475 The Friends of Eddie Coyle

[kinjitsu]

The Friends of Eddie Coyle



In one of the best performances of his legendary career, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie "Fingers" Coyle in Peter Yates's adaptation of George V. Higgins's acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. World-weary and living hand to mouth, Coyle works on the sidelines of the seedy Boston underworld just to make ends meet. But when he finds himself facing a second stretch of hard time, he's forced to weigh loyalty to his criminal colleagues against snitching to stay free. Directed with a sharp eye for its gritty locales and an open heart for its less-than-heroic characters, this is one of the true treasures of 1970s Hollywood filmmaking—a suspenseful crime drama in stark, unforgiving daylight.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Peter Yates, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary featuring Yates
• Stills gallery
• PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones and a 1973 on-set profile of actor Robert Mitchum from Rolling Stone

Criterionforum.org user rating averages

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[ianungstad]

I hope more extras are added later...looks pretty skimpy.

[Izo]

Surely they can find something on Robert Mitchum, one of my favorite actors of all time. Isn't this his introduction into Criterion?

[domino harvey]

Surely they can find something on Robert Mitchum, one of my favorite actors of all time. Isn't this his introduction into Criterion?

Jesus Christ, Criterion dropped the fucking ball. I too was so excited for some excellent Mitchum features and what do we get? NO MITCHUM EXTRAS AT ALL

[knives]

Hopefully they'll do a reverse Painleve. Mitchum deserves better. He lead a strange enough life to at least warrant an old interview. Maybe they're leaving it for an eventual Night of the Hunter release?

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Surely they can find something on Robert Mitchum, one of my favorite actors of all time. Isn't this his introduction into Criterion?

Jesus Christ, Criterion dropped the fucking ball. I too was so excited for some excellent Mitchum features and what do we get? NO MITCHUM EXTRAS AT ALL

Hey Mulvaney I got a vhs of his interview at the NFT. I got his autograph too if you want make offers?

[kaujot]

Hopefully they'll do a reverse Painleve. Mitchum deserves better. He lead a strange enough life to at least warrant an old interview. Maybe they're leaving it for an eventual Night of the Hunter release?

MGM has announced that they're doing Night of the Hunter.

[Fiery Angel]

Surely they can find something on Robert Mitchum, one of my favorite actors of all time. Isn't this his introduction into Criterion?

Jesus Christ, Criterion dropped the fucking ball. I too was so excited for some excellent Mitchum features and what do we get? NO MITCHUM EXTRAS AT ALL

At least we're getting a KENT JONES ESSAY!

[ianungstad]

Hopefully they'll do a reverse Painleve. Mitchum deserves better. He lead a strange enough life to at least warrant an old interview. Maybe they're leaving it for an eventual Night of the Hunter release?

MGM has announced that they're doing Night of the Hunter.

Has there been news on the special edition? I thought MGM cancelled it? I know that MGM/Fox were in discussions for a second batch of titles to license to Criterion. I assumed that the news about Fox dropped by Kim during her press junket might have been the 2nd batch with MGM. A bit of a stretch...but with the MGM edition seemingly cancelled, there is a slight chance that Night of the Hunter could wind up in Criterion's hands.

I agree that there should have been at least one Mitchum related extra. I guess on the bright side...the disc has a commentary track but is in the lower price tier.

[kaujot]

I believe it was delayed. There's a thread about it somewhere in either the Old Films forum or the DVD News forum. Of course, delayed could mean "We're giving it to Criterion," but I don't think it's likely.

[Jeff]

I imagine the MGM special edition of Night of the Hunter is still coming at some point. I don't think that Fox can license MGM product to Criterion, Fox is just their distributor. That would be like Image deciding they could license Janus Films' properties.

***

I can't wait to pick up The Friends of Eddie Coyle, though I too am disappointed in the extras. I could imagine Paramount releasing it with this content themselves at half the price. I suppose that is the problem though: Paramount has never shown any interest in this film, and it might not have been released at all without Criterion rescuing it. I don't think that it has ever been available in any home video format. Like White Dog, Ace In the Hole, or The Furies, the mere availability of the film is the biggest selling point (though the latter two had excellent supplements as well.)

Though I wish there were additional supplements, I'm not sure what they would be. It seems like there aren't many applicable Mitchum interviews or docs floating around for Criterion to pick up. Pretty much the entire cast is dead, as is the original novelist. An interview with a contemporary director who admires the film might have been nice.

