The Man with Bogart's Face

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day...

The Man with Bogart's Face (Robert Day, 1980) With some television series ("The Rebel" and "Branded"), a couple movies (like Chisum) and a long association with director Irvin Kershner on his resume, writer-actor-producer Andrew J. Fenady began work on his first book, "The Man with Bogart's Face" which was first published in 1977. 

I read it not long after that--the title caught my attention-- but it didn't leave much of an impression on me, other than the guy had done his research and that he had an obvious love for the detective films of the 1940's and '50's. It tells the story of a man so obsessed with Humphrey Bogart, he has plastic surgery done on his face and changes his name to Sam Marlow, all the better to become what he's always dreamed of being—a private detective. 

Fenady had an eye to making a movie of the book, wrote a screenplay, got financing from Melvin Simon—Fenady wrote it to be low-budget—and started the process of getting the movie on the screen.

But, who would play Sam Marlow, the man with Bogart's face? Supposedly, an actor had been cast* when in walked a little known thesp' named Robert Sacchi. Saachi had his own one-man Bogart-tribute touring show which he took around the country and from most angles, he was a dead ringer for Bogart (who'd passed away in 1958), and did an impeccable mimicry of him, if slightly limited in range. Put him in a trench-coat and a fedora and he fit the bill like a slightly rumpled suit. 

George Raft (in his last role) confronts Sam Marlow

But for an entire feature film? Maybe that's going a bridge too far. The plot follows the outline of The Maltese Falcon: after unveiling his new plastically-surgeoned face (in a sequence that resembles a similar sequence in Dark Passage), a valuable "whatsit" is coveted by a variety of outlandish characters and newly-chiseled Sam Marlow (Sacchi), with a newly installed ditsy secretary he calls "Duchess" (Misty Rowe), is employed by almost all of them for the prized "McGuffin." That they all vaguely resemble characters from Dashiell Hammett's original only proves that the falcon doesn't fall far from the tree.

 

But, it's The Maltese Falcon-light.

Light, but not so nimble. His first case is with his sizable landlady whose husband is missing. Then he gets a call from Elsa Borscht (Olivia Hussey), who tells him that her father, Horst, a former prop-man for the pictures, has been getting threatening phone-calls. She tells him this right before they get attacked by two masked gun-men at the Hollywood Bowl. It's enough action to almost make you forget that a character's name is Horst Borscht. It's going to be that kind of picture.

It seems everybody is looking for "The Eyes of Alexander" two perfect blue sapphires once a part of a statue of Alexander the Great. Among the many coveters is Commodore Anastas (Victor Buono)—whose daughter Gena (Michelle Phillips) Marlow thinks looks just like Gene Tierney in Laura (he even has "the portrait" hanging in his office)—the fey-caricatured Mr. Zebra (Herbert Lom), the slimy club-owner Hakim (Franco Nero), and the former Nazi general (with a wooden arm) Wolf Zinderneuf (Jay Robinson, considerably toned down from his performance as Caligula in The Robe). All have eyes on the Eyes and are ready to resort to any sort of skullduggery to get them. And Marlow is forced to dodge bullets and search for the sapphires in some of the seedier, less photogenic sides of Los Angeles.

It starts to get formulaic very quickly: everybody who meets Marlow has to ask: "Has anyone ever told you you look like..." before he cuts them off with a pivot, Marlow's dialogue is always a little too clever by half and sometimes downright irritating at any quarter. Then, there's an omnipresent narration where he waxes philosophic and usually has to include an old movie reference ("Hollywood Boulevard isn't what it used to be, but then it never was" huh?).

 

After awhile, it gets to be a drag, the kind of movie Bogie would say "only phonies like it."

It gets so bad that Sacchi's performance starts to wear a little thin and you start to notice the differences instead of getting comfortable with them. For examples, the forehead is too high, the nose a little pudgy and the chin weak. Plus, every chance he gets, Sacchi runs a finger across his lip "just like Bogie did" but, he never did it this much and although imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, too much of it is the sincerest form of boredom.

Things get really ugly when things get deadly serious and the most sympathetic (although sadly also the most dull) character gets killed. And the movie begins to drag and Sacchi's impression starts going stale. The real Bogie would risk looking ugly or tortured or something at this stage of the mystery, but Sacchi doesn't dare lest the Bogie-illusion suffers for it. And one realizes then that the performance is relentlessly one-note and the whole enterprise starts to slide downhill.

