Throwback Thursday #TBT
Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don't see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy.
Breakout
It's been a month since I posted one of these Throw Back Thursdays films, in that time I have traveled literally from one side of the country to the other. So many logistics have been involved that it has not been reasonable for me to catch up on a film for the purpose of this series. One thing however that I did do while pausing the viewing of films from 1975, was acquire a couple of those films for later use. Today's film would be one of those. I was sure I had a copy of the Charles Bronson/Robert Duvall film in my collection, but when I went to find it, there was no disc or box. I was puzzled because I wrote about this movie back in 2016, but I guess I must have watched it on one of my services. Thankfully Kino Lorber had a nice Blu-Ray with extras. [By the way, while writing this I went to the Kino Lorber site and dropped a bundle]
This is a terrific Bronson film that came out right after "Death Wish" and right before "Hard Times" so it is in the sweet spot of his most productive era. The film was also on the cusp of the new marketing strategy by the film studios of front loading their films into as many locations as possible, simultaneously. This strategy would be revolutionized by the film "Jaws" the very next month after this was released. Get paid now instead of slowly rolling out your film. With heavy advertising the movie did quite well and returned a profit with a couple of weeks.
"Breakout" is based on a real life prison break from Mexico, by a shady character who was accused of murdering his shady partner, but the body was not identifiable and the convicted guy proclaimed his innocence vehemently. For legal reason, the producers never refer to the book that the film is made from and they don't even use the famous "inspired by true events" tag. The Mexican government was not happy that a movie was being based on the real escape, the first to use a helicopter, and the film makers tried to distance themselves from the story because there was also an implication that a relative of the convicted man was framing him to keep an inheritance out of his hands.
Robert Duvall plays the prisoner, and he does most of his acting with a look of stupor on his face. The character is going mad, drinking excessively, and is physically declining so that gives the plot a sense of urgency. Jill Ireland plays his loyal wife who is plotting escapes but not having a great deal of success. She hires Bronson, a plane pilot with some smuggling background to help her get her husband out before he just gives up the ghost. There are some effective scenes when she visits him in prison and she struggles with the unwanted attention from the guards who search her and a lack of desire to have a conjugal visit in the pigsty of a room that she and her husband are given. Ireland was a beautiful woman but sometimes a bit wooden as an actress. Here though, she acquits herself quite well opposite Duvall. Even though her character loves her husband, she does have a rather flirty relationship with the impish pilot played by Bronson. He seems to be doing the job as much for her as for the money, and he develops a big crush on his client.
John Huston, who had just starred in "Chinatown" the previous year, and was getting ready to shoot "The Man Who Would be King", did one day of work on the film as the mysterious grandfather of Duvall's character. It is very murky why he is working against Duvall, it seems to be tied up with something in their business but those exposition scenes were apparently cut and Huston is only on screen for about two and a half minutes in three brief scenes. Randy Quaid plays Bronson's partner and he gets involved in the plot at one point by trying to dress in drag and connect with Duvall in the prison. This was the second of two escape plans that failed before Bronson lights on the helicopter idea.
The prison scenes will remind you of why you never want to go to jail in Mexico, and the corruption starts at the beginning with the murder of the Man that Duvall is supposed to have killed. He does have a companion in the jail who is sympathetic and facilitates the plan, unfortunately, unlike in the real life incident, he does not make it out with his friend and that is the button on the end of all the visual promotion material for the film. To make the actual escape more engaging and exciting, someone has to die and that is going to be the loyal Mexican compadre of Duvall.
Charles Bronson plays a different kind of character her, much closer to the pre-murder Paul Kersey in his earlier film than the vigilante that Kersey becomes. While not as slyly humorous as his turn in "From Noon till Three", it is still a comic performance and he nails it pretty well. If you have not seen this film, I would recommend it to you, it is a couple of hours well spent with one of the great action stars of a different and earlier generation.
