Point Blank (1967)

In John Boorman's brutal crime classic neo-noir (his debut Hollywood film) - the stylistic and dramatic thriller with a high body count (8) was a major cult classic. Boorman's film was made in color (his first), although it probably would have been more effective in noirish tones of B/W.

The hard-edged film, with a budget of $2.5 million and with box-office revenue of $9 million, was based on the pulp crime novel The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake (under the name Richard Stark), as was director Brian Helgeland's remake Payback (1999) with Mel Gibson. There were many similarities between Boorman's unconventional vengeance narrative and Steven Soderbergh's The Limey (1999, UK) with Terence Stamp. Stars Angie Dickinson and Lee Marvin had earlier colloborated on director Don Siegel's similar film The Killers (1964).

The pulp-revenge fantasy (about the quest to recover a share of stolen money) featured many virtuoso, artsy, avant-garde editing techniques (i.e., flashbacks, time lapses and jumps, overlapping sound, a broken timeline, repetitions, dream motifs, etc) to blur the line between fantasy and reality in the fractured "it was all a dream" narrative. The tough, victimized criminal protagonist had to navigate his way up the ladder of a corrupt syndicate organization of white-collar criminals to accomplish his single-minded mission. The film's tagline noted: "There are two kinds of people in his up-tight world: His victims and his women. And sometimes you can't tell them apart."

The notorious prison Alcatraz had been shut down in 1963 just three years before the film's production, and Point Blank was the first film to show it in a movie. The prison was rented by MGM and partially restored for purposes of filming.

• in the opening sequence, Mal Reese (John Vernon) and his anti-hero partner Walker (Lee Marvin) had just successfully robbed (and Reese had murdered) the two couriers of a major underground gambling operation on Alcatraz Island at night, after they had unloaded the dirty money from a helicopter; the third partner in the job was Walker's cheating wife Lynne (Sharon Acker), who was secretly involved in an affair with Reese
• as they awaited a boat to take them off Alcatraz Island with the stolen loot, deceitful partner Reese decided to "point-blank" shoot Walker, who was resting in one of the prison cells (in the deserted prison) with Lynne; his objective was to eliminate him so he wouldn't share in the money (that was less than expected); Lynne screamed, not realizing that Reese would ruthlessly turn on her husband; Walker was left dying in a fetal position in the cell
• it was questionable - was the attempted murder just an hallucination or was it his dying dream?; Walker gave a confused voice-over: "Cell. Prison cell. How did I get here? ...Did it happen? A dream. A dream"; the thuggish Walker was left for dead, but seemingly-survived and miraculously stood up (holding his bloody abdomen), and made it off the escape-proof Alcatraz Island (it was implied that he swam to the city in the frigid cold waters of SF Bay!)

Walker in the Deserted Alcatraz Prison With Abdomen Bullet Wounds

Walker Struggling After Being Shot

Walker Swimming from Escape-Proof Alcatraz?

• on a return to San Francisco about a year later, the well-dressed Walker was on board a sight-seeing SF tourist ferry, passing by "The Rock" from which he had escaped; Walker received mysterious assistance from another passenger Yost (Keenan Wynn) - an enigmatic detective who suddenly appeared to him; was he an other-worldly apparition - what was his role?; Yost explained how he wanted Walker's help, to reach to the top of a crime syndicate: "I want the 'Organization'... Your friend Reese. He's in the big time now....He bought his way back in with the money he stole from you"; Reese had used the proceeds from the heist ($150,000) to pay back his debts and regain top stature within the upper echelons of an organized criminal establishment known simply as the "Organization"; Yost summarized: "You want Reese, and I want the Organization...I'm gonna help you, and you're gonna help me"; Walker's goal was a single-minded vengeful quest to recover and be repaid by Reese for his portion of the stolen money ($93,000) - dove-tailed with Yost's request
• Walker - with a menacing and zombie-like appearance - loudly marched (echoing and increasing in intensity) down a glowing corridor at LAX after his arrival; the scene was cross-cut with a view of his wife Lynne in bed and then applying makeup before dressing and visiting a beauty salon parlor
• Walker observed from the street as Lynne returned to her home; he barged in wielding a handgun, grabbed her from behind, and violently and vengefully shot-up his double-crossing wife's empty bed (just in case her lover Reese was in it) - he believed it was defiled after learning that she ran off with his double-crossing, sleazy ex-partner Mal Reese
• in an abstract scene, a motionless Walker sat next to Lynne on her couch and listened silently without responding as his dazed and faithless wife Lynne robotically asked questions and provided her own answers about how Reese had deserted her three months earlier: ("Walker, Reese isn't here. He's gone. Three months ago. Gone. Cold. Moved out. Walker, I'm glad you're not dead. It's true. I really am. You ought to kill me. I can't sleep. Haven't slept. Keep taking pills. Dream about you. How good it must be - being dead. Is it? No. No, I can't. Never had the courage. This? Payoff, I guess. I don't know where he is, I really don't. Money? A guy brings it the first of every month. Thousands, thousands. Always a different guy. No contact with Mal. Just couldn't make it with you, Walker. With him, it was kind of fun. Just drifted into it. That night on Alcatraz. I knew it was you I really wanted. I found out too late")
• accompanied by dreamy flashbacks, she recalled how she and Walker had first met and were in love, but then they had a menage a trois with Walker's friend Reese before she secretly ran off with him: (voice-over: "I seemed to be floating between the two of you. Suddenly, I began to drift toward Mal. And I just went with it")
• then the next morning, Walker found his despairing junkie, suicidal wife Lynne face down and dead on the bullet-riddled bed - of a guilt-ridden, intentional drug overdose; sometime later in her now, mostly-vacated apartment, Walker stumbled into her bathroom and accidentally topped one of her bottles of perfume or cosmetics into the bathtub (where he had earlier smashed other bottles); the mixture created a beautiful, psychedelic pattern in the colorful, pooled liquids; the camera zoomed into the oozing fluids;

