Category: Directed by Peter Yates

Bullitt (1968, Peter Yates)

Bullitt is from the period when Hollywood wasn’t calling the Mafia the Mafia yet—it’s “The Organization” here—and none of the mobsters had Italian names, but they are mostly Italian (heritage) actors. It’s especially funny because part of Bullitt’s conceit hangs on WASPs like up-and-coming senator Robert Vaughn not being able to tell Italians apart.

But that inability figures into Bullitt’s solution, which is beside the point. It’s such a nothing burger, the whole thing gets explained in two and a half lines as lead Steve McQueen and sidekick Don Gordon head off to the next set piece. Because while the film’s all about McQueen’s investigation, it’s about McQueen investigating. The film’s a character study of a hotshot San Francisco detective during one of his cases, and, despite the property damage, it might not even be one of his biggest cases. We don’t know. Vaughn wants him on the case because McQueen makes good press, but there’s never any press in the movie.

And we do see the occasional newspaper. Director Yates is hyper-focused on McQueen, though that focus doesn’t mean we get the full procedural. We don’t even see the resolution to the elaborate, exquisite car chase. Instead, we skip ahead to the next time McQueen’s going to do something idiosyncratic.

So, despite being (apparently) beloved by his fellow coppers, McQueen is very much not a regular cop. He hangs out with a happening crowd, dating British architect (I mean, she’s working on an architecture project) Jacqueline Bisset. She doesn’t know about his work life, and he likes to keep it that way. For good reason, it turns out. While there are probably a couple significant events in McQueen’s character’s work life covered in the film, the tack-on subplot about his girlfriend realizing he’s around poor people in poor places all day and not liking it seems the most consequential one.

Though, who knows, because the most relationship-building the film does for McQueen and Bisset has him being charming and then admiring. Otherwise, he’s a little busy with work.

The film opens with a gorgeous titles sequence (from Pablo Ferro Films) and expressive Lalo Schifrin music recounting a mob accountant getting away from goons in Chicago. In some ways, the titles set the tone for the film; in other ways, very much not. For instance, Schifrin’s score will barely figure in during the main action; Yates is far more interested in the diegetic sound; John K. Kean has the sound credit, with Duane Hansel, the uncredited sound editor. They do singular work. Bullitt’s got its share of genre and style innovations, but the sound design is on a whole other level.

However, the camerawork in the titles is similar to the rest of the film. Yates and cinematographer William A. Fraker alternate between vérité and precise movement. Yates likes his crane shots too, even limited ones indoors—lots of Bullitt is about watching people work and listening to the environment around them. More specifically, it’s about watching McQueen watch people work. The first major dramatic sequence in the second act involves ER doctor Georg Stanford Brown operating while McQueen (and eventually Vaughn) wait. Vaughn’s agitated, McQueen’s… seemingly not, seemingly reserved, but what’s under the surface? Yates points the camera at McQueen and inspects, which he’s already established as a motif in the first act (when McQueen’s admiring Bisset). Such good direction.

Until the third act, when Bullitt becomes a detached action thriller—with Yates, Fraker, editor Frank P. Keller, and the sound department all using previously established techniques on a giant set piece set at the airport—it’s all about watching McQueen’s face, his eyes, his breaths; waiting for him to act and react.

Other characters get similar inspection too. Usually, when dealing with McQueen or Vaughn, but also not: cabbie Robert Duvall takes it all in from the first scene in San Francisco, as the mob accountant turned witness works his way around town. Police captains Simon Oakland and Norman Fell both especially get to stare daggers while waiting on McQueen and Vaughn. But bad guys John Aprea and Bill Hickman watching McQueen (or, more accurately, his car) is maybe the most remarkable since Yates and Keller are implementing the technique in the middle of a car chase. Again, such good direction.

