POINT BLANK

 "Point Blank" was one of the landmark films of the American New Wave that began in the late sixties and continued into the seventies. It was directed by Britain's John Boorman and looked at today is fundamentally more European art-house than conventional Hollywood but it had Lee Marvin as Walker, the eponymous hunter of Richard Stark's novel, out to get the man who shot him, left him for dead and stole his $93,000, was magnificently photographed in Panavision by the great Philip H. Lathrop and was suitably violent for the times. In other words, this tale of dishonor among thieves had everything going for it, one would have supposed, to please the punters.

Boorman, of course, had other ideas. This was an esoteric gangster flic, more akin to the French New Wave rather than the American and just as the French embraced the American gangster films of the fifties it seemed that now Boorman was repaying the compliment. Whether audiences quite 'got it' is hard to say but it was a hit, (Marvin drew the crowds), and its classic status is assured. Marvin aside it also had the perfect supporting cast. John Vernon, relatively unknown at the time, was the double-crossing shooter, Angie Dickinson was beautifully cast as the sister-in-law who tries to help Lee while Lloyd Bochner and especially Carroll O'Connor and Keenan Wynn, both never better, made for a splendid trio of bad guys. It was only Boorman's second feature and it's still one of his best.