The movie is of its time and you can't change that—the direction and cinematography looks like that of every run-of-the-mill detective television series of the 1970's—But one would think this thing might have played better during the "Bogie renaissance" when he started being a cult-figure on college campuses during the 1960's.

The Man with Bogart's Face just goes to show that unique can't be imitated and that Bogart was and remains inimitable.

* I'm guessing Jerry Lacy, the most obvious choice. Lacy did commercials as a Bogart look-alike and starred as the phantom-Bogart in Woody Allen's "Play it Again, Sam" both on-stage and film. If he was considered, the loss shouldn't have been too upsetting, as The Man with Bogart's Face died a quick death at the box-office. Sacchi died in 2021, outliving Bogart by over 30 years. Lacy is still quite alive at the age of 89.

Having a Wild Weekend

Having a Wild Weekend (aka Catch Us if You Can)(John Boorman, 1965) If you're old enough to remember "The British Invasion" back in the 1960's, you might remember the name of "The Dave Clark Five", one of the British pop bands that was dominating American air-waves and record charts after the barrier had been broken by The Beatles. The Beatles caused a sensation, making their American TV debut on The Ed Sullivan Show for three weeks in a row, but my memory remembers The DC5 being the group that appeared on Ed's variety show in the weeks following The Beatles' American tour...before The Animals and before The Rolling Stones.

 

They were a great group, with a tougher, fuller sound than their contemporaries, with great "hooks" that had an ability to become ear-worms instantly, even though their lyrics had little depth. But, you didn't care—they were free-wheeling, rocking musicians with throat-bleeding lead vocals by the inimitable Mike Smith.

 

And if you weren't a "rebel" group (like the Animals or the Stones), but pop, there was the standard foray into other entertainment forms, following the shimmying footsteps of Elvis—Herman's Hermits made films and Gerry and the Pacemakers and Freddie and the Dreamers and Cliff Richard* and on and on. The Dave Clark Five made one, too, but it wasn't a hit, barely featured the DC5, but can boast it was the first feature directed by British director John Boorman (Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur, Hope and Glory).

Unlike in The Beatles films, The DC5 don't play themselves—indeed, they don't even "perform" any of their songs, but a couple of tunes are used as background for edited hi-jinks—they're stuntmen/extras who are being used in an ad campaign for a British meat-packing plant, the most prominent of the commercials and billboards featuring Dinah (Barbara Ferris) "The Butcher Girl" extolling the virtues of meat to the British public. That an ad agency would use a swinging Blond "bird" as their symbol for meat is an absurd concept (but one that isn't inconceivable in the advertising world) and Boorman has a fine time larking about London showing more and more of the incongruous campaign, which, evidently, is doing the job as the city seems festooned with billboards.

The plot starts when, on a commercial-shoot with Dinah and the boys, Steve (Dave Clark) strikes up a conversation with her and discovers that 1) she's bought her own private island in Devon and 2) she's bored and tired with her life. He could tell her that she is fundamentally well-off that she can afford to be bored and actually does have some agency and maybe she should sleep on it and give it 24 hours. Then, there wouldn't be a movie. But, no. He steals the ad agency's Jaguar and the two go off to find her island. Because that's what young, energetic, swinging 60's kids do, dad! And ad agency exec's—who are paying for studio-time—then send the police and whatever goon-squad they can find to bring them back.

Which is just what Dinah's ad-agency pygmalion, Zissell (David de Keyser) does. Hi-jinks and low social comedy ensue, cutting a swath through a limited number of 60's outliers like vagabond-Brit-hippies and upper-class eccentrics, where if a point was being made it's a bit hard to discern. The trip to the island doesn't prove pointless, but it does have a bit of a let-down in store ("It smells of dead holidays, doesn't it?"). Not the kind of "gas" they were expecting.

But, another way that Having a Wild Weekend separates itself from the usual pop-film fluff (aside from only leaving the band-mates as cyphers and concentrating on Clark's character—he was, after all, the group's manager and impresario) is decidedly down-beat ending, where all the gadabouting and free-thinking comes to naught when confronted by economic reality, power dynamics and the superficial benefits of fame. Hardly the message of peace, love, and understanding associated with the 1960's or rock n' roll. That could be why the film didn't do so well. But it did give Boorman enough attention to get his next gig directing Point Blank, a genre-piece with its own subversive take on noir, business, and corruptibility.

"Tried it once. Didn't fancy it."

