Machine Gun McCain (1969/Blue Underground Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Sound: C+ Extras: B- Film: B-
Even in
the late 1960s, the Gangster genre was going by archetypes established in the
1930s when sound film allowed the genre to break out. The original Film Noir period (1941 – 1958)
brought the greatest realism to such characters, then things began going
backwards in larger Hollywood films on the
subject until the late 1960s, when a new wave began to take hold in independent
filmmaking. Giuliano Montaldo’s Machine Gun McCain (1969) may be an
Italian production in part, but thanks to its cast and locations, it still is
as much a U.S.
indie film as anything.
No less
than the great John Cassavetes is the title character, just getting out of
prison after 12 years for an armed robbery he did not get away with. In his absence, he has been forgotten and
betrayed, so he decided to go to Las
Vegas to steal an even larger fortune and get revenge
on those who turned against him.
Longtime Cassavetes’ collaborator Peter Falk and Gabriele Ferzetti (Once Upon A Time In The West, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) are
among those playing the gangsters, Britt Ekland (The Man With The Golden Gun, The
Double Man) is “the girl” and even the great Gena Rowlands (the real life
Mrs. Cassavetes with her own long, great acting history) makes an appearance.
Montaldo
and his Grand Slam (1967)
collaborator Mino Roli adapted the screenplay from Ovid Demaris’ book Candyleg
and came up with a story that may seem familiar, yet has a certain edge,
rawness and realism that is only amplified by the performances, locations,
editing and framing. Cassavetes’
independently directed Faces the year before just became a landmark classic and
his presence has a new cache that even his great, noticeable work before did
not and he always had presence.
In some
ways, the film has dated, so it is not as smooth as Godfather 2 or explicit as GoodFellas,
but it is still a key film in the genre because between 1958 and 1972, it is
one of the few Gangster genre films that do not feel restricted, obsolete and
phony. Hollywood lost all kinds of money trying to
pull off what is done here on a lower budget and especially with new interest
in the genre; there could not be a better time for this well-made thriller to
arrive on Blu-ray. It had been years
since I had seen it and it holds up well enough considering its age and the
changes in the genre.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image was shot in the Techniscope format and was
lensed by Director of Photography Erico Menczer with great, big, larger, wide
usages of the scope frame. Considering
how much smaller the negative is for this 35mm format, this looks good, even as
compared to the superior Blu-ray for the Elvis classic Viva Las Vegas (1963, reviewed elsewhere on this site) which was
shot in larger-frame Panavision and looks better than many films made today,
but what we now think of as older Las Vegas has always been a visual character
in storytelling and much of its color still comes through in this
transfer. It will be interesting to
compare to the upcoming Blu-rays of the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever (1971, also in Panavision and already on DVD),
the 1959 black and white Twilight Zone
episode The Fever (due in the Season One Blu-ray set) and a DVD
standby telefilm with great Vegas footage that we would love to see on Blu-ray,
John Moxey’s The Night Stalker (1972,
DVD reviewed elsewhere on this site) as older filmed tales of Vegas at its best
and best looking.
There are
some soft spots and of course, some grain, but this film was originally issued
in three-strip Technicolor and you can see how good that must have looked in
more than a few shots here. Also, there
is a conscious attempt not to allow this to look to clean and manicured, so the
chosen style is part of the look. A DVD
could never look this good of this film.
The DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) lossless 1.0 Mono is pretty good for its age, with clean
dialogue and limited distortion, though you can still hear the limits of the
low-budget recording technology.
However, it features a score by no less than Ennio Morricone in his
early glory and that is one of the reasons the film also holds up to this
day. Too bad there were not stereo
versions of this score available, as Blue Underground could have remixed this
for at least simple stereo.
Extras original
Italian and English theatrical trailers and an on-camera interview with
Director Montaldo. Anyone who likes
mature, realistic film, real acting or Gangster thrillers should put Machine Gun McCain on their must-see
list. In the case of this Blu-ray, maybe
they should make that must-own.
- Nicholas Sheffo
