For a long time the reputation of this movie lived in the shadow of the more famous 1946 version (which made Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner stars) but it has risen in recent years. I wasn't wild about it, though it has an amazing cast, led by Lee Marvin in outstandingly good form. Maybe modern day viewers are attracted to the idea of rehabilitating its reputation as well as the misogyny in the story (a lot of cult films are misogynistic).
The idea of the killers looking into the past of the man they have killed may have seemed fresh, but having raised a vaguely plausible reason for them to bother - they are keen to get their hands on a million dollars - this is basically dropped and it feels like the killers investigate out of interest, which doesn't make sense. While Lee Marvin's performance is excellent it's just weird that he's acting like a cop and also that Clu Gulager (as his very 60s hitman offsider - sunglasses, talking jive) goes along with it.
Its not really a complex story: a woman is responsible for all the bad things, here played by Angie Dickinson. She's mistress to Ronald Reagan, but leads on driver John Cassevetes, and eventually betrays the latter. Everyone gets what's comin' to 'em.
Dickinson is beautiful, Cassevetes does the doomed tormented victim thing, Norman Fell and Claude Akins flesh out the support cast. There are some effective moments, such as the finale, lots of slapping and the opening scene where Marvin and Gulager threaten a school principal then make their very public way to track down Cassevetes (NB I thought hired killers were a bit more subtle). But it's an ugly looking movie - with garish colour and that flat Universal TV appearance - and Ronald Regan isn't that good, despite the novelty of him playing an out and out baddie.
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