Happy Labor Day From The Shattered Lens!

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Doc Bowman

Happy Labor Day from the Shattered Lens!

Remember, after today, the flame-haired one says it is a crime to wear white so watch out!

Artwork of the Day: Self-Made Woman

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

by Gerald Gregg

TV Review: Twin Peaks: The Return Part 18 (dir by David Lynch)

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Twin Peaks finale, which began with Part 17, concludes with an episode that we’ll probably still be debating 25 years from now.

The Doppelganger sits in the waiting room of the Black Lodge and bursts into flame. MIKE (Al Strobel) uses the Doppelganger’s soul to create another Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan). One scene later, that Cooper is arriving at his home in Las Vegas, where he is embraced by Janey-E (Naomi Watts) and Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon).

In the woods outside Twin Peaks, the real Cooper leads Laura (Sheryl Lee) by the hand. Again, Laura vanishes and we hear the sound of her screaming.

Suddenly, we are again in the waiting room of the Black Lodge. Cooper sits in his chair. MIKE asks him, “Is it the future or the past?” Events from Parts One and Two repeat. Cooper again meets the Arm but this time the Arm asks him not if he remembers the Doppelganger but if he knows the story of the little girl who lived down the street. Again, Laura whispers in Cooper’s ear before being pulled away by an unseen force. Again, Leland (Ray Wise) tells Cooper to find Laura.

And, once again, Cooper starts to walk through the Black Lodge but this time, he finds a room that is full of dead trees. And in that room, Diane (Laura Dern) is waiting for him. “Is it you?” she asks him, “is it really you?” Cooper is shocked but happy to see Diane.

(Is it possible that, even after saving Laura Palmer and therefore eliminating the event that led to him going to Twin Peaks in the first place, Cooper still found himself trapped in the Black Lodge for 25 years? But now, instead of being sent to destroy his Doppelganger, could it be that Cooper has been allowed to leave specifically to track down Laura?)

In the next scene, Cooper and Diane are driving down a desert road. It looks like the same road in South Dakota where the Doppelganger crashed his car when Cooper previously escaped from the Black Lodge. It does not look like it’s anywhere near Odessa, Texas, which will become important shortly.

They pull over to the side of the road. “Exactly 430 miles,” Cooper says. Cooper gets out of the car. He looks at the power lines above. Remember — in the world of Twin Peaks, electricity is magic. Cooper gets back in the car and asks Diane to kiss him. “Once we cross,” he says, “it could all be different.”

They drive forward. Electricity crackles. Suddenly, they’re driving down a highway in the middle of the night. They pull into a motel and get a room. They make love, with Cooper telling Diane to keep the lights turned out and Diane placing her hands over Cooper’s face.

(It was around this time that I started to realize that a lot of unanswered questions — like what’s going on with Audrey and why Sarah Palmer can remove her face — were probably destined to remain unanswered.)

The next morning, Cooper wakes up in a room that appears to be different from the one that he fell asleep in. Diane is gone but there’s a letter on the nightstand. It is addressed to Richard and it is from Linda. Linda’s letter says that she’s leaving because, “I don’t recognize you anymore.”

(Remember during Part One, when the Giant told Cooper to remember Richard and Linda? I’m going to assume that, just as how Cooper was previously Dougie Jones, the “crossing over” that he and Diane did transformed them into Richard and Linda.)

Cooper leaves his motel and it’s a totally different motel from the one that we previously saw him checking into.

A city limits sign indicates that Cooper is in Odessa, Texas. (Lynch does not make my home state look very good in this episode but I’ll forgive him because he’s otherwise awesome.) As Cooper drives down the street, he sees a sign for Judy’s coffee shop–

JUDY!

Cooper pulls into the parking lot and enters Judy’s. He asks the waitress (Francesa Eastwood) if there’s another waitress who works there. She tells him that there is but it’s her day off. When a few rednecks in cowboy hats (really, David?) start to harass the waitress, Cooper beats them up and drops their guns in the deep fryer. Explaining that he’s with the FBI, Cooper asks for the other waitress’s address.

Cooper’s drives up to the waitress’s house. He sees that she has an electric poll (marked No. 6) outside of her house. When Cooper knocks on the door, it’s answered by Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)!

