs are well sprung.
And it's visible on Internet archive? Great! Thank you for sharing.
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--LOLLLL, great. Yeah, those Rube Goldberg springs are well sprung.
I really love how in your average heist movie there's a fifty-fifty chance of it going wrong and this movie does its singlehanded best to make up the difference.
And it's visible on Internet archive? Great! Thank you for sharing.
Enjoy!
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Not a heist movie, exactly, but years ago I read a translation of Mandragora aka The Sex Comedy Written By Niccolo Machiavelli, and one of the ways it *doesn’t* hold up to modern standards of farcing is that the entire crazy plot to get the lady into bed with the full approval of her cuckolded husband? Works perfectly on the first go, and nobody has to run around slamming doors and improvising Plans B, C, and D.
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You're right, that's confusing.
(
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I loved Redford so much. Butch and Sundance were formative for me and I went on from there. I still haven't seen all his movies! What a fun project.
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You're welcome! It holds up.
I loved Redford so much. Butch and Sundance were formative for me and I went on from there. I still haven't seen all his movies! What a fun project.
I am glad he left so much for you to enjoy.
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Enjoy! I appear to have a rewatch of Sneakers in my future.
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It was kinda weird to see the still-being-constructed Twin Towers, especially from the POV of an aircraft being flown by a self-taught pilot...
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I'm so glad it met with your approval! I've actually never seen another adaptation of the books.
It was kinda weird to see the still-being-constructed Twin Towers, especially from the POV of an aircraft being flown by a self-taught pilot...
The sight didn't twinge for me because it's what was there in the skyline at the time, but my sympathies if it did for you.
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That and the family interactions. I loved the George Segal character and his mom, listening to the speedway record, loved the RR character with his sister and her baby.
... okay. Back to the film...
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I missed this comment when it came in! I'm so glad you enjoyed the movie. I love how everyone does have real and extremely ordinary lives in the midst of all the weirdness.
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