Most of the performances are outstanding. McQueen’s spell-binding; Oakland, Duvall, and Brown all have great moments. Vaughn’s a piece of shit politician, so he’s somewhat limited, but he’s real good at it. Similarly, Bisset’s a little too thin, but she’s fine. No time for love or architecture in Bullitt. Gordon’s a good sidekick and the occasional comic relief. He and McQueen have fantastic rapport, which makes their scenes work more than the dialogue.

The script—credited to Alan Trustman and Harry Kleiner, based on a Robert L. Fish’s novel not starring a character named Bullitt (and written under the pen name Robert L. Pike)—is terse and willfully obtuse at times. Bullitt feels like Yates and Keller, especially, made it in the editing studio, but who knows, maybe Trustman and Kleiner really did write it so remote. There are some great one-liners, though; it’s not overtly macho but enthusiastic about its procedural jargon–such a strange, transfixing combination.

Fraker’s photography is glorious and would be the easy technical standout if it weren’t for Keller’s peerless cutting.

The third act’s got a handful of problems, but Bullitt weathers them well thanks to McQueen, Yates, Keller, Fraker, and company. It’s a masterful piece of work.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973, Peter Yates)

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is an amusing, intentionally misleading title. Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum) doesn’t have any friends. He has various criminal contacts he sees on a regular basis, but he doesn’t consider any of them friends. Mitchum’s a down-on-luck small-time crook who’s about to go away for a couple years. He didn’t rat, which just makes Peter Boyle–who set up the crappy job for Mitchum–even more of a jerk for teasing Mitchum about his impending doom.

Mitchum just wants to stay out so his family doesn’t have to go on welfare. It could be a tragic story, but Mitchum’s not really the focus of the film. Instead, it’s fairly even divvied between The Friends.

Boyle works at a bar where the criminals hang out and he spies on them for federal agent Richard Jordan. Mitchum also tips off Jordan on occasion. Jordan’s merciless without being cruel. He goes out of his way not to be cruel, just merciless.

Then there’s the other half of The Friends. Alex Rocco and Joe Santos are bank robbers. Mitchum supplies their guns, buying them from Steven Keats. Keats is a relative newcomer to gun dealing and a lot of the film follows him and his methodical approach to his trade. Rocco and Santos’s bank heists are similarly elaborate. Yates likes the procedural scenes. Pat Jaffe’s editing on these sequences is exquisite; they lacks dramatic weight, but they’re still masterfully executed.

Some of the problem with Friends’s dramatic weight is, frankly, Dave Grusin’s boppy score. The style might be contemporarily appropriate, but it still needs to fit the action and carry the drama. The score’s usually silly in procedural scenes and it’s fine. It doesn’t get in the way. But then when the film needs Grusin to carry some dramatic weight? Especially during the problematic third act. By then, the film’s given up on a consistent narrative rhythm and Grusin’s got to move scenes forward. The music needs to do something special. It needs to payoff.

It doesn’t.

Paul Monash’s script maybe could be better. The Friends are usually humanized in way to not make them seem bad. Even Keats, who’s only onscreen when he’s being a creep, gets humanized. But not Peter Boyle. He’s just a bad guy. Mitchum’s top-billed, plays the title character, and he practically could get an “and” credit. If it weren’t for the bank robber subplot, the film would go from being about Keats to being about Boyle and Jordan. Monash gets through it, maybe trying a little hard on the Boston criminal vocabulary, which often makes expository dialogue clunk. It’s just clear there’s got to be a better way to do this story. Monash’s script doesn’t crack it.

Yates’s direction is good. Best on procedural stuff because he too can’t figure out how to maintain consistent distance from the characters. Even though he’s second-billed and does more than Mitchum, the film’s not comfortable relying on Boyle. Instead it goes to Jordan, who’s good and all, he’s just not compelling.

Mitchum’s great. Keats’s great. Rocco and Santos are good. They don’t have a lot to do. Jordan’s good. Boyle’s good. With Boyle, there’s a definite disconnect between how Boyle’s doing the performance and how Yates’s shooting it. Boyle needs to be spellbinding. He’s not. He’s just good.