Except that she says that her name isn’t Laura Palmer. She insists that her name is Carrie Page and, when she hears that Cooper is FBI, she immediately asks, “Did you find him!?” Cooper tells her, “Your father’s name is Leland. Your mother’s name is Sarah.” When Carrie hears Sarah’s name, she appears to be momentarily shaken and asks. “What’s going on?” Cooper tells her that she is Laura Palmer and that she needs to come with him to Twin Peaks, Washington.

“D.C?” Carrie asks.

“State,” Cooper replies.

Carrie agrees to go up to Twin Peaks with him. Her willingness may have something to do with the dead man who is propped up on her couch.

Cooper and Carrie drive all the way from Texas to Washington State. That’s quite a long journey and, as I watched them slightly driving down yet another dark highway, I again resigned myself to the knowledge that the show would never reveal just why exactly Audrey was screaming in that white room.

Hey, Coop, I know you’re busy but remember Audrey?

(My theory is that, after raping her, the Doppelganger sent Audrey to the Black Lodge, and, just as he did to Diane, manufactured a replacement. But if Cooper saved Laura and the Doppelganger never entered our world, is Audrey in the Black Lodge? In fact, if Laura never died then Ben never had to sale the Ghostwood Estates to get an alibi, which means that he never pushed Audrey to become an environmental crusader and, hence, Audrey was probably not at the bank when the bomb went off.)

Finally, Cooper and Carrie reach Twin Peaks. They drive past the Double R. Carrie says she doesn’t recognize anything, not even the Palmer House.

Cooper and Carrie walk up to the house. (Rather sweetly, Cooper and Carrie hold hands as they approach.) What follows is Lynch at his creepiest, his best, and his most frustrating.

Alice Tremond was played the actual owner of the house that’s used for the exterior shots of the Palmer House.

When Cooper knocks on the door, it’s answered by the house’s owner, Alice Tremond. (Longtime fans of the show will recognize the Alice Tremond name as belonging to one of the inhabitants of the Black Lodge. However, Cooper never met Mrs. Tremond. Only Donna met her and her odd grandson.) Mrs. Tremond says that, as far as she knows, no one named Palmer has ever lived un the house. When asked, she says that she bought the house from Mrs. Chalfont, another Black Lodge inhabitant that Cooper never met.

Stunned, Cooper and Carrie walk away from the house.

“What year is this?” Cooper asks.

Carrie shrugs.

Suddenly, from inside the house, we hear Sarah Palmer’s voice. “Laura!”

Carrie screams. We hear a burst of static electricity and it appears that lights in the house go off. The screen fades to black.

The screaming fades. Again, we see Cooper’s passive face as Laura whispers in his ear.

End credits. Sheryl Lee is credited twice. Once for playing Laura Palmer. Once for playing Carrie Page.

And so it ends.

We’re going to spend years debating what all this means and I don’t want to say too much until I get chance to watch the entire series a second time. (I plan on watching all 18 hours next weekend.) It does appear that, no matter how much Cooper and Laura try to avoid it, all paths lead back to not only Twin Peaks but also to the unspeakable horror that occurred in the Palmer House. Much like Dana Andrews’s obsessive P.I. in the classic film noir, Laura, Cooper is obsessed with saving a dead woman.

I’ll write more on this later, after I’ve had time to rest. For now, I just want to thank everyone who has followed our Twin Peaks coverage here on the Shattered Lens. And thank you to Jeff, Leonard, and Ryan for contributing!

It’s a strange world, isn’t it?

Twin Peaks on TSL:

Music Video of the Day: My Own Worst Enemy by Lit (1999, dir. Gavin Bowden)

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

This music video totally has to with Labor Day. It’s not just something I came up with at the last minute because I watched the 2016 American film called Split that was supposed to have to do with bowling.

Yes, I did have to be that specific. There are not only three films with the title Split that came out in 2016, but another one, from Korea, also has to do with bowling. The one I watched is a terrible film that you shouldn’t have to sit through. This video on the other hand, is one that everyone should be made to sit through.

I remember when this song hit the radio and TV. It was catchy the first time, and annoying from then on. I couldn’t get the chorus out of my mind. The one kind thing I can say is that it can be fun to swap different things in for the actual lyrics:

Please tell me why my brain is on the front lawn?
And I’m pissing with my clothes on?
I fell down chimney last night.

It was 1999, I was sick and out of school on permanent independent study. I had to make my own fun. It was easy to do so with its lyrics and it being played all the time.