 

* I remember, as a kid, having to suffer through Richard's film Summer Holiday, the first film of the double bill, at the Seattle premier of A Hard Day's Night. I have a vague memory of it as being insufferable and more amused at the Beatles-starved audience being impatient with it. Summer Holiday was directed by another up-and-coming director, Peter Yates. It was a hit in Britain, though, earning the position of the 2nd most popular film of 1963, right behind From Russia With Love.

Millions

Written, initially, when it was released on video. And recently expanded because it's so darned good and everybody needs a good movie every once in awhile...

Millions (Danny Boyle, 2004) "The French have said au revoir to the franc, the Germans have said auf wiedersehen to the mark, and the Portuguese have said...whatever to their thing."

 

"Now, it's our turn to say good-bye to sterling. This Christmas, we are going to get the euro. Good-bye, old pounds. Everyone says we're going to miss you."

 

It's 2002, and with the establishment of the European Union, the country-specific currency in the days of conflicting exchange rates was being replaced by the euro in 12 of the member states (although it's now in 20 of the 27 EU countries) as of the first of that year, all in the name of solidarity and globalization. Such a radical shift is the sort of thing to make great stories of, and this little parable (of a sorts) is a remarkable example of making a great story out of cultural change (and not just the monetary kind).

Director Danny Boyle begins Millions with a sun-dappled intro to a child's world, and a visit to the site of a new housing development, where our hero Damian (Alex Etel) and his brother Anthony (Lewis McGibbon) imagine the building of their soon-to-be new home in fantastical stop-motion animation set to John Murphy's cooing Elfmanesque score.* One is instantly charmed, not only by the fairy-tale way in which the story is introduced, but also by the promise of what is to come. Anything is possible.

But, the sequence is interspersed with shots of impossibly propulsive trains, indicating—along with the house-building sequence that, in this child's world, things can move pretty fast.

Once, they've moved into their new home named appropriately "Serendipity" ("Surprisingly spacious with attractive views!" enthuses Anthony), it's off to school with them, where Anthony is better able to adapt than Damian who when he's asked if he has any heroes rattles off the names of saints (with whom he's obsessed) enthusiastically detailing their grisly fates to the horror of his fellow students (whose heroes are footballers).

But, their lives change when Damian imagines an audience with Clare of Assisi (1194 to 1253 and the patron saint of television...no, really) in his hermitage made of moving boxes taped together to form an ornate structure and its interrupted by the construction being crushed by a flying Nike bag filled with pound notes—£229,520 to be precise—which Damian assumes (naturally) that it came from God. His brother, Anthony, is far less deistic and thinks—maybe—it came from a passing train, but doesn't question it enough to see the opportunities implied. The kids stash the loot, vow to not tell their Dad, and Anthony begins to use it to gain friends at their new school to form a "posse."

But, Damian has other ideas (of course). Since the funds came from God, he starts to distribute it the way his idols, the saints, would. His first act is to buy a bunch of pigeons and release them, as per St. Francis (who dutifully shows up to give his approval and suggest that Damian use the money to help the poor). With aid from St. Nicholas, he leaves stuffs a lot of pound notes into the mail-slot of some neighboring Mormon missionaries (they needed a dish-washer and a microwave), the Ugandan Martyrs persuade Damian to give to a Christian charity that will provide wells to African villages (that one is so obvious and un-anonymous it gets him in trouble with his whole family and exposes the fact that he has the loot), then St. Peter comes by for a visit and tells him maybe he should slow down a little as miracles aren't always what they seem.

Damian with St. Francis (note the halo)

 

Meanwhile, there's all this money with a certifiable expiration date and two boys have to figure out how to use it while it's still valuable. Anthony starts to tour real estate "for investment opportunity." Damian comes to realize that even though giving to the poor is a really good idea "it's really hard" to do. Plus things get...complicated once Da knows there's all this money and then, there's the business of some guy nosing around the neighborhood looking like he's lost something really valuable. And Doyle maintains his penchant for keeping things visually fascinating and telling a story in unconventional ways, but still conveying what he absolutely means.

Millions is one of those ones I missed in the theater, and one I deeply regret for having missed it. It's a little gem of a movie Boyle made between his zombie-film 28 Days Later (which will be getting a sequel this year) and his sci-fi film Sunshine but sweeter than his usual fare, although—Doyle being Doyle—it does flirt with some dark material involving child jeopardy, but it ultimately has its sacred heart in the right place.