And, similarly, The Friends of Eddie Coyle is good. With some unfortunate qualifications.

This post is part of the “It Takes a Thief” Blogathon hosted by Debbie of Moon in Gemini.

John and Mary (1969, Peter Yates)

Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow are John and Mary, respectively, and they’ve just woken up after spending the night together. They met at a singles bar. Is it going to be a one night stand or is it going to be something more?

Both come with some baggage, though of different varieties. Farrow’s last serious relationship was with a married politican (Michael Tolan); they spent a lot of their time hiding from his family. Hoffman, on the other hand, had a model ex-girlfriend (Sunny Griffin) who moved in with him and wasn’t a good cook. Seeing as Hoffman’s a neat freak and a control freak, it didn’t work out.

John Mortimer’s screenplay uses a handful of techniques to fill in the backstory. For a while, there’s narration from both Hoffman and Farrow–the film takes place over a day, with the narration mostly taking place in the morning–then there are flashbacks (featuring Tolan and Griffin) and daydreams. Director Yates plays with how the flashbacks and daydreams relate to the present action–he and Mortimer end up using them to generate confusion to cause suspense for the viewer, which is effective enough… only it’s a little cheap.

Despite excellent cinematography from Gayne Rescher and production design from John Robert Lloyd–most of the present action takes place in Hoffman’s apartment, with the flashbacks (and daydreams) expanding to New York City–Yates doesn’t have a tempo for any of it. Farrow’s more compelling than Hoffman, but not because of her writing or because of how Yates directs her; she’s sympathetic. From the start, Hoffman’s a jerk. And as the film peels back the onion, he gets jerkier as things progress.

Yates and Mortimer lean the film’s entire weight on the effectiveness of third act reveals, only all those reveals are with the time shift gimmicks. There aren’t any character development reveals. Sure, it’s only a day, but Hoffman and Farrow’s performances don’t gain anything from all the flashback exposition. That particular failing is more Mortimer’s fault than Yates’s, however.

Though if Yates had come up with better–read, any–integration of the film’s various moving parts, he’d probably have been able to compensate.

Instead, John and Mary gets by thanks to Farrow and Hoffman’s performances. She’s got a better character, turns in a better performance. He’s Dustin Hoffman, he’s got some inherent likability–even if the film does sledgehammer away at it, particularly in the first act. When he does get big moments in the script, no one really knows what to do with them. They’re all kind of trite; someone–Yates, Mortimer, or Hoffman–needs to have a handle on the character. None do. Yet Hoffman is still able to get through. He wouldn’t be able to without Farrow.

John and Mary’s not bad. It’s just not successful. Yates is way too blasé about the whole thing.

Breaking Away (1979, Peter Yates)

For a “traditional” underdog story, Breaking Away is exceeding complex. It opens with Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern and Jackie Earle Haley; neither Steve Tesich’s script nor Yates’s direction emphasizes any over another. Actually, Quaid’s loudmouth gets the most emphasis.

Then the film introduces Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley as Christopher’s parents and it becomes clear Away will be focused around him. Besides Christopher, only Haley gets any time away from the group (though the group occasionally appears independent of Christopher). I haven’t gotten to how Tesich introduces both major challenges in the film well into its second act.

Meanwhile, there’s Yates’s direction, which is focused on the friendship but also the quietness of the town they live in. Cynthia Scheider’s editing and the sound design are major stars in the picture, especially once the bicycle racing gets more important.

But wait, I forgot to mention Dooley and Barrie have a story independent of Christopher. They orbit him and his friends’s arc, occasionally popping in, but Away is more like seven stories in one. Yates and Tesich show glimpses of the secondary ones; if they’d given them all emphasis, it’d probably run seven hours.

All the acting is outstanding, though Stern has the least to do of the primaries. Quaid and Haley have the hardest jobs; Haley’s the better of the two, but both excel. Christopher’s fantastic.

Dooley and Barrie are wonderful.

Hart Bochner’s good. Robyn Douglass’s amazing in a subtly intricate role.