Lynne Robotically Answering Her Own Questions as a Motionless Walker Sat By

Lynne's Suicidal Overdose - Found Dead on Her Bed

Mixture of Broken Bottles and Colorful Liquids in Lynne's Bathtub

• on the first of the month, Walker assaulted a courier from the 'Organization' (specifically ordered by car salesman 'Big John' Stegman (Michael Strong)) who was regularly ordered to bring $1,000s of dollars of cash to Lynne in the apartment as a "payoff" from Reese to support her; with a hint on how to proceed, Walker's next step was to confront the sleazy Stegman at his car lot - one of the mid-level corporate members of the big-business criminal enterprise - the "Organization"
• in order to intimidate, interrogate and terrorize Stegman into talking: ("Where do I find Reese?"), Walker took a wild test-drive in a new 1967 Imperial Crown Chrysler convertible through a fence and under LA freeway ramps - and ultimately crashed the front and back of the luxury car into concrete columns; he learned from Stegman that Reese, after he had left his wife Lynne, was now with Lynne's older and sexy sister Chris (Angie Dickinson) ("She's with Reese now. He nailed both sisters"); Chris was reportedly managing a nightclub called The Movie House
• afterwards, Walker visited Lynne's gravesite in a cemetery on a grassy hilltop above suburban LA, with a memorial plaque reading: LYNNE WALKER 1935-1967
• once Reese heard about Walker's rampage against one of Stegman's cars, with Stegman inside, Reese ordered Stegman to pursue Walker and kill him: "You find him. And you finish him"; in the noisy Movie House jazz nightclub featuring go-go dancers, pop art images being projected on screens, and a black soul singer (Stu Gardner) on stage singing "Mighty Good Times," Walker engaged in a brutal backstage fight against two thugs ordered by Stegman to attack him; the combatants were positioned before a swirling, kaleidoscopic and psychedelic backdrop of images behind them
• after Walker located his sister-in-law Chris in her place, she told him that she was resisting Reese and the entire Organization in their bid to take over the club: ("He makes my flesh crawl...I don't want any of them"); she complimented Walker: "You were always the best thing about Lynne"; she agreed to help him get to Reese and acquire money owed to him, and to seek revenge for Lynne's death ("I'll get him for you")
• Reese met with Frederick Carter (Lloyd Bochner), a senior member of the "Organization," to ask for help in eliminating Walker, who was seeking his $93,000 "share" from the Alcatraz "job"; Carter was upset that Reese only brought "trouble" and had cost the syndicate $150,000 dollars; Carter mentioned how he was overruled when Reese reentered the syndicate: ("I was against taking you back in, but I was overruled. Wherever you go, trouble finds you out"); Carter suggested a strategy: lie in wait and bait Walker into a trap: ("We'll let him know where you are. He'll come for you, won't he?")
• Chris had learned that Walker was being set up if he tried to get at Reese, who was found in his heavily-guarded penthouse on the top floor of the Huntley House hotel in Santa Monica, CA, run by the Organization; Walker and Chris cased the location by driving by, where she noted it was guarded like "Fort Knox"; she pointed out how difficult it would be to infiltrate the building and get at Reese: ("Men everywhere. You're gonna have a lot of trouble getting in, but you'll never get out"); Walker viewed the penthouse through a beachside telescope, and suggested that Chris might volunteer to be used as a "Trojan Horse" - to enter the penthouse for a sexual tryst (Walker to Chris: "How bad does he want you, Chris?"); she asked: "Why should I?"