As for the video, its people obsessed with Kingpin and The Big Lebowski making a video so that we think of them more like Blink-182 than their previous videos that made them look like Soundgarden and pseudo-STP.

Based on their Wikipedia page, they’re exactly what I thought at the time: a flash in the pan. I lump them right in with groups like Eve 6. Incidentally, director Gavin Bowden made a video for Eve 6. He also worked with similar groups such as Silverchair and Lifehouse. He’s done around 30 videos.

Jed Hathaway did construction on the video. I think that’s the first time I have come across that credit.

The person with the most credits is editor Nabil Mechi. Mechi has edited about 100 videos ranging from The Roots to Paris Hilton.

Enjoy these repressed memories of the late-90s whether you were there or not.

TV Review: Twin Peaks: The Return Part 17 (dir by David Lynch)

Posted on September 3, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I imagine that there are a lot of upset people right now.

Maybe you’re one of them. Maybe, even as I sit here typing this, you are seething with rage. “18 hours and it ends with Cooper trapped in yet another fucked up situation, with Laura Palmer still screaming!? What the Hell!?”

Well, my advice would be to calm down. Did Twin Peaks: The Return ends on a conventional note? No. Has anything about Twin Peaks: The Return been conventional? Hell no. This is a David Lynch production, after all. And Lynch has never shown an interest in tidy endings. In fact, if anything, Lynch has never shown much of an interest in endings. Blue Velvet concluded with a fake bird. Lost Highway ended with Bill Pullman appearing to transform yet again. Even Mulholland Drive ended with that evil creature still living behind Winkie’s.

As far as I’m concerned, Twin Peaks: The Return provided 18 of the most intriguing hours in television history. Am I little bit frustrated that it didn’t end on a definite note of conclusion? Sure. (With 15 minutes left in Part 18, I found myself saying, “Uhmmm … what about Audrey?”) But I’ll tell you right, I’m going to have a lot of fun debating what it all meant. Art is not about easy solutions.

(For the record, next weekend, I’m going to binge watch all 18 hours and then maybe I’ll post my conclusions.)

It could be argued that this should not be called a conclusion. As Ryan pointed out in this week’s peaks, the story continues. There may or may not be another season on Showtime. There may or may not be another Twin Peaks movie. Hell, Mark Frost may or may not write another Twin Peaks book. And, if none of that happens, the story will continue in our imaginations.

I went back and forth on whether or not to review both Parts 17 and 18 together or separately. In the end, I decided to review them separately because I consider Part 17 to be the conclusion on the third season of Twin Peaks while Part 18 feels like it’s laying the groundwork for a fourth season.

Let’s get to it!

Things open in South Dakota, with Gordon Cole (David Lynch) lamenting to Albert (Miguel Ferrer) and Tammy (Chrysta Bell) that he couldn’t bring himself to shoot Diane. After Albert says that Cole is going soft, Cole replies, “Not where it counts, buddy.” That line made me laugh, despite myself. Lynch just has such a sincere way of delivering his lines.

Cole goes on to explain that, before his death, Major Briggs shared, with him and Cooper, his discovery of an extremely evil and negative force that, “in olden times,” was known as Jowday. Jowday eventually got shortened to Judy. Briggs, Cooper, and Cole put together a plan that could lead them to Judy. Apparently, before his disappearance, Philip Jeffries said that he was on the verge of discovering Judy. Cole theorizes that the Doppelganger is looking for Judy.

Suddenly, the phone rings. It’s Agent Headley (Jay R. Ferguson), calling from Las Vegas, to announce that they’ve found Dougie Jones but that Dougie disappeared again. Mullins (Don Murray) asks to speak to Cole and gives him a message from Cooper. Cooper is on his way to Twin Peaks, to see Sheriff Truman!

In the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department, the lock-up is still nosiy. The drunk (Jay Aaseng) and Deputy Chad (John Pirruccello) take turns taunting each other. Eyeless Naido (Nae Yuuki) continues to whimper. Freddie (Jake Wardle) and James (James Marshall) listen.

At the Great Northern, Ben (Richard Beymer) gets a call. Jerry’s turned up in Wyoming, apparently convinced that he can kill people with his binoculars. It might be time to say, “No more drugs for that man,” as far as Jerry is concerned.

