There was a spate of ultra-gritty British crime thrillers in the early 1970s that I would argue were long on atmosphere and menacing subtext but short on plot. One could equate these movies with more in-depth American efforts of a similar genre such as Don Siegel’s “Dirty Harry” (1971), Peter Yates’ “Bullitt”(1968), William Friedkin’s “The French Connection”(1971) or Sam Peckinpah’s “The Getaway” (1972). Brit crime flicks of the early 1970’s that fit my aforementioned description include the malevolent “Villain” (1971) with Richard Burton, Mike Hodges’ searing “Get Carter” (also 1971) and “Sitting Target” (1972) with Oliver Reed. The latter has barely any plot to speak of, but it wasn’t the plot that makes this last effort compelling over Fifty years later, it’s an attitude and social outlook that reminds us that movie-making of the early 1970’s was as much about cinema’s reawakening of people’s self-introspection as it was questioning the social order around us.
“Sitting Target” has moments of surrealistic violence much like Martial Arts movies of it’s era, the action scenes almost carry the aura of movie musical numbers in their production values, staging and accentuated pay-off moments. The movie opens in similar fashion to the aforementioned “Get Carter” (“Get Carter”, unfortunately, has already had a dreadful remake done in the late 1990’s, where the remake missed out on all the tension from the original in terms of the protagonist’s isolation and introspection about his motives and just focused on vacuous macho posturing),which in the original, gangster Michael Caine gets high on pills during the credits and contemplates revenge while riding a British train as the groovy background music of Roy Budd pulses in the background. Here, in “Sitting Target”, we get similar hip-sounding music of composer Stanley Myers as an intense-looking Oliver Reed works out in his jail cell, a cell that looks more like college dorm rooms that I inhabited at one time.
Film Director Douglas Hickox, previously mentioned in this blog for his meticulous technical work on the Historical epic “Zulu Dawn” from 1979, creates a gangster film which at times slips into narratives that mirror some of the visually extreme methods that filmmakers were employing in the early 1970’s to accentuate imagery and in my opinion, experiment with new and different camera techniques and it works like a charm here. In an early scene between Reed as career criminal Harry Lomart, who’s in prison, and his estranged wife, Pat, played by the perfect-looking Jill St. John. The camera is used so it shows the two characters talking to each other through plexiglass on prison telephones, filming it so that the reflection of one character is shown at the same time as the other character. In another scene, a character is beaten to death and is subsequently sprawled out on a spiral staircase in front of a mirror that serves as wall art-deco. The ensuing camera shot exhibits multiple mirrored images of the deceased gangster. This is emblematic of the style of “Sitting Target”; the plot is extremely simple, almost non-existent except as a vessel for the film to establish it’s gritty hue of underworld cynicism. There are zero redeeming characters here, everybody sucks to one degree or another ethically, everyone’s on the take, everyone is fatally flawed.
Hickox’ direction in this film employs some of the surreal techniques that were in vogue in 1972, so even though there is a bevy of scenes involving sudden and brutish force, they are buffered by occasional long and thoughtful shots involving images that linger. One of the later action scenes involve process shots that can be either taken as hokey or effective dramatically, you are free to choose. For a crime film, and incidentally an English one, the feel of underworld menace is palpable, these characters all seem tense and ornery, everyone’s head seems as if they’re on a swivel and they’re shady to boot. The first third of the movie takes place in prison, Harry seems like one of the more dangerous dudes in lock-up, we’re not totally sure what his criminal specialty is, but we know he is locked up, he’s got a bunch of cash stowed away in a secret location and he carries with him a foul temper.