Chris Telling Walker About Reese: "He makes my flesh crawl"	Sister-in-Law Chris and Walker Working Together to Locate Reese
Reese's Residence - Top Floor Penthouse in the Huntley House	With a Telescope, Walker Cased Reese's Residence with Chris

• as darkness fell over the area in the evening, Chris entered Huntley House and was escorted to the external elevator to take her into Reese's private penthouse residence; when he asked why she had changed her mind, she answered: "It's a woman's privilege. All good things come to those who wait"; he promised to take her to New York and fill up her empty suitcase

Chris: "All good things come to those who wait"	Reese Unbuttoning the Front of Chris' Dress	Reese with Chris in Bed Having Sex
Walker Holding a Gun on Reese	Walker's Assault on Reese: "I want my 93 grand now!"	The Death of Mal Reese - A Naked Fall From the Penthouse

• Walker created diversionary tactics (across the street from the Huntley) to be able to stealthily enter Reese's building; meanwhile, Chris had allowed Reese to unbutton the entire front of her beehive-striped dress before she began to seduce him in the bedroom (where she stripped naked and they began to have sex); Walker entered the garage undetected and was able to take the internal elevator to the top floor; Chris had cleverly locked the patio doors and requested the curtains to be closed, enabling Reese to apprehend, disarm and bind-gag Reese's two unsuspectiing gangster-guards on the balcony rooftop
• Chris was eagerly awaiting Walker's arrival - and was relieved when Walker barged in on them during sex and had a lethal confrontation with Reese, while Chris dashed to the bathroom in the background and was hastily dressing; Walker held a gun on Reese in the foreground, demanding his share of the heist money: "I want my 93 grand now"; Reese explained where the money was located: "I've given it all to the Organization"
• Walker was also able to pressure Reese to divulge the names of the corrupt, organized crime corporation's higher-up leaders - Fairfax, Brewster (Carroll O'Connor), and Frederick Carter (his superior boss), who had a secure Multiplex Products Company office on the 12th floor of the Stuart Building; and then, the naked, blanket-wrapped Reese was accidentally flung over the penthouse balcony railing and plunged to his death onto the street below, with Walker left holding his draped sheet covering
• after leaving the building in the chaos, Walker and Chris met up on the street, where Chris appeared disgusted by Walker's coldness, indifference and obsession with getting his money back; she bid him goodbye: "You let him fall? You should've killed him. You owe it to yourself....You died at Alcatraz, all right. Goodbye, Walker"
• Walker's next targets were the top leaders of the shadowy organization to whom Reese had paid back the money; Yost appeared at the scene and informed Walker of Frederick Carter's whereabouts; Walker confronted Carter in person at a public fund-raising event at an LA college campus ("I want something from you too...my $93,000...Yeah, it's my money"); Carter deflected Walker: "Reese owed us a sum, he paid it back. Any debt he has to you is his problem," but Walker insisted that his debt must still be paid: "It's your problem now"; he threatened: "If you don't, I'll kill you," and ordered: "I want my money in 12 hours"
• the next morning, Carter met with other "Organization" leaders, and selected Stegman to deliver the money at Walker's designated rendezvous point - the LA storm-drain river basin; Walker watched outside the Stuart Building as Stegman drove away toward the storm drain, and then broke into Carter's highly-secure office; at gunpoint, Walker insisted that Carter also be present at the pay-off; Walker sensed that it would be a treacherous set-up and that he might be swindled; once Walker and Carter arrived, Walker pushed Carter out into the open, and watched as both money-deliverer Stegman and Carter were mistakenly shot to death in broad daylight by Carter's hired sniper (James Sikking) with a high-velocity telescopic gun atop the 6th Street Bridge; the pay-off package-bundle carried by Stegman revealed that Walker's intuition had been correct - it was only filled with blank paper
• the next in the line of crime syndicate members sought by Walker was Brewster; Yost spoke to Walker of the location of Brewster's high-tech home (owned by the Organization) with an outdoor pool above Los Angeles; Brewster was soon expected back in town
• Walker drove to Chris' ransacked place, where she sarcastically told him: "I got well paid for fingering Reese"; they went out for a late night snack before Chris joined Walker at Brewster's home to await his arrival; Walker claimed she would be safer being with him; Chris expected the same pattern to repeat itself: "You'll ask him for the money, he'll say no, and you'll kill him"
• the frustrated Chris made a futile attempt to energetically and angrily throttle with her purse and pound both of her fists into Walker's chest, when she became fed up with his destructiveness; she also slapped Walker's face, to make him feel something, but her blows were ineffectual - she collapsed to the floor from exhaustion; he stood granite-like and motionless without flinching or reacting
• as part of her rampage (off-screen), while he flipped through TV channels with a remote control (briefly viewing an excerpt from Vincente Minnelli's The Cobweb (1955), and a Pond's cold-creme commercial); she proceeded to the kitchen and turned on all of the electrical appliances (toaster, mixer, blender, etc.), forcing Walker to follow after her and shut everything down; Walker also had to switch off the reel-to-reel tape on the hi-fi playing loud jazzy music, as Chris lazily danced; she also took to Brewster's PA system and blasted out a message to him: "You're a pathetic sight, Walker, from where I'm standing. Chasing shadows. You're played out. It's over. You're finished. What would you do with the money if you got it? It wasn't yours in the first place. Why don't you just lie down - and die?"
• Walker found her playing pool in the game room, where she knocked him on the head with her pool cue to daze and disorient him; the entire incident was followed by forceful love-making between them (although Walker's flashbacks during sex were interchangeable between many different partners - Walker with Chris and Lynne, and Reese with Lynne and Chris)