The next morning, the Doppelganger (Kyle MacLachlan) wanders through the woods outside of Twin Peaks. The vortex opens above him. The Doppelganger vanishes.

In the building above the purple sea, the disembodied head of Major Briggs (Don S. Davis) floats between two pictures, one of the woods and one of the Palmer House. The Fireman (Carel Struycken) waves his hand. In the background, we hear the electrical hum that been haunting the Great Northern.

The Doppelganger materializes outside of the Twin Peaks sheriff’s station. As he walks towards it, he is seen by Deputy Andy (Harry Goaz). At first, I was worried that the Doppelganger was going to kill Deputy Andy but instead, he greets him with a cold, “Hello, Andy.”

Andy leads the Doppelganger into the station, where they meet Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) and Sheriff Truman (Robert Forster). When the Doppelganger turns down a cup of coffee, everyone knows something strange is happening. Then, Andy starts to have visions of him and Lucy standing in the lobby, looking at something.

Meanwhile, in the holding area, it turns out that Chad has got a key hidden in his shoe. He gets out of his cell and heads for the weapons locker. When Andy shows up, looking for Hawk, Chad comes at him with a raised gun. But fear not! Freddie Sykes uses his green glove of power to throw open the door his cell, smashing Chad in the face and knocking him out.

Meanwhile, Lucy informs Truman that he has a phone call and he really needs to take it. Reluctantly, Truman takes the call and finds himself talking to … DALE COOPER! Dale and the Mitchums have just entered the Twin Peaks city limits and are on their way to the station!

The Doppelganger, realizing what is happening, reaches inside his jacket for a gun when suddenly — bang! The Doppelganger crashes to the floor. Standing behind him, holding a gun, is Lucy!

(Making this scene especially satisfying is that, during the second season Twin Peaks, Lucy was exclusively given comedic subplots that had nothing to do with the main storyline. 25 years, she finally gets to save the day.)

Way to go, Lucy!

Cooper tells Truman to make sure that no one touches the Doppelganger’s body until he arrives. Andy steps into the office with Hawk, Naido, James, and Freddie. Suddenly, just as in Part 8, the woodsmen appear and start working on the Doppelganger’s body. While that happens, Cooper and the Mitchums show up. And then Cole, Albert, and Tammy show up. It’s getting crowded in that office!

Suddenly, the spirit of Killer BOB (represented by an orb that contains stock footage of Frank Silva) emerges from the Doppelganger’s body and lunges at Freddie. Despite getting bloodied in the process, Freddie is able to use his green glove of power to smash BOB’s face into a thousand pieces. Yay Freddie!

Cooper puts the ring on the Doppelganger’s finger. The Doppelganger vanishes. Yay Cooper!

Cooper gets the key to his former hotel room from Sheriff Truman. “Major Briggs told me Sheriff Truman would have it,” Cooper explains. (Yay Major Briggs!)

Now, what happens next is interesting. A lot of positive things happen. Bobby Briggs (Dana Asbrook) comes in the office and Cooper tells him that he and Major Briggs are proud of him. Blind Naido is revealed to actually be the real Diane, in disguise. (And yes, the real Diane still has eyes.) Cole and Albert are reunited with their friend. And yet, through the whole scene, we see the face of another Cooper, this one with a blank expression, superimposed over the action.

This was when I started to suspect that the finale might turn out to be a bit controversial. Are we seeing reality or are we watching a dream, a memory, or a wish? Not even the presence of the Mitchum girls in pink, passing out finger sandwiches, can change the ominous tone of all this otherwise positive scene.

Cooper glances at the clock in Truman’s office and sees that the minute hand seems to be stuck.

A distorted voice says, “We live inside a dream.”

Oh shit, I thought as I watched this scene, we’ve got 30 minutes left and things are about to get so seriously fucked up…

“I hope I see all of you again,” Cooper says, “every one of you.”

The room goes black. Cooper’s superimposed face continues to passively stare.

Suddenly, Cooper, Diane, and Cole are slowly walking down a dark hallway. I believe they’re in the Great Northern because, when they reach a door, Cooper uses his old hotel room key to open it. He tells Cole and Diane to wait behind and then he enters the room. “See you at the curtain call,” Cooper says.

Inside the room is MIKE (Al Strobel) who recites the Fire Walk With Me poem. MIKE leads Cooper up a staircase and into the room the holds the metal device the contains the spirit of Philip Jeffries. Cooper asks to be sent back to February 23rd, 1989, the night of the death of Laura Palmer.

