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.
The Drowning Pool
At one point, I was set to buy this on ebay, believing that Strother Martin was in the film for a second Harper Story. It would have been for my companion blog, "The Strother Martin Film Project". When I looked closer at the credits, I realized that Strother does not appear in this film, so I skipped it and never ended up seeing it until this last weekend. In 1975, I could easily have skipped this simply because I had limited resources or availability. Although there were six screens within walking distance of where I lived, not everything played in my town.
This is a fish out of water story following Lew Harper, a private detective from California, who ends up in Louisiana, trying to help out a woman that he'd had an affair with several years earlier. The plot at first involves blackmail, but as things roll along, there is political corruption, bribery, kidnapping, murder and assorted other felonies that become part of the story. This is a sequel of sorts to "Harper" which did feature the same character that Paul Newman is playing and in which Strother did have a part. Since it was directed by Stuart Rosenberg, who had done "Cool Hand Luke" and "Pocket Money" with Newman and Martin in each, that's why I was confused.
Newman is a natural at playing an aw shucks, slightly disheveled, low key private investigator. Harper's persona is not unlike that of Jim Rockford from the TV series, they are both wise guys, eager to talk their way out of trouble rather than fight their way out, but willing to sucker punch someone in the right circumstances. Newman is playing against his real life wife Joanne Woodward, as Iris, his ex-flame. Melanie Griffith is an ingenue in the film, and she is in the middle of a busy year here. In 1975 she was previously in "Smile", and she will appear in "Night Moves" which was released the same month as this. Character actors Richard Jaeckel, Andy Robinson and Paul Koslo also are in the movie, but the most important other character was played by a co-star in the most important film of the year, decade, era and maybe ever.
Murray Hamilton plays the not very well disguised villain of the piece, J.H. Kilbourne, a wealthy oil baron, aching for the land that belongs to the family that Woodward's character Iris is a member of. There is a secondary villain that you can probably figure out but is much better hidden for the eventual reveal at the end of the film. Hamilton is an oily, self centered kook, with a slightly Cajon accent. His performance is very distinctive from his role as the feckless mayor of Amity in "Jaws". Hamilton worked primarily in television but had an important part in "The Graduate" and then his two biggest parts were the films that came out this year.
The movie is a diverting piece of slow burn southern mystery, that will not compel you to rewatch it but also will not irritate you for taking the time to check it off of your list. The sequence referred to in the title is actually pretty effective and it is all done in camera so it looks really good. Not an essential film from the era, but definitely has the vibe of all those other 70s films that you remember so well.