Walker (and Reese) with Interchangeable Sex Partners

• the Corporation's second-in-command Brewster arrived at a nearby airport the next day, where Carter's sniper was asking to be paid for botching the plan to kill Walker; Chris and Walker awakened in Brewster's home where she asked: "What's my last name?" and he responded in kind: "What's my first name?"
• Brewster was chauffeured to his home, where Walker ambushed him, demanded: "I want my $93 grand...I really want my money...Somebody's gotta pay," and forced him to phone his higher-up Fairfax: ("a man who signs checks"); as he dialed the phone to reach Fairfax, Brewster explained how the syndicate hardly dealt in cash anymore ("We deal in millions, we never see cash"); Fairfax promptly scoffed and refused to pay Walker: ("Threatening phone calls don't impress me"); incensed by the delay, Walker blasted the phone with his gun; Walker was promised by Brewster that his cash would be available during a once-a-week money drop (the same "Alcatraz run") in San Francisco: "The drop has changed, but the run is still the same" - Walker agreed but distrusted him (he remembered similar false promises in the past), although Brewster asserted: "You can trust me, Walker"
• in the film's final beguiling and strange sequence, Walker was with Brewster during the reception of $93,000 in a money drop-off in San Francisco at Ft. Point (an old Spanish mission), Walker again sensed an ambush and stayed mostly hidden and at a distance in the shadows; Brewster promised Walker that Fairfax would soon be dead: ("Fairfax is dead. Or he will be tomorrow"); they watched as the money-drop package was delivered via helicopter, afterwards, a hit-man sniper in the darkness shot Brewster as he called out: "Here's your money, Walker"
• as Brewster was dying, Yost appeared from the darkness - and Brewster identified him as Fairfax: ("This is Fairfax, Walker! Kill him!") - Yost was actually the top man and unseen puppet-master known as Fairfax

Yost Identified as Fairfax - the Top Man in the "Organization"

Sniper with Fairfax, and Brewster's Body Lying on the Ground

• after he had manipulatively used Walker to eliminate all of his underlings in the "Organization," Fairfax offered to hire Walker as an enforcer: ("Our deal's done, Walker. Brewster was the last one. He thought he could take over from me. Hey, Walker! Come on in with me. I've been lookin' years for someone like you (pause after no response from Walker) Well, come and get your money, then! Come on and get it. I pay my debts! Walker! Walker!")
• Walker listened from the dark shadows and remained silent as Yost's/Fairfax's sniper appeared; the two decided to leave the money and disappeared into the darkness after no response from Walker - possibly believing that Walker never showed up: ("Well, Walker, this is the last time. How do ya like that?...Leave it")
• the ending was ambiguous - did Walker take the money on the ground that was left for him? Did he realize the final prize was illusory and only another trap? Had his whole defiant search been one of complete futility?
• the film ended with a zoom-out from Brewster's body, a slight tilt upward, and then a slow tracking shot to the left from San Francisco over to a haunting, zoomed-in view of Alcatraz Island - Walker's final resting place? - was the entire film of his ramgage a revenge fantasy that had gone full circle?