“Cooper,” Jeffries says, “remember…”

“ELECTRICITY!” MIKE exclaims.

Suddenly, Cooper’s back in 1989. He’s watching Laura (Sheryl Lee) sneak out of her house and jump on the back of James Hurley’s motorcycle while a jealous Leland (Ray Wise) watches from his window. Cooper watches them in the woods, listening as Laura tells James that Bobby killed a man. (This is true. Before he became everyone’s favorite lawman, Bobby shot a Canadian drug runner in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. I always wondered if that would be acknowledged.)

Cooper watches the familiar scene play out but, when Laura jumps off of James’s motorcycle, Cooper steps forward and changes history. Instead of allowing Laura to walk off to be murdered, Cooper tells her that he is taking her home. “I saw you in my dreams,” Laura says.

The next morning, we see another familiar sight: Laura’s body on the shore, wrapped in plastic. The body disappears. In archived footage from the original Twin Peaks pilot, we watch as Pete Martell (Jack Nance) says good morning to Catherine (Piper Laurie) and then heads out to fish. Except, this time, there’s no body to distract him. Instead of calling the police and reporting a murder, Pete goes fishing.

(It’s a sweet image and it was nice to see that, despite having been dead for 21 years, Jack Nance, who starred in Eraserhead and was the former husband of Catherine “Log Lady” Coulson, still appeared in the revival. Part 17 was dedicated to his memory.)

Where is Laura? Despite not being dead, she’s not in her house. However, Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) is. Sarah is smashing the famous picture of Laura as homecoming queen into little pieces. Disturbingly, this would seem to indicate that, at the time that Laura was being abused and eventually murdered by her father, Sarah was not a bystander but was instead possessed by the same evil that possessed Leland.

Cooper leads Laura through the woods. Suddenly, Laura screams and is gone.

Standing in front the red curtains of the Black Lodge, Julee Cruise sings.

End credits.

On to Part 18, which I am about to rewatch after which I will write up a review. It might be a few hours. Until then, why not check out some of the other 81 Twin Peaks-related posts that we’ve published this year at the Shattered Lens!

Twin Peaks on TSL:

This Week’s “Peaks” : Parts Seventeen And Eighteen (Spoilers Abound)

Posted on September 3, 2017 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Trash Film Guru

At this very moment, every single brain in the Twin Peaks fan community is melting.

And, hey, why shouldn’t they be? For a minute there, it really did look like everything was going to come together, especially with roughly, I dunno, 15 minutes to go in part seventeen of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks 2017/Twin Peaks : The Return/Twin Peaks season three — Kyle MacLachlan’s good cop/bad cop routine (the best ever seen, might I add) was over with and “Evil Coop” dispatched permanently; Freddie (played with heroic aplomb by Jake Wardle) had indeed met his destiny and used his rubber-gloved “super hand” to scatter BOB to the four winds; Kimmy Robertson’s Lucy got the chance to be more of a truly unexpected heroine; John Pirruccello’s Deputy Chad was thwarted in his lame jail-break attempt by his former co-worker, Andy (Harry Goaz); Lynch’s Gordon Cole…

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16 Initial Thoughts on Twin Peaks Part 18 (dir by David Lynch)

Posted on September 3, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As always, these are my initial thoughts. A full recap and review will be posted either later tonight or tomorrow.

So, did Cooper manufacture another Dougie for Janey-e and Sonny Jim?
Dammit, Cooper — don’t get stranded in the Black Lodge again. It was a hard enough to get you out the last time.
“Find Laura.” Was’t Cooper supposed to find Richard and Linda too?
It’s kind of a nice coincidence that the scene immediately following Cooper being told to “Find Laura,” features Laura Dern.
I notice that real Diane curses a lot less than manufactured Diane.
Okay, I love David Lynch and I love Twin Peaks but I don’t necessarily need to hear this entire damn song, not when the mystery of Audrey has yet to be solved.
Cooper is Richard? And Diane was Linda?
Odessa? They’re in Texas now?
I’d complain about the portrayal of Texas but at least this isn’t as bad as that episode of the X-Files.
Uhmmm…you might not want to travel with Carrie Page, seeing as how she has a dead man in her living room and all…
Odessa’s not that bad a town.
I’m noticing that we’ve only got 15 minutes left and Audrey is still screaming in a white room, for all that we know. This is a very odd finale and one that is going to divide a lot of viewers.
MRS. CHALFONT! And a Tremond reference as well.
Well, fuck. Is Cooper trapped in a different dimension again? He has the worst luck.
Wow. That scream.
Oh My God, there’s going to be so many angry people. And yet, did we expect anything different?