It’s an outstanding film all around.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Peter Yates; written by Steve Tesich; director of photography, Matthew F. Leonetti; edited by Cynthia Scheider; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Dennis Christopher (Dave Stoller), Dennis Quaid (Mike), Daniel Stern (Cyril), Jackie Earle Haley (Moocher), Barbara Barrie (Evelyn Stoller), Paul Dooley (Ray Stoller), Robyn Douglass (Katherine), Hart Bochner (Rod), Amy Wright (Nancy) and John Ashton (Mike’s Brother).

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Krull (1983, Peter Yates)

From the director of Breaking Away and one of the many fine writers of the Adam West “Batman” TV show….

Krull is just as unwatchable now as it was the last time I tried to watch it, some eleven years ago.

As a kid—assuming kids are the best audience for the film—Krull never registered as something I might want to watch. Finding anything to say about it is difficult. It’s an object lesson, I suppose, in how not to direct for Panavision. Yates is about as incapable of directing an action sequence as one would imagine Woody Allen would be directing one. The opening alone is painful.

It’s unclear what successful fantasy film the makers were trying to capitalize on—it’s not a Star Wars knockoff, for example. Wait… it’s knights with laser-swords versus some kind of Stormtrooper stand-ins. But these Stormtroopers don’t have a Death Star, they have a big rock. Krull might have actually kicked off the eighties fantasy genre—I fairly sure that genre produced anything of any value. At least not the straight, non-comedy influenced genre pictures.

Also amusing is James Horner’s score, which is entirely—well, maybe not entirely, but heavily influenced by his Star Trek II and III scores. Actually, Star Trek III came out the following year so maybe Horner just reused the Krull bits in it.

Oddly, given the film’s incompetence, the outer space effects are solid.

Krull’s a punchline masquerading as a two-hour fantasy epic.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Peter Yates; written by Stanford Sherman; director of photography, Peter Suschitzky; edited by Ray Lovejoy; music by James Horner; production designer, Stephen B. Grimes; produced by Ron Silverman; released by Columbia Pictures.

Starring Ken Marshall (Colwyn), Lysette Anthony (Lyssa), Freddie Jones (Ynyr), Francesca Annis (Widow of the Web), Alun Armstrong (Torquil), David Battley (Ergo), Bernard Bresslaw (Cyclops), Liam Neeson (Kegan) and Robbie Coltrane (Rhun).

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The Deep (1977, Peter Yates)

I’m a little surprised Donna Summer did the theme song for The Deep, seeing as how she’s black and, according to The Deep, every black person is a villain of some kind or another.

Even with his blond locks, I’ve never thought of Nick Nolte as particularly aryan (maybe because his eyes are so brown), but he really comes off like a, well, honky in this one. He calls Louis Gossett Jr. a basketball player as a euphemism for black. Seriously. I think, the last time I tried watching it, I turned it off at that point.

But I struggled through this time and, for that last shot, it’s almost worth the torture. It’s an awful conclusion, maybe the second worst I can think of (after the second Planet of the Apes).

Yates’s Panavision composition is boring, seemingly ready for the TV version (since The Deep was pre-video). John Barry contributes a wholly inappropriate but exceeding lovely score. It’s hard to say if it’s all Yates’s fault or if it’s just a bad production. I’m sure Peter Benchley’s novel wasn’t good, so his screenplay would be similarly dubious. But there’s nothing thrilling about it, there’s no excitement. In fact, it might be the only big Hollywood picture I can think of without a single likable character.

It’s a long two hours, mostly because of the lengthy exposition and then the boring underwater scenes. It’s an anti-thriller film, almost worth examining.

Even Robert Shaw is phoning it in here.

Year of the Comet (1992, Peter Yates)

As far as I know, Year of the Comet completes the Louis Jordan as a mad scientist in search of eternal youth (continuing from his two Swamp Thing movies). There’s something so perfect about Jordan pursuing eternal youth, it’s not even questioned. William Goldman uses the device to complicate things in Year of the Comet, sort of to get the ball rolling.