At one point St. Peter tells Damian: "Something that looks like a miracle turns out to be dead simple." Millions isn't dead simple, but it is something of a miracle.

 

It's a highly charming movie, while avoiding the usual cute kid cliches, and maintaining a quite sophisticated tone of drama and off-the-wall comedy. That was a trick even Disney found hard to pull off.** It gets a very high recommendation from me. 

* I was delighted to see that the score was performed by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and The Northwest Boychoir and recorded at Studio X of my old stomping ground Bad Animals and recorded by old comrade Reed Ruddy. Nifty!

 

** This being what they are, and the film being originally produced by Fox Searchlight, it is now the property of The House of Mouse. 

Everybody watches "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" which is some sort of career-foreshadowing.

Warfare

Route Spartan

or

"Look for the Blood and the Smoke! That's Where We Are!"

Warfare just drops you into it. The film, written and directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Civil War) and Ray Mendoza (who lived it) tells the story of an insignificant little troop deployment of Navy SEALS in Ramadi, Iraq in 2006 to lend support to a Marine operation nearby (in fact only 300 meters away!). Standard stuff. In and out. No mess no fuss.

 

They come in under cover of darkness, enter a strategically placed household, subdue the inhabitants, isolate them, put them out of operations' way, then monitor for any suspicious activity among the locals, any amassing, any weapons sightings, any what we call in the U.S. "assembly." Just basically "watch the backs" of the Marines. The radio contact is "5 by," they are well-armed and well-ammo'd, and they have a bird's eye view of the area from aerial surveillance that can track any warm body that comes into view. And they're frequently being updated on the mission status. Everything is nominal. From that point on, the movie runs in "real time."

Alpha One pumping up before the mission.

On top of that, they've punched a hole in the outer wall of an upstairs bedroom for Elliott Miller (Cosmo Jarvis), their lead sniper, to lay prone on a mattress for hours on end, peering through the telescopic sight of his M110 SASS rifle to take out anyone or anything that seems suspicious or out of place at a market across the street. It's maximum concentration for minimum movement, but you can't be too careful. Anything suspicious could be prelude to an attack on them, and if you have to pull a trigger to prevent yourself or your troop from dying, that's the job.

Of course, when the clock is ticking and you're just waiting for the sortie to be over, everything looks a little suspicious. But no shots are fired.  Sure, they're being watched...by people who duck so they're not being watched...and the aerial view shows there might be some amassing on the roofs, but things are merely heightened anticipation and they can be Bradley'd out of there within minutes. It's going to be fine.

Until a grenade is dropped through that sniper's nest hole into the bedroom where Miller and another SEAL are positioned. They're able to move quickly and out of the blast-radius, but the resulting explosion instantly turns the monitoring mission into an evac mission. Miller's left hand is bleeding, but treatable if they can get him back to the base quickly and so Bradley tanks are called while the crew sweats the minutes it will take to get them out of there. They are under attack, after all. And the sooner they can get Miller out the better. But, even with the best equipment American tax-dollars can buy, they are still trapped in a house (along with the civilians) and targets. They're surrounded. 

 

And things will only get worse.

The legal disclaimer ("This is a work of fiction", etc. etc) at the end of the movie is unlike any I've seen. I didn't have time to write it down and I haven't found anything that quotes it on the internet, but basically it says it's based on a true incident that was parsed from several interviews (and Mendoza was part of the SEAL team) and any inaccuracies are entirely due "to memory." And, indeed, Miller—who's a real guy—has no recollection of the incident, even though he lost a limb, received severe burns and lost the ability to speak. In part, Mendoza wanted to make the film for him and dedicated it to him.

And from what I've been reading online, a lot of Iraq vets are saying that it's brutally accurate. If true, it is harrowing what we put our fighting men through, even if the the mission depicted was only in a support capacity. There is no safe place in a war-zone (for anybody) and no action taken does not attract a reaction. And with the sophistication of the weaponry, the destruction is catastrophic. It makes you wonder why anybody does it? Why do governments launch wars knowing that the end-result is winning rubble and destroyed infrastructure? What is "gained" by that? But, over the last couple years, that's all we've seen on a day-to-day basis, escalating destruction and death over cratered territory. For what?