Twin Peaks on TSL:

18 Initial Thoughts on Twin Peaks: The Return Part 17 (dir by David Lynch)

Posted on September 3, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here we go.

Tonight’s the night. Tonight is the finale of Twin Peaks: The Return. As always, I will be jotting down my initial thoughts while watching the episode. I’ll post a full recap and review either later tonight or tomorrow.

(And, as always, keep an eye out for the latest edition of Ryan’s This Week’s Peaks.)

Here are my initial thoughts:

Watching the opening credits for the final time actually get me a little emotional.
“Not where it counts, old buddy.” Someone please write a pilot where Gordon Cole retires to a small town and gives everyone folksy advice.
“Has my watch stopped or is that one of the Marx brothers?” Oh my God, we’re going to miss Miguel Ferrer.
Jerry may need to cut down on the weed.
Oh no! Please don’t let any harm come to Andy!
The Doppelganger turning down a cup of coffee should be all Andy needs to figure that he’s not the real Cooper.
Freddie Sykes and his glove of power!
Oh my God, Lucy to the rescue!
Oh dammit, there’s the Woodsmen. Hurry, Cooper!
Oh my God, they brought the finger sandwiches all the way up to Twin Peaks. That’s great.
“We live inside a dream.”
That’s right! Bobby did shoot a Canadian drug smuggler in the head. I was wondering if that would ever be mentioned again.
Now that Cooper’s overhead that Bobby killed a man, is he going to arrest him if he ever gets out of 1989? There’s no statute of limitations on murder.
There’s Leo in the flashback. I assume that he was killed by all spiders in between the end of season 2 and this revival.
Could Cooper keep Laura from dying? Can the past be changed?
“We’re going home.” Oh my God! Tears in my eyes, no joke.
Jack Nance!
Oh My God. At least I don’t have to wait a week to see what happens next…

Twin Peaks on TSL:

A Movie A Day #238: Lawman (1971, directed by Michael Winner)

Posted on September 3, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

In the 1880s, Jared Maddox (Burt Lancaster) is the marshal of the town of Bannock. After a night of drinking and carousing leads to the accidental shooting of an old man, warrants are issued for the arrest of six ranch hands. Maddox is determined to execute the arrest warrants but the problem is that the six men live in Sabbath, another town. They all work for a wealthy rancher (Lee J. Cobb) and the marshal of Sabbath, Cotton Ryan (Robert Ryan), does not see the point in causing trouble when all of the men are likely to be acquitted anyway. Maddox doesn’t care. The law is the law and he does not intend to leave Sabbath until he has the six men.

Lawman starts out like a standard western, with a stranger riding into town, but then it quickly turns the western traditions on their head by portraying Marshal Maddox as being a rigid fanatic and the wealthy rancher as a morally conflicted man who does not want to resort to violence and who continually tries and fails to convince Maddox to leave. In the tradition of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, there are no real heroes to be found in Lawman and, even when Maddox starts to reconsider his strict adherence to the law and refusal to compromise, it is too late to prevent the movie from ending in a bloody massacre. Since Lawman was made in 1971, I initially assumed it was meant to be an allegory about the Vietnam War but then I saw that it was directed by Michael Winner, a director who specialized in tricking audiences into believing that his violent movie were deeper than they actually were.

Even if Lawman never reaches the heights of a revisionist western classic like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, it is still pretty good, with old pros Lancaster, Ryan, Cobb, and Albert Salmi all giving excellent performances. The cast is full of familiar faces, with everyone from Robert Duvall to Richard Jordan to Ralph Waite to Joseph Wiseman to John Beck showing up in small roles. In America, Winner is best remembered for his frequent collaborations with Charles Bronson. Chuck is not in Lawman, though it seems like he should have been and Lee J. Cobb’s rancher is named Vincent Bronson. Winner would not make his first film with Charles Bronson until a year later, when he directed him in Chato’s Land.