[Zazou dans le Metro]

It seems like there aren't many applicable Mitchum interviews or docs floating around for Criterion to pick up. Pretty much the entire cast is dead, as is the original novelist. An interview with a contemporary director who admires the film might have been nice.

To pick up on Nabob's post above the NFT career overview interview at London's NFT was broadcast on BBC. I think it was at least an hour long. I too have a vhs somewhere at the bottom of a cupboard.

[kinjitsu]

In the current Film Comment: DEAD MAN WALKING: Peter Yates’s low-key 1973 crime drama The Friends of Eddie Coyle gave Robert Mitchum one of his greatest roles - by Geoffrey O’Brien

[cdnchris]

Friends of Eddie Coyle DVD review

[bearcuborg]

Beaver

[Jack Phillips]

This one really surprised me (I hadn't seen the film before the arrival of the DVD). Much more subdued than what I was expecting. And Mitchum is used differently than what I'm used to. It's going to take some time before I can put aside what my expectations were in order to consider the work objectively. Which means, at this point, I don't know what to think about the film.

[kaujot]

DVDTalk

[CSM126]

must say that the Chapters menu is a joke, when you consider this is a Criterion release. Even the cheapest DVD releases now have at the very least screen captures to illustrate each chapter to orient the viewer (even loops of video clips is fairly common now); the text-only chapter listings here are pretty useless.

Translation: I've never watched a Criterion disc in my life.

When have they ever put pictures on the chapter menu?

[htdm]

HTF review.

[Paul Mavis]

Hi, I wrote the DVDTalk review that's referenced above. Just to reply to CSM126's "translation": I have quite a few Criterion discs in my collection, but this is my first online review of one for DVDTalk.

If you re-read my quote that you've copied here, nothing in it suggests I'm saying Criterion has in the past put images on their chapters menus; not sure how you came to that assumption. I'm only pointing out that for such a high-end DVD line, you would think they'd upgrade to a more user-friendly menu -- particularly when even the cheapest DVDs out there utilize that format.

[Tribe]

Haven't watched this yet, but I really dig Grover Lewis' The Last Celluloid Desperado article from a 1973 issue of Rolling Stone. It's very entertaining in that fly on the wall way of writing that Rolling Stone contributors used to do on a regular basis back then. Certainly not politically correct in terms of how women are referred to, but the article reminded me how much I used to enjoy reading Rolling Stone back in the day.

[HerrSchreck]

I've yet to read a recent tribute to this film which doesn't blow it somewhat out of proportion and try and turn it into something more than it is (this means you Kent Jones)-- it's a nice, bleary crime drama... a good film. But it's not "great" or earthshaking by any standard.

Mitchum has 2 or 3 good moments telling a young gunrunner where it's at-- doing the Senior Old Man of the Street Routine (he actually reminds me a bit of DeNiro in HEAT in this film for some reason, though better). And it's fabulous seeing Richard Jordan (in particular) and the rest of those 1970's faces.

[Tribe]

Watched this last night and, as Schreck notes, it's certainly not bad, it's far from being a classic crime film. In fact, on more than one occasion it veered dangerously close to 70s tv crime drama fare ala Baretta. What salvages the movie is Higgins story and Mitchum's presence, who was likely stoked throughout the filming judging from Lewis' Rolling Stone piece. But a drunk Mitchum can put more life into a character just staring than a dozen other actors doing their best.

[HerrSchreck]

Couldnta said it better myself.

Again, not a bad film by any means.. a good film indeed-- but I really think that suggesting this is Michums all time best career performance i e a better performance than Out of the Past, or Angel Face (he's playing basically the same bleak, worldweary emotional terrain as in The Yakuza, the Lumet-Schrader pic)... I really think that's just marketing overdrive.

I know that CC is tilting towards these 60's - 90's color pics lately, and need to justify their sitting next to stuff like Redbeard , Ivan Pt's I, II & III and Pandoras Box, but losing their loyal audience's trust thru this kind of hype-grinding isn't going to do anything for them in the long run.

[oldsheperd]

Checked this one out last night. It seemed very procedural.
There wasn't much in the way of suspense or surprises in this movie. It was pretty much from point a to point b.
I did think it was fairly decent. Being an avid hockey fan I enjoyed watching the Bruins-Blackhawks game.