I've also read some online critiques that the film is "pointless." Hardly. Not if the portrait it paints is as accurate as has been said and the filmmakers have accomplished their goal, ignoring the jingoism, the cliches, the false melodrama and cheap theatrics in the name of creating drama. It's dramatic enough without inserting fudged ironies into it. The conflict is real without back-story and motivation. The real motivation is living through it, plain and simple. You can say that "war is hell", but Warfare makes it look like insanity. And as director Sam Fuller used to say the only glory in war is surviving it. Giving it to us straight, while we're sitting in our comfortable theater seats, is hardly pointless...especially if it makes us think twice.

The most telling part of Warfare is when the echoes die and the dust settles and the SEAL team gone, and the family of the occupied house come out of hiding and see the slippery blood-trails and multitudes of cartridges on the floor, the holes in the wall, and devastation left behind. Then, there's a shot of the street that moments before was a killing field as villagers come out of their doorways, some armed, some not, walking past body-parts through the smoke that has been left behind. Mendoza has enough wherewithal to include them in the aftermath of the destruction, and one can't help but think that somewhere they're thinking the same thought as you.

 

One hopes there won't be a sequel.

But hopes...and prayers...are ultimately...useless. And...finally...comes the realization that that is the one word that accurately describes the unholy act of war.

Don't Make a Scene: Midnight Cowboy

The Story: Stanley Kubrick once said that "The screenplay is the most uncommunicative form of writing ever devised.."

 

He could be provocative in his statements and this one is rather sweeping, but there's an undeniable kernel of truth to it.

 

Especially when you look at this script segment from Midnight Cowboy, written by Waldo Salt. There are major changes from what Salt put on the written page and what appeared in the film. For instance, there's a shift in emphasis: in Salt's script, the scene isn't about the squabbling couple of Joe Buck and Enrico Rizzo, it's about the comedy of trying to open a coconut, which both Joe and "Ratso" try to do unsuccessfully. The coconut is a visual metaphor and catalyst for Rizzo's frustration at being stuck in New York when his dream of success centers on Miami, Florida.

 

In the film, the coconut is relegated to a background player, a prop, that only shows up in the background (which Rizzo tries to open...with a can-opener!) and the focus is the bickering between the two psuedo-partners.

 

I saw an interview with Jon Voight (provided below), where he talked about filming with Hoffman where they ran lines and did work-shopping on the scenes during every break and every lunch trying to make it better, sharpening it and refocusing Salt's script. And so, the constant fidgeting with the coconut (ultimately to no avail) that the two characters do in the script is minimized, as it's a distraction from the conversation and beside the point. Joe Buck, in the film, never attempts to open the coconut, except in the final act, which—of course—ends in disaster.

You end a scene with a joke, a point, an exclamation. You move on.

 

The Set-up: (from Premiere Magazine, April, 1999) "The story centers on Joe Buck (Jon Voight), a Texas hick who comes to Manhattan with dreams of becoming a cowboy stud-for-hire to wealthy women. Instead he finds disillusionment and the tubercular Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), who lives in a condemned East Village tenement. Like Buck, Rizzo also has dreams, and here, as the two sit in squalor, he lays out his relocation plan to his new and only friend."

 

Action!

 

The basic part of the screenplay stems from Salt's draft from 2/1/68. It went through some drastic revisions to the filmed transcript. Changes from the original appear in green text. Deleted sections are crossed out.

INT. X FLAT - DAY 

Joe lies on his cot, watching Ratso struggle to penetrate the fibrous husk of a coconut, experimenting with a variety of rusty tools in an old cigar box.  

RATSO The two basic items necessary to sustain life are sunshine and coconut milk.  

RATSO Did you know that? 

RATSO That's a known fact. If I can find the goddam hole the milk squirts out. 

JOE This is an okay setup you got here, but I'd say you ain't just exactly, uh, flush, is that right or not? 

RATSO I been sick. Hold this, will ya? 

Joe takes his time rising to hold the coconut while Ratso tries to poke a hole with a bent ice-pick. 

RATSO (CONT'D) In Florida, they come smooth, ready to eat. Down there, your only problem is, diet-wise, you gotta lift an arm to wipe warm milk off your chin. Tough, hey?  they got a terrific amount of coconut trees there. In fact, I think they even got 'em in the uh, gas stations over there.

JOE I think finding you's the smartest thing I ever did, for both of us. You just the crooked kinda sneaky little sidewinder I need to get me hustling in this town. Hey! 

Joe jerks his hand away just in time to avoid the ice-pick. The coconut bounces on the floor. 

Ratso picks it up, holds it, while Joe tries to crack it, swinging his boot like a hammer. 

