There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)

It's a shame so many great names are associated with this god-awful movie. Typical of so many other movies made in the late 60's - early 70's, it's plagued by music that is painful to the ears, sets that look cheap and are unrealistically lit, and poor acting. I love westerns, I loved Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda, but not this waste of time. Give it a pass.

Kirk Douglas (Paris) makes off with $500,000 that isn't his. He buries it in a rattlesnake pit and takes a few notes to blow on hookers but he's caught and sent to jail in the Arizona desert. We are also introduced to his future cell mates at the beginning of the film as we are shown the crimes for which they are sent to the same place. With this group sharing their living quarters in prison, Douglas emerges as a leader and, of course, has an escape plan in mind. Can he outwit new prison warden Henry Fonda (Lopeman)? This film will provide a couple of surprise moments for you at the end. It's a comedy that keeps the pace and it doesn't seem like its running time of over 2 hours. We get to know the characters and become fond of them all. At the beginning of the film, we see Douglas shoot one of his gang in the back – but I interpreted this in a different way to others who point to this as a demonstration of his cruel streak. In my mind, he shot his gang member as that member was about to shoot a woman - he gallantly saved her life. Well, by the end of the film, I changed my tune. Douglas is a badass.Throughout the film, we see Fonda as a bit of a soft touch with a righteous streak as his fulcrum. Indeed, Douglas questions his motivations as Fonda doesn't drink or smoke and Douglas thinks there is something else lurking within him. Douglas has obviously been listening to that song by Adam Ant – "Goody Two Shoes". You know, the one where the chorus goes 'Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do?' Good acting by all the cast and an unexpected ending. Didn't see that one coming but the clue is in the title. This film also gives you a tip on how to draw a great picture of an angel.

Wow, caught this wildly unbalanced "crapterpiece" on basic cable and could not believe how times have changed, you could never make this today - and why would you want to? This movie is in a lower class by itself. The killing here is random and wimpy, nobody seems bothered at all as people get murdered left and right with no affect. I understand this is trying to be a comedy, but you'll find none blacker. Kirk Douglas role basically takes Newman's character from Cool Hand Luke and removes everything likable or charming from it. Henry Fonda is as wooden as a wagon wheel and the rest of the cast does their best to clean up the mess. Racism, sexism, homosexuality, rape, robbery, murder - it's all here and you don't care at all. And I can't help but bitch about the score, which was perhaps the worst and most inappropriate of any Western, maybe any movie! Imagine a contemporary 70s style urban soundtrack from a Gene Wilder film or a Mel Brooks feature and you get the idea. Ugh - even basic cable could do better.

Mank didn't write the screenplay for this, his penultimate movie but elected instead for a script from the team responsible for Bonnie and Clyde. The plot itself, a melange of Western meets Big House was also something of a departure though given his proved eclecticism no one was really surprised. Curate's Egg is as good a description as any for while it is definitely good in parts ultimately it fails to satisfy. Hume Cronyn, working for a third and final time with Mank may well have relished the return to at least half the genre where he made his name - at least as a film actor - as the brutal warder in Brute Force playing someone diametrically opposite in the form of a gay con. I didn't note that much chemistry between the two leads, Douglas and Fonda, unlike say, Douglas and Lancaster but the film does benefit from a rich assortment of support in the shape of John Randolph, Warren Oates, Arthur O'Connell, Burgess Meredith and Lee Grant. Douglas' exotically named Paris Pitman seems out of place in the Arizona desert but charms his way through. Interesting rather than memorable.