In a fantastically shot and acted early scene, Pat visits Harry in prison and informs him that if he is now doomed to be locked up in prison for fifteen years, she can’t go without sex for that long and she also coincidentally has already jumped the gun on that declaration and has gotten herself pregnant to another bloke. Oh, and she also wants a divorce. Harry responds well to this by attempting to break through the glass/plexiglass partition between them and strangle her with his bare hands. He later informs his sleazy buddy Birdy Williams (played by a young Ian McShane) that he needs to escape from prison immediately so he can finish what he started and kill his wife. The next hour and twenty minutes involves Harry escaping prison, hiding out in sketchy bungalows, dodging English bobbies and attempting to locate and kill his wife, that’s the plot.
The film’s strengths lie in it’s stellar cast, slick and well-executed production values, cop show music score and foggy anti-hero cynicism. It also has excellent cinematography, filmed in rich technicolor and Panavision by Cinematographer Edward Scaife, where it always looks like it’s going to rain in London town. The whole exploit is grimy, the tone is much like the previously mentioned “Get Carter” and “Villain”, there’s no moral compass amongst crooks and cops, everyone is on a kind of corrupt and unforgiving energy. Reed in this is impressive in that he is such a good actor he brings a sort of brooding depth to this that would have been lost with a prettier, less intense actor in the lead. Reed’s appearance, mannerisms and general behavior leads the viewer to think that he’s almost like a Special-Ed criminal or a guy with an extra Chromosome in his DNA. He looks pissed all the time as well, like it’s a mental condition. Whereas his partner in crime, played by Ian McShane is always looking to screw any Woman he can over-power or screw people over, regardless of gender, Harry’s motives seem more primitive. Aside from wanting to kill his wife, everything else is just survivalist street living. Oh, he might take a minute or two to clean his gun or punch someone in the face, aside from that, his daily itinerary schedule is free.
Reed appears quite believable as a prisoner, he’s got a menacing disposition and he’s a bigger chap than you might think with an actor. I think about other prison flicks from this era, like 1972’s “The Glass House” where a young Alan Alda is in lock-up and definitely looks like he would be somebody’s bitch, Reed looks like a dude you would not want to fuck with just from his temperament alone, his size seals the deal. If C.O.’s and wardens were looking for someone to easily fuck with or make an example of, Oliver Reed looks like a dude that would be low on their list.
With a slate of mediocre TV actors, this movie would be an afterthought, but it’s stellar and memorable cast brings a fair amount of intensity to this movie’s core. Starting with career sideman Freddie Jones as one of the criminals that escapes prison with Reed and McShane, Jones brings his usual seething and volatility to his brief role as a con. Edward Woodward as Inspector Milton, the officer in charge of watching over Pat, a somewhat silly premise in that Harry knows exactly where she is and how to get to her, in addition he has little trouble in getting to her. Woodward also has limited screen time, but his formidable acting skills always make him a welcome addition and he doesn’t disappoint, engaging in a harrowing fist fight with Reed on St. John’s apartment balcony, twenty flights up.
Robert Beatty plays a street-level arms dealer who “sells” Harry a dangerous street gun (A Mauser Broomhandle pistol) that is kept in a case, the gun comes apart and appears to have a retractable stock that turns into a hand-held machine gun. London police make a big deal about this, seeing that even by the early 1970’s, people who lived in English cities were not supposed to possess firearms. It’s interesting, too, because in American thrillers, there’s no question that everybody has a gun; good guys, bad guys, bystanders, yet in a British thriller from 1972 a gun is considered an unfair advantage. Another excellent English actor who makes an appearance in this and gets high billing in this is the always exceptional Frank Finlay, who plays a British gangster in a three-piece suit that isn’t in the film long enough.
Jill Townsend plays a sexy and demure kept Woman, whom the gangsters demean, beat up and pass around. There is a scene of tender introspection between her and Reed that doesn’t involve sex, but is sexy and shows both characters to be emotionally stunted and vulnerable. Reed’s character is a man of tunnel vision, he’s too obsessed with his need to get even with St. John that he can’t even look at other Women, I’ve been there. Though Townsend at times just appears to be there as a kind of gangster’s concubine, she bathes Reed as a Geisha would do and pleasures the greedy Birdy at his insistence. St. John as Pat is treated as a prize by both gangsters and police. She is given respect that other Women in this world are not, as exemplified by a scene in which after the prison escape, the escapees are treated to a free hooker by their getaway driver, who allows them to have their way with her in the back of a truck. With the exception of St. John, the Women in this depraved criminal world are treated as fuck objects who get slapped around if they are deemed too annoying.
