The Friends of Eddie Coyle

Director: Peter Yates
Screenplay: Paul Monash (based on the novel by George V. Higgins)
Stars: Robert Mitchum (Eddie Coyle), Peter Boyle (Dillon), Richard Jordan (Dave Foley), Steven Keats (Jackie Brown), Alex Rocco (Jimmy Scalise), Joe Santos (Artie Van), Mitchell Ryan (Waters), Peter MacLean (Mr. Partridge), Kevin O’Morrison (Bank manager #2), Marvin Lichterman (Vernon), Carolyn Pickman (Nancy), James Tolkan (The Man’s contact man)
MPAA Rating: R
Year of Release: 1973
Country: U.S.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle Criterion Collection DVD
The Friends of Eddie CoyleSet in the cold, grim environs of Boston, The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a smart, low-key crime melodrama that ties together the impending fates of several men who are struggling to survive at the fringes of the city’s criminal underworld. Shot entirely on location (even interiors), the film has a rough, lived-in feel that imbues the most mundane of activities with a sense of unadorned realism. The majority of the action unfolds in a mixture of gray sun and grayer fluorescent lights over Formica counters at cheap restaurants and the aged wood of a neighborhood bar, under the awning of bus stops, and in parked cars in crowded lots. There is always the sense that characters need to be surrounded by others to do their business, as if isolation itself immediately equals death (ironically, one of the film’s tensest sequences takes place in a crowded hockey arena).

As the title suggests, the film is a multi-character study, although the use of the word “friends” is dripping with irony given that these characters’ survival is frequently tied to someone else’s demise. The center is held by Robert Mitchum’s Eddie Coyle, an aging “two-bit hood” who is faced with an impending two-year prison stretch for a small-time liquor robbery in New Hampshire. That does not mean, however, that he is necessarily the main character, nor does it mean that he gets the majority of the screen time. Rather, Coyle is central because he embodies both the rugged, no-nonsense wisdom of years of experience and the ever-present fate of those who make their living outside the law (Mitchum’s lengthy movie career and his own notorious brushes with the law contribute indelibly to Coyle’s quiet intensity). Coyle is, in a sense, both what the younger criminals aspire to be (hard, sharp, experienced) and what they fear they will end up (old, forgotten, imprisoned), which makes him one of the quintessential antiheroes of ’70s American cinema: a fascinating loser.

The film’s other characters, whose fates are all variously intertwined with Coyle’s, include Dillon (Peter Boyle), a hard-eyed bartender who acts as a liaison for those who are truly in power and thus don’t need to dirty their hands directly, and Jackie Brown (Steven Keats), a young, shaggy-haired gun dealer. Brown is cocky and in no way naïve, but he also represents a faster, looser generation that Coyle doesn’t quite understand. And always there are the connections. Coyle needs guns and Brown needs to get them to him or they’re both in trouble from those above. At the same time, Coyle is working with Dave Foley (Richard Jordan), a federal agent who wants Coyle to rat out his friends and acquaintances in exchange for the possibility of a suspended sentence. In another film this would be a central moral quandary and cause for much hang wringing, but for Coyle it is a no-brainer even though it goes against his entire ethic; as he puts it, he’s simply too old to put in more time and he’s been a stand-up guy long enough.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is the kind of intelligent, literary film that doesn’t get made too often anymore (only in the 1970s could a sleeper like this with a mostly unknown cast come out of a major studio’s gates). There is not a lot of physical violence in the film, with only a few gunshots being fired (although the prominent display of firearms on the film’s one-sheet suggests that the marketing department at Paramount wished otherwise). However, the threat of violence hangs tensely over every conversation, precipitated in one of the opening scenes in which Coyle tells the story of how his fingers were broken as payment for a botched job. The film’s tension comes from the knowledge that everything could go wrong at any point and that Coyle’s time is quickly running out.

While composer Dave Grusin’s sometimes bombastic jazz-inflected music often feels like it’s pounding on you, the film’s primary emphasis is on the interactions between the characters and the rough-and-tumble rhythms of their dialogue, which was the hallmark of the source novel by George V. Higgins, whose life as a crime novelist was preceded by work as both an attorney general and a journalist. The adaptation was by prolific screenwriter Paul Monash, who had worked primarily in television, writing dozens of anthology drama episodes in the 1950s and then shifting over to episodic TV in the ’60s. Director Peter Yates, who was best known in the States for Steve McQueen’s automotive antics in Bullitt (1968), handles the material with quiet authority, which allows the characters and their naturalistic settings to take center stage, creating a slow burn that may lack flash, but is heavy with presence.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle Director-Approved Criterion Collection Blu-ray

Aspect Ratio1.85:1
Audio
  • English Linear PCM 1.0 monaural
  • Subtitles English
    Supplements
  • Audio commentary by director Peter Yates
  • Stills gallery
  • Insert booklet with an essay by critic Kent Jones and a 1973 on-set profile of actor Robert Mitchum from Rolling Stone
  • DistributorThe Criterion Collection
    SRP$39.95
    Release DateApril 28, 2015

    VIDEO & AUDIO
    Criterion’s Blu-ray upgrade from their 2009 DVD features the same high-definition transfer, which was made from a 35mm interpositive and a 35mm color reversal intermediate struck from the original negative, except now is presented in full 1080p. It looks superb in the way it captures the gritty, slightly grainy look of early ’70s cinema, and the high-def presentation enhances both the detail and depth of the image. The film’s look is purposefully washed out with an emphasis on neutral earth tones and grayish light. Digital restoration has removed virtually all signs of age and damage, bringing the film back to what it must have looked like when it first unspooled in theaters more than 40 years ago. The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, although the opening credits sequence is framed at 1:66:1, which must have been done on the original print to ensure that none of the credits were cropped off the edges by sloppy projectionists. The monaural soundtrack, now presented in lossless Linear PCM, has been nicely remastered from a 35mm magnetic dialogue, music, and effects track and digitally restored.
    SUPPLEMENTS
    As with the DVD, there are only two supplements included on Criterion’s Blu-ray. The first is an audio commentary by director Peter Yates, who provides a wealth of information about the film’s production and his experiences as a filmmaker. The other supplement is a stills gallery that would be fairly forgettable except that half of the stills are of scenes that were ultimately cut from the film, which leads one to the conclusion that the footage has unfortunately been long lost. It is also worth mentioning that this is one of the first Criterion Blu-rays in a while with an insert booklet, rather than a fold-out, which allows them to include both a 2009 essay by critic Kent Jones and a 1973 on-set profile of actor Robert Mitchum from Rolling Stone.

    Copyright ©2015 James Kendrick

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    All images copyright © Paramount Pictures and The Criterion Collection

    Overall Rating: (3.5)




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