RATSO Miami Beach is the only place for a real hustler. Florida has more rich chicks per square yard than any resort spot in the world. They lie out in their pagodas and pergolas waiting to grab the first jockstrap that passes. And ladies? You know that in Miami you got, uh—

RATSO You listenin' to me? 

RATSO You got more ladies in Miami than any resort area in the country there. I mean, per capita on a given day, there's probably, uh, 300 of them on the beach. 

RATSO In fact you can't even, uh, sctratch yourself without gettin' a belly button, uh, up the old kazoo there. 

He takes a bite of food.

RATSO That's hot; let's go. 

RATSO C'mon! 

Joe walks over reading a comic book, 

...which Ratso grabs.

JOE Hey! 

He grabs it back 

and sniffs the air

JOE Smells worse than it did cold.

JOE What's all this sweet talk about Florida? Your friend O'Daniel got a stable down there now? 

Joe swings violently. 

RATSO All right, startin' tomorrow, you cook your own goddamn dinner.

RATSO Or you get one of your rich Park Avenue ladies to cook for you in her penthouse.

JOE I'm eatin' it, I'm eatin' it, see? 

JOE Mmm, look. I'm eatin' this here, Ratso. 

JOE Mmm, good. It's good. 

Ratso yelps, hopping on his one good leg, sucking his thumb.

RATSO Cowboy killers! Break my finger, Christ! I got news for you, baby, no chick with any class buys that big dumb cowboy crap... I gotta get outta here, gotta get outta here. 

RATSO Miami Beach, that's where you could score. 

RATSO Anybody can score there, even you. 

RATSO In New York no rich lady with any class at all buys that cowboy crap anymore. 

RATSO They're laughin' at you on the street.

JOE Ain't nobody laughin' at me on the street.

RATSO Behind your back I seen 'em laughin' at you, fella.

JOE Aw, what the hell you know about women anyway? 

JOE When's the last time you scored, boy?

RATSO That's a matter I only talk about at confession. 

RATSO We're not talkin' about me now.

JOE And when's the last time you went to confession? 

RATSO That's between me and my confessor. 

RATSO And I'll tell ya another thing. 

RATSO Frankly, you're beginning to smell. 

RATSO And for a stud in New York, that's a handicap.

JOE Well, don't talk to me about clean. I ain't never seen you change your underwear once the whole time I been here in New York. 

JOE And that's pretty peculiar behavior.

RATSO I don't have to do that in public. I ain't got no need to expose myself.

JOE No, I bet you don't. I bet you ain't never even been laid! 

JOE How about that? 

JOE And you're gonna tell me what appeals to women.

Ratso holds his thumb under the tub-sink faucet. 

RATSO (CONT'D) ... the cowboy bit's out, except among fags of a certain type, which take a certain, type hustler to exploit. Like I could handle it -- being a stealing operation basically -- but take your average fag, very few of them want a cripple. I know enough yo know that great big, dumb cowboy crap...

RATSO ...of yours don't appeal to nobody except every jockey on 42nd Street. 

RATSO That's faggot stuff! 

RATSO You wanna call it by its name? That's strictly for fags!

Joe holds the coconut like Yorick's skull, thinking hard.* 

JOE Well, I am dumb, that's for sure. I don't talk right. I can't think too good. John Wayne! You wanna tell me he's a fag? 

JOE I like the way I look. It makes me feel good. It does. 

JOE And women like me, goddammit. Just Hell, only one thing I ever been good for's loving. 

JOE Women go crazy for me. That's a really true Fact. 

JOE Ratso, hell: Crazy Annie. Had to send her away. So I don't cash in on that, what am I? I'm shee-it. May's well flush me down that hole with the dishwater. 

Joe sets the coconut on the floor, holding it with both hands while he tries to smash it with the heel of his boot.

RATSO  Then how come you ain't scored once the whole time you been in New York?

JOE (CONT'D) 'Cause I need management, goddammit! 

JOE 'Cause you stole $20 offa me. 

JOE That's why you gonna stop crapping about Florida...

JOE ...and get your skinny butt moving. 

JOE ...To earn twenty bucks worth of management 

JOE ...which you owe me... 

Midnight Cowboy

 

Words by Waldo Salt

 

Pictures by Adam Holender and John Schlesinger

 

Midnight Cowboy is available on DVD from M-G-M Home Entertainment and Blu-Ray from The Criterion Collection.