Birdy Williams is a contemptuous underworld figure, he’s unlikable throughout. Whether he’s coercing wayward lasses into trysts, committing petty crimes or betraying his mates, there is nothing redeemable about him. McShane plays a similar role in “Villain” with Richard Burton, but in that film he is more the voice of reason and restraint. This is a very cynical film, everyone is motivated by unsavory goals. Jill St. John does a fine job of doing more with less, I’ve only seen her I feel like in action films where she is cheesecake, but it feels like she has real acting chops, maybe I’m just being hopeful because of her immaculate look. Here, she brings an unusual amount of frontal lobe energy, she’s a cagey fatale who can play victim when she needs to, yet also flip her switch and come with some real Cockney street girl vibe, whenever she is on screen, she is mesmerizing. The energy between her and Reed in the few scenes they have together is just spot on and frenetic, he’s just the right amount of crazy and obsessed, she’s just the right amount of frightened and emotionally ambivalent. The scenes where they are together are dynamite and this is my point; if St. John can be that effective with a great actor like Reed, maybe that speaks of her ability as well.
The script by Alexander Jacobs (From a 1970 novel written by Laurence Henderson) is way short on plot but high on grade A dialogue, yet what the plot nuances were I could not tell you besides the obvious if you tied me up and poured gasoline on me to make me talk. In “Sitting Target”, London is gray and looks like the season this was filmed in was either early Spring, late Fall or early Winter. There is an action scene in this that some might find overly stylized, I think it reminds me of bits from “Magnum Force”, which is another American crime film from that same year that uses plot to set up action scenes, rather than the other way around. It is funny to think that “Sitting Target” almost plays out in that regard like a sequel to a movie that never had an original. The scene in question from this movie involves Motorcycle cops riding through hanging laundry to find Harry and his mini machine-gun, the piercing blue lights on their bikes and the sounds of a pulsing musical sound emanating from the bikes setting the stage for a grandiose display of mayhem. This is an action movie where the action scenes and style and look provide the images that stay in your mind after it’s over, not the events of the scenes, that shit’s irrelevant. I got lost in the visuals and the movie’s uncompromising perspective.
With Composer Stanley Myers providing a soundtrack that is funky, bluesy, acid-rockish and contains some experimental synthesizer sounds as well, the sensation that we are in a cold-blooded existence is established and the film depends on Reed to carry the movie and he does in dramatic fashion. It’s a dominating performance. From the moment this movie starts in prison and we watch Reed working out by doing some kind of ceiling push-ups in his jail cell using old pipes to grip on to, the intensity begins. He creates an interesting, multi-dimensional character, he sells the character’s obsessive and focused behavior well, having little filter when it comes to controlling his feelings and emotions, he’s just out in the open.
Reed gives a performance of a Man who is potentially illiterate and prone to outbursts of frustration and violence. He brings a serious and nuanced performance to a not very serious movie and suddenly with the help of a great score, perfect-looking cinematography and creative and tight-looking art direction, this is an early 70’s action picture worth discussing. Like the crime wave flicks of the early 1970’s, “Sitting Target” is speaking in a rhythm and a timbre that felt like it was straight from the street and the ideology of such could have been seen as a downer for it’s nihilism and it’s lack of hope. Gangster movies of the early 1970’s were a kind of British noir where almost everyone involved character-wise is potentially violent, strategic, belligerent and ignorant. This is less a congruent action movie and more so a violent tone poem that is more about it’s climactic visuals than it is possessing a clever plot line.
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