Now imagine fusing the ethnic gang movie to that fear of the hinterlands, then toss in a solid badass like Lee Fucking Marvin, and you've got 1972's Prime Cut.
This classic represents the dawning of New Hollywood, where even legendary good guys like Marvin started to trade hats with villains, and the violence of film life--whether physical or mental--started to deliver a real shock to viewers. Prime Cut belongs to a certain class of two-fisted thrillers like Charley Varrick, which dabble in social commentary in between action setpieces. They have enough substance to make you think, but enough punch to keep you entertained.
Tragically, they're almost as overlooked as Prime Cut's star. Somehow, Marvin has slipped off the cultural radar. He was somehow a more subtle presence than icons like Bogey or John Wayne. He didn't go looking for trouble; trouble came waltzing up to him. And if you weren't seeking out that stony gaze, set into a face that looks like a fortress wall, then Marvin is the guy you might pass right by on the street, or sit next to at the bar without a glance.Fittingly, that's where he is at the beginning of Prime Cut. He plays Nick Devlin, Irish muscle that has paid his dues in Chicago's gangland. Things are quiet now; most of the important scores have been settled, and Devlin wants to enjoy his retirement on a barstool.
But there are rumblings down in Kansas City, where a redneck nemesis named Mary Ann--played with sickening down-home charm by Gene Hackman--has sent the mob's debt collectors home wrapped in butcher paper. Mary Ann is a carnivore, and sees everything in terms of weighable, sellable meat. Bagmen just happen to make mighty fine sausage links.
When it becomes clear the meat's not kosher, you can read the disgust on Devlin's face--and thus begins the interesting, if sometimes queasy, judgment of the film. Devlin kills for the mob, but to him, there are golden rules. Mary Ann breaks this questionable honor among thieves in horrible ways, like drugging teenage orphans and auctioning them out of hay-lined pens, just like livestock.
By the film's end, the culture war between these two men starts to thud, but there are brilliant moments when we ride Devlin's shoulder, looking at small-town America with bemusement and an arched eyebrow. One of the film's sharpest scenes comes after we've been introduced to Mary Ann, his scuzzy, possibly inbred brother Weenie, and their depraved meat-packing operation. Then we see a montage of a small-town fair, complete with pie-eating contests, milk tastings and turkey shoots. And right in the center of it are these two villains, dressed in their Sunday clothes while handing out blue ribbons and patting the neighborhood kids on the head.
"My family were Americans while yours were still picking bugs out of potatoes," Mary Ann tells Devlin in this scene. Marvin's character is there on business, but trapped on his enemy's turf, you can tell the animosity between them is personal, and has as much to do with who they are as what they've done to one another in the past. But the history matters, too: When Mary Ann reminds Devlin this isn't Chicago, with "no loops, no taxis" to let him get away, you realize this is really the second great showdown between these two mobsters.
Of course, people watch Lee Marvin movies for a dose of Lee Marvin, not Noam Chomsky. The social critique steps aside while Devlin beats down goons, runs from overall-wearing farmboys toting shotguns, and in one very weird echo of North By Northwest, outruns a combine harvester. This film answers the question about who would win in a game of chicken--a sedan or a combine harvester. You can guess the answer, and yes, it's some pretty awesome carnage.
It's on YouTube, but only in Spanish - not that the dialogue matters.
Later on, there's a haunting scene where rolling hills carpeted with sunflowers turn into a gruesome killing field, and viewers get what they paid for: Lee Marvin with a machine gun.
If you've seen the DVD cover for Prime Cut, you know that a very young and sunny Sissy Spacek stars as one of the girls in the orphan auction. Marvin rescues her, and there's a brief paternal friendship between the two, but it's sadly undercooked. In one great scene, the upper class gets sent up when Marvin buys Spacek a sheer dress, scandalizing the fine dining set at a hotel restaurant. The relationship between the two of them is interesting, but thin, and feels like an afterthought. Spacek is an accomplished actress, but doesn't get the lines to round out her character past the role of "waif."
As an action film, Prime Cut is just what it's title implies. But it's the sense of place and culture that makes this movie worth seeking out for cinephiles. I think it represents a turning point in American film, when even the traditional, square-jawed heroes were entering a much darker vision of America. It's a little uncanny that, a year before Prime Cut's release, Gene Hackman played a good cop gone bad in The French Connection, establishing the fascinating moral gray zone that cinema was entering. The truth is, you'd never catch Marvin playing Popeye Doyle. He was always going to be the white hat, even if he worked for the mob, and even if he seemed so good that the juxtaposition sometimes seems awkward.
But it's not a bad thing, even if you love New Hollywood's inherent gloom and doom (as I do). Marvin's grizzled street warrior never lost his cool--not in the '70s, and certainly not today.
