'70s Blood & Guts: "Eddie Coyle" & "Alfredo Garcia"

I'll be the first to admit that sometimes there is no logic to my taste in movies. I don't like horror films or grossout comedies, but I do like a gritty, well-done action, thriller, or gangster movie. Yes, I can overlook violence, misogyny, and even racist overtones as part of the experience of the story in whatever world the director is trying to depict. You have to see these things before you can have an informed reaction.

So, flash back to 2009 when I was living in Los Angeles. It was a rainy Friday afternoon and I was on the phone with my dear friend Scott, who told me that he was going to an American Cinematheque presentation at the historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood to see these two rare ‘70s "guy" flicks. I admit that the combination of hanging with my best movie-going pal, seeing the unique architecture of a classic Hollywood movie palace like the Egyptian, and the prospect of a testosterone double feature set in the '70s was catnip to this fan. I drove like a bat out of hell in the rain to get to the event.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

First on the bill was a grim little crime gem called The Friends Of Eddie Coyle, directed by Peter Yates (Bullitt, Mother, Jugs & Speed, The Deep, Breaking Away, among others). Adapted from a novel by George V. Higgins, this hard-boiled flick features a broken-down, middle-aged Robert Mitchum as a bakery truck driver who also deals in stolen guns. His loose-knit gang of bank-robbing pals have just pulled off a sloppy series of bank jobs and it's Eddie who has to keep them supplied with weapons. Meanwhile, he's trying to maneuver his way out of going back to jail on a driving-stolen-goods rap. With a wife, a mortgage, and thoughts of spending his golden years relaxing, Eddie mulls whether to squeal on his pals in exchange for leniency in his case. He's caught between giving the feds enough tips to make arrests, and not giving away so much info that he'll rouse suspicion among his gang. Let’s just say that there is no honor among criminals and Eddie hasn't a clue as to who his friends are.

Mitchum, whose history playing dozens of heavies and leading men in Hollywood is long behind him here, plays it way down as a taciturn, former up-and-comer who's now too old for the game. He's marvelous for the simple fact that he is not trying to act, other than struggling with a consistent Boston accent. Mitchum's world-weary Eddie does his best to use his wits, formulating a plan that will keep him from ratting out the linchpins of the bank robbing game and still earn him some money, while keeping himself out of prison and the graveyard.

Unfortunately, things don't go as planned; a pal who's been informing all along pins the squealing it on Eddie, who hasn't a clue. And here the picture goes against the standard Hollywood wisdom of having the hero survive against all odds -- Eddie Coyle catches a bullet in the head before the picture creeps to a close. But Eddie wasn’t a hero — he was a mook trying to outmaneuver a bunch of other mooks, and that's the brilliance of the movie: sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and Eddie loses.

Friends of Eddie Coyle is a tough flick, filmed in that fuzzy, near-sepiatone color stock, with great dialogue and superb performances by Mitchum, Peter Boyle as his bar-tending informer pal, and Richard Jordan as his FBI contact. Admittedly some of the nuances of the plot are easy to miss on first viewing, and a couple of the scenes seem to be played for laughs. I attended college in Boston in the late '70s, so it's sheer nostalgia to see Government Center, Faneuil Hall, the old Boston Garden, and the MBTA trolley system and hear the heavy Boston dialect again. One caveat: The story concerns Irish hoods from Southie and the Bopston 'burbs, so they have some not-so-politically-correct things to say about people of color. The Friends of Eddie Coyle got good reviews at the time, but you don't hear too many people talking about it these days. See it with the Sean Penn starrer Mystic River for a sense of continuity.

Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

OK, so I read a lot. I'd gleaned that Sam Peckinpah had a reputation as a director who employs a great deal of screen violence in his storytelling. I hadn't seen a Peckinpah flick until this night. My reaction: Oh Lord. This picture is so insane, I mean, it’s out there. I had caught little bits and pieces of Garcia on TV, which was required to censor it to pieces, but never saw it all the way through. I'd always liked the affable and offbeat Warren Oates; because he’s the star I had assumed that he plays the titular Alfredo Garcia. But, no. His character is shallow, sleazy, conniving, insensitive, and sarcastic. But it's Oates, so you can't help rooting for him.

Oates plays Bennie, an American ex-pat piano player at a bar in Mexico. When a call goes out from a wealthy Mexican underworld don to have this Garcia’s head on a stick in revenge for his young daughter’s pregnancy, Bennie hears about it and decides that this is an opportunity knocking for a lucky money day. So, although he finds out from his Mexican prostitute girlfriend that Garcia, her former lover, is already dead, Bennie is undeterred. He makes a deal with El Jefe's henchmen -- who don't yet know the quarry is deceased -- to hunt down Garcia for a hefty price. Then, with his girlfriend Elita in tow, Bennie sets out to drive across Mexico to the town where Garcia was born. The plan is to dig up Garcia’s head out of the grave, deliver it to Big Man and get his big payoff. Except things go horribly, horribly wrong.

Forces are arrayed against him. He's not the only one searching for Garcia, and then there are the dead man's relatives to consider. Bennie finally gets the stinking, fly-speckled, bloody, decapitated head into his possession but the price is steep. Dozens die along the way; and in the end, Bennie loses his girl, his sanity, and finally his life.

I tell you, images from this flick have haunted my sleep. And not because it was too gory or violent, though it was that, but because Oates was so freaking convincing and the cinematography was so good. Some of the lines are classic, too. Bennie to two guys, one of them Kris Kristofferson, who are holding them up to rape the girlfriend: “You guys are definitely on my shit list.” I mean, that’s an understatement! And so funny. When Bennie and Elita get a crummy room for the night in the little town where Garcia is buried, and Elita is looking doubtful, Bennie says: “Have you ever been drunk in Fresno? This is a palace.” He also has crazy scenes where he’s having long conversations with Garcia’s head in the front seat of his car.

Just – wow. Glad I saw it. But as in Eddie Coyle, the protagonists learn that when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Eddie and Bennie know the score, they know the risks of their lifestyles. For both Bennie and Eddie Coyle, the journey ends up being fatal.