Category Archives: Robert Mitchum

Dishing up Pulp Curry in a new way: why I am starting a Substack newsletter

After much thought I have decided that to experiment with moving the focus of my blogging from this site to a new Pulp Curry Substack newsletter.

Why am I doing this?

The first post on this website appeared on July 2010 (about the incredibly underrated 1979 Australian heist film, Money Moversyou can read the post here). I’ve been writing on the site with varying frequency ever since (579 posts in all), and for the most part have enjoyed it immensely.

But for the last 12 or so months I just haven’t been feeling it – or getting the hits to make it seem worthwhile – and have started to wonder whether it’s worth continuing with the effort. Posting on a website has been starting to feel like the equivalent of trying to read a broadsheet newspaper in a crowded tram carriage, unwieldy and inconvenient.

And, thinking about it, I suspect the blog format is starting to get a bit stale for me and is actually now a brake on my posting more regularly.

I know that I’m no Robinson Crusoe in this regard. The majority of the blogs I used to follow have gradually fallen by the wayside, as people have moved on, grown weary of the effort, found other interests, adopted other means to get their message out, or, in some cases (gulp), died.… Read more

Book review: Hard-Boiled Hollywood

I challenge anyone to get more than a few pages into Jon Lewis’s 2017 revisionist history of post-war Hollywood, without thinking about the parallels to Harvey Weinstein scandal, and all the terrible tales about America’s movie capital that have flowed from it. As Lewis’s book demonstrates, Hollywood – both in the temporal and fantasy sense (and both play a role in this book) was never any different. Arguably, it used to be far, far worse.

Lewis’s book doesn’t deliver a lot of new information or historical research about Hollywood. What it does deliver, in spades, is the meticulous collection, collation and synthesis of a huge amount of pre-existing research, media commentary and popular culture folk law, which he weaves together into a cogent and comprehensive overview of post-World War II Hollywood, and the various power players, criminals, film stars and fringe dwellers, and how they interacted with a studio system in the throws of major transition.

The book touches on lots of familiar names: Robert Mitchum and his famous drug bust; Frank Sinatra, already on the start of his trajectory towards conservatism, and his famous stoush with celebrity columnist, Lee Mortimer; the bullying, manipulative HUAC stooge, Cecile B DeMille; Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel, and his close ties to the studio system, just to name a few.… Read more

Mud, madness and masculinity: William Friedkin’s Sorcerer

scheiderPerfect films usually only ever appear so in retrospect. A case in point is Sorcerer, William Friedkin’s 1977 reimagining of the Henri-Georges Clouzot 1953 classic, The Wages of Fear.

The gloriously remastered print of Sorcerer, showing as part of the Melbourne International Film Festivals ‘Masters and Restorations’ program, is an incredible tale of failed masculinity, predatory capitalism and madness.

It was a commercial flop upon release, only recouping nine million of its original twenty one million dollar budget, largely due to appearing at almost the exact same time as the first instalment of Star Wars. Friedkin viewed it as the toughest job of his career. Shooting was littered with accidents and problems, including the film’s riveting central scene, where trucks must cross a rickety rope and timber bridge over a raging river in the middle of a fierce tropical storm. The sequence, due to weather and other reasons, occurred over two countries and took three months to shoot.

Three men, on the run from past mistakes, have ended end up in a run down, impoverished town in an unspecified Latin American banana republic (the real location being the Dominican Republic, which at the time was under an actual military dictatorship).

Jackie (Roy Scheider) was part of a heist on a Catholic Church that ended in a car crash in which all the other members of the gang are killed.… Read more

The heist always goes wrong, part 1: ten of the best heist movies ever made

asphalt01I love a good heist film.

I love the genius and intricacy of their plots and the variations they come in, whether it be the all star team assembled for a job or the desperate ex-cons trying for one last score.

But most of all I love them because of the golden rule of all good heist films – for whatever reason, the heist always goes wrong.

What do you need for a good heist?

You need a plan for actual heist itself, the getaway, and moving, storing and fencing whatever it is you’ve stolen. The more complicated the plan, the more likely it is that something will go wrong.

You need a crew of people; one man or woman alone cannot do a heist. This introduces the human element and all the problems that come with it, the greed, suspicions, jealousies and uncertainties.

I’ve been thinking for a while now about what my top ten-heist films would be and the following list, in no particular order, is it.

The robbery itself is almost immaterial to how I rate a good heist film. What I like is the context and atmosphere in which the heist takes place and inevitable problems that arise after it’s been pulled off. And the darker and more broken things get, the better the film is in my book.… Read more

Killing Them Softly

Last week I finally watched Killing Them Softly, a film I’ve wanted to see for ages. Living in Australia, it’s not often I get one up on my American readers in terms of seeing a major release movie before they do. But for some reason, Killing Them Softly is not out yet in the States.

So, for those of you who are going to have to hang on a little longer to watch it, let me assure you, it is well worth the wait.

For Australian readers, all I can say is get thee to a cinema now and see this film.

Killing Them Softly is based on the novel Cogan’s Trade by George V Higgins. It’s the story of an enforcer cum hit man who is brought in to investigate a robbery of a mob protected card game.

Higgins was also the author of The Friends of Eddie Coyle, which was made into one of the best, if not the best, heist movie ever made (and which I reviewed on this site here in 2010).

It’s hard to exaggerate just how influencial the movie version of The Friends of Eddie Coyle is. Released in 1973, it is a no frills depiction of desperate men doing whatever they have to do to stay one step ahead of each other and the law.… Read more