Author: Dave Franklin

Sordid glory. Would you call that the defining trait of writer Joe Eszterhas’ distinctive body of work? After all, this is the man who cooked up Basic Instinct, Sliver and Showgirls in his steamy, body-filled kitchen. Most screenwriters dawdle in obscurity, even if their creative juice results in a colossal hit, but Eszterhas gained notoriety…

Other stuff: The Greatest (1977), Phenomenon (1995) & The Apostle (1997) Given the arse-licking title and its gag-inducing theme song, you’d expect The Greatest to be nothing more than ninety-minutes of Muhammad Ali cuddling himself. And for the most part (especially during his anti-Vietnam stance) it does its best to depict him as The Most…

War: M*A*S*H (1970) & The Eagle Has Landed (1976) I guess I’m no different to you in that there are some movies I don’t get. M*A*S*H is the perfect example, a flick that was a big box-office hit, garnered five Oscar nods and spawned a long-running TV show. It centers on the frat boy hijinks…

Cops: The Rain People (1969), Badge 373 (1973), True Confessions (1981), Colors (1988) & Falling Down (1993) Duvall has played a lot of law enforcement officers, kicking things off with a homophobic head-buster in The Detective before popping up as an obnoxious, daughter-abusing motorcycle cop in the vaguely feminist Rain People. He’s introduced with half…

The Westerns: True Grit (1969), Lawman (1971), The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid (1972), Joe Kidd (1972) & Geronimo: An American Legend (1995) I don’t know too much about John Wayne, except he always seemed to play a similar character: tough, gruff and self-reliant. A man’s man. Didn’t dress in pink much, you know? In the…

Dramas: The Chase (1966), Network (1976), The Betsy (1978), The Great Santini (1979), Tender Mercies (1983), The Natural (1984), Rambling Rose (1991), The Paper (1994) & The Scarlet Letter (1995) The Chase united Duvall with Brando for the first time, but although it’s the lesser known of their collaborations this one is worth hunting down.…