Greg lent me his 2 disc set of The Nickel Ride and 99 and 44/100% Dead. Both are 1974 crime movies that are very different. The Nickel Ride is a darker bleaker mob drama and 99 and 44/100% Dead is a fairly comic gangster action picture. It's an Anchor Bay dvd and there aren't much by way of extras, just some trailers. Both are widescreen and look fairly good.
Richard Mulligan directed the movie and Eric Roth wrote the screenplay to The Nickel Ride. Mulligan directed several fairly well known films; most of which are missing from my list of movies watched. I've seen a good number of films since I started writing them down in 1989. When I finished typing the movies I saw in 2011 onto the list the total is now over 6300. I haven't any idea how many more before that but with what I've seen this year and before 1989 it could be near 10,000. Roth wrote a lot of really big films most of which I'm just not interested in seeing. Jason Miller, who played the young priest in The Exorcist the year before, plays Coop, a guy who works for the mob. He's in charge of some warehouses that are filled with stolen goods. The mob needs more space and Coop is working on a deal that just isn't coming together. His mob boss is riding hard on him and there's some friction. They push, he pushes back and things sink lower and lower until it all busts apart. Linda Haynes, who I had just seen on Latitude Zero last sunday is Coop's girlfriend. They met when he worked as a carny and she was a cooch girl. Bo Hopkins plays the smiling glib talking cowboy killer sent by the boss to keep en eye on Coop. Other things go wrong and when the cop pulls out of the deal it looks bad for Jason. Fearing his boss and Bo might not stop at killing him, he sends Linda away. The movie moves along at a meandering pace pretty much up to the end. There's not much action, a brief fight or two, and a longer one near the end. Mostly it's sad, sort of realistic, and not much fun. It's still a pretty good movie just not one I would want to watch much again.
I'd watch 99 and 44/100% Dead again. It more comic and there's plenty of action. John Frankenheimer directed the movie from a script by Robert Dillion. John's film list is a pretty decent one though it tends to skew to the dramatic. I haven't seen a lot of them. He died in 2002 at age 72. His commentary on Reindeer Games was pretty entertaining. He re-did it completely for the director's cut dvd and the second one was equally entertaining. I kept both copies of the film just so I could listen to those commentaries again. Robert has written several interesting and entertaining films in his 50 year career. I have some of his early works like X The Man With The X-Ray Eyes and William Castle's The Old Dark House but know little of his recent work. Richard Harris is a hired gun that mob boss Edmond O'Brien brings back to New York City to help him battle upstart mob boss Bradford Dillman. Ann Turkel plays a 3rd grade school teacher who used to have something going with Richard when he lived there. His drifts back into her life and that puts her in danger from Dillman's mob. Working for him is Chuck Conners, playing Marvin "The Claw" Zuckerman, who's a right horrible piece of shit. He likes hurting women and he's got a yen for vengence againt the man who cut off his hand. Guess who that was? It was that past encounter that caused Richard to leave town after Chuck's hand left him. Chuck's got a bunch of gadgets for that stump that might make you think you're watching Get Smart. The Claw is a guy who needs to dies a nicely horrible and violent death. There's lying and double crossing, kidnapping and murder and it's all delivered at a nice fast pace. Occasionally there's a bit of romance or some yakking but soon enough the bullets start flying again. There's a fairly well done script that sure made up for the rather low key and sad film I had seen before. I enjoyed it. I might not run out and order one but I'm glad I saw it.
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