Goldman’s plot for Comet is real simple–run the two protagonists, Penelope Ann Miller and Tim Daly, through Scotland and then France (in the most scenic locations), give them complications and let them be charming together. Daly shows off his mischievous charm here (big shock Comet went as unappreciated as the next time he showed it off–on the great show “Eyes”) and Miller does her charismatic leading comedic actress thing here and both work great. Yates really knows how to direct Miller here too, for great effect, and it doesn’t hurt Goldman’s screenplay seems catered to her.

Most of the scenes not concerned with being scenic (Scotland looks fantastic) have a lot of witty banter going and Goldman writes fine banter for charismatic leads. He gives Jordan’s character some fantastic lines too and Jordan, more than usual, really works together with Miller. They only have a couple scenes together, maybe three, but all of them are memorable.

The film runs less than ninety minutes–IMDb trivia suggests something happened between the start of principal photography and post–but Yates wisely casts very distinctive actors for smaller roles. In the biggest, Ian Richardson as Miller’s father, Shane Rimmer (in three scenes) as Daly’s friend and Art Malik as a suave bad guy (Malik’s the wine to Daly’s Budweiser). Malik’s only got three scenes, but his first one–with a great monologue for Miller–is fantastic. Yates knows how to make the comedy play here. So much so, it’s a surprise how well he turns around and does the other stuff.

There are a lot of distinct sequences in the film, but I’m only going to mention a couple. First is a fight on Loch Ness, totally fogged over, between Daly and Miller on one boat and scary-looking Nick Brimble on another. Yates mixes comedy, action and suspense–lots of suspense–and it’s a fantastic scene. (The film’s got excellent sound design). Oddly, that boat sequence is the one I want to see OAR the most (Comet is only available in pan and scan, the UK DVD apparently from the 1992 VHS master), just because Yates implies having such fantastic composition for it.

The second scene is the helicopter chase. It shouldn’t work, a helicopter chase through Scotland, but it really does. Yates has the right timing, Goldman’s script sets it up and closes it, and the music (by Hummie Mann) is perfect.

Year of the Comet is a lean–could have been longer in the beginning, I’m not sure with what, but with more–comedy throwback. I just wish someone would put it out uncropped.

Eyewitness (1981, Peter Yates)

Eyewitness gets a lot of abuse.

Peter Yates has become a punch-line to many a film joke, usually by people who love Breaking Away and don’t remember he did it. Eyewitness is an incredibly odd film–and not entirely successful, the protagonist (William Hurt) tends to talk to Sigourney Weaver straight from the id, no filtering. Her character is the film’s most complex (since the whole situation deals in a gray area of morality) and Weaver doesn’t always get it. There are a few scenes where she does, and it’s beautiful.

This film is incredibly gentle. It’s all about the character relationships. Writer Steve Tesich (also Breaking Away) even gives the cops personal conflicts, which is a little too much. But there’s a lot to appreciate in Eyewitness‘s indulgences. It makes for an odd experience–though Hurt’s character is so unbelievably straight-forward, it’s one of his best performances. Hurt tends not to play the identifiable character and, seeing him do it, is a special experience.

As for the mystery/thriller aspect of the film… it’s not really there, which may be why there’s such a hostility to the film. There’s a contract between artist and reader (or viewer) and Eyewitness does not deliver what the title (or the poster) promise. The score, or lack thereof, lets the viewer know the contract’s broken in the opening titles. I’m not much a stickler about the title contract when it comes to film (Pearl Harbor, for example, broke the shit out of it too, and so did Star Wars for that matter).

I’ve recommended Eyewitness in the past and had people look at me funny after watching it. Not every film needs to break your heart (like The Missouri Breaks). Hell, films don’t even have to engage your intelligence (Animal Crackers). But films do need to make your invested time worthwhile–and Eyewitness does. Just not if you’re looking for a mystery/thriller, rather a story about people.