Sitting Target
(1972)
Oliver Reed, still relatively youthful (his early 30s, so
early 50s in liver years), before the booze pickled his brains, is a powerhouse
of simmering rage in this stylised thriller from skilled journeyman Douglas
Hickox. Oli’s an ‘orribly unsavoury animal, busting out of prison just so he
can knock off his old lady. It’s matter of honour, or pride, or something. Oli’s
steaming pissed and it’s going to get messy.
This thriller has been compared to Get Carter, but Alexander Jacobs’ screenplay (from Laurence
Henderson’s novel) lacks the same cool precision. Jacobs contributed to a
number of decent scripts, two for John Boorman among them, but this is his only
solo credit; maybe that’s suggestive. Reed’s Harry Lomart is in the nick,
imprisoned in part for killing a man; he didn’t mean to do it, you understand.
When Pat (Jill St John) - what has she
done to Harry, Pat – visits, she announces that’s that and she’s got another
fella. Harry promptly loses it something rotten. He decides to get out and get
her. He’s has no qualms about strangling the missus, even on the understanding
she’s pregnant (after all, it’s not his); she’s got it coming, the cow. During
the first 10 minutes Harry announces that prison (a wretched hive of
surveillance cameras and mental degradation) “makes you feel like… some animal in a cage” and goes on to prove
himself a beast unleashed for the next 80.
Helping him out is Ian McShane’s Birdy Williams (I kept mishearing
his name as Bertie, but this would be the last place you’d find Wodehouse’s
protagonist), back when McShane was unbelievably young – he looked older than
his years by the time he got round to making Lovejoy, which most of a certain generation know him best for – and
pretty. Besides Hickox’s direction, and an impressive array of too-brief
supporting turns (all of which might have sent the plot off on a considerably
more interesting trajectory than the one it settles for) the best thing Sitting Target has going for it is the rapport
between Reed and McShane. these two have a salty informality, they’re naturally
as thick as thieves, partners in crime, uber-dodgy dealers. Both bring a
lived-in immediacy to their roles, with Reed grimacing like a pregnant bullfrog
while McShane relishes the relatively smoother customer; Birdy’s shrewder,
wittier and with a smarter mouth on him.
The first 30 minutes, depicting the prison break (filming
took place at Irish penitentiaries) that follows Harry’s confrontation with the
trouble and strife, are outstanding. Along for the ride is the marvellous
Freddie Jones (recognisable for a multitude of parts, but notables include Children of the Stones and The Elephant Man), playing posh on this
occasion. It’s a taut slow-burn sequence, taking in obstacles including barbed
wire fences, guard dogs (you wouldn’t want to be a guard dog that night), and
obligatory ropes across sheer drops. Perhaps it’s because this sequence is so good that, in spite of everyone’s
best efforts, the rest of the picture fails to match it. But I suspect it’s also
because the premise is so slight and askance.
There’s an unpleasantly misogynistic streak running
throughout Sitting Target. I was
ready to give it the benefit of the doubt; that these characters are
unsympathetic brutalisers, and the makers are in no way condoning such
behaviour. Certainly, Oli’s initial freak out in the prison meeting room,
thrusting his hand through the glass partition and attempting to strangle Pat,
is shocking and intense; the fury of a maniac. The problem is, there’s an
implication in the through-line that St John’s character has it coming, and
every other female character we meet is a tart just waiting for a good seeing
to (apart from a young June Brown, that is).
No sooner are the convicts in the back of a van bound for
freedom than a bit of crumpet is on tap. Hickox stages a curiously arresting
tableau, with antic-eyed Oli, Freddie Jones and no less than Camp Freddie
himself (Tony Beckley) in the foreground while McShane ruts away behind them (“She’s all yours now”). Arresting as this
is, the filmmaker’s eye doesn’t get behind the story with the intelligence of
say, Carter, and without that
distance it becomes a little to entranced by the mischief and worse these bad boys
get up to. A closer comparison to Target’s
visuals would be the excesses of The
Ipcress File (a glorious movie, but with mental camerawork). There’s an
indifference to what happens to these lovelies. You can tell there’s thought
behind some of what we see (Harry keeps himself pure so as not to sully the
revenge on his treacherous bitch, and he tests out his newly acquired weapon on
pornographic images adorning the gun dealer’s walls) but it sinks, or amps up,
into undiscerning overkill. Even the poster instructs us that Harry is an
animal (in case we thought we were supposed to like the guy?) but Hickox revels
in Lomart’s unstoppable carnage.
That said, much of what Hickox comes up with is magnificent.
If I were awarding points for style alone, this picture would get full marks. I
was going to say Hickox brings the sensibility of a horror veteran to his
action scenes, but then I remembered it’s his son Anthony who directs all the
horror movies. Douglas made Theatre of
Blood the following year, rightly his most celebrated picture, but he also
directed John Wayne in London atrocity Brannigan
and the ill-advised Zulu Dawn (also,
Ian Richardson as Sherlock Holmes in a quite good mid ‘80s Hound of the Baskervilles). His approach lends scenes a heightened,
disturbing, sometimes ghoulish frisson. It isn’t only the action; Hickox
inordinately fond of low angled shots, overhead shots, and he’ll stage an innocuous moment with
Dutch angles, lending his South London milieu an off kilter, skewy quality that
underpins the general seaminess. It’s a strange and fascinating mixture of ‘70s
urban decay and filmmaking finesse.
The locations are creatively used at all times. Edward
Woodward, a year off from The Wicker Man,
turns up as a copper attempting to protect Pat from Harry’s horrendous hands
(except that Harry has purchased a Mauzer – well beaten up the dealer and taken
it – so as to kill her from a distance) and engages in a brutal bout of
fisticuffs with him on the vertiginous balcony of her flat. But then Eewawoowa
pretty much exits the picture. In the striking sequence that follows Harry,
pursued by motorcycle rozzers, stands amid a maze of hanging washing as they
encircle him. Hickox keeps his camera in tight, and the effect is both
hallucinatory and coherent (perhaps this is down to the least imaginative of Bond movie directors – and that’s saying
something – John Glen, handling the editing).
Soon after we’re treated to another cameo – Frank Finlay as
former accomplice Marty Gold (who exhibits yet another bit of totty to be
passed around the men; “Any friend of
Marty’s…”) – and another bravura sequence involving a mirrored staircase
(the height of gaudy excess). The grand climax involving a prolonged car chase
is effectively constructed but less engaging. Because I didn’t see the twist in
the tale coming doesn’t necessarily make it a good one. It’s rather clumsy and strains
credulity; such a convoluted scheme that could have gone wrong at any moment? However,
full marks to Hickox for visual hyperbole as Harry lets loose a hail of bullets
against a rising sun.
Stanley Myers, whose career extends from the first season of
Doctor Who to The Deer Hunter and a run of Nic Roeg films, provides a wonderful
score; like so much here, the craftsmanship exceeds the quality of the founding
material. Sitting Target is extremely
well directed, with some indelible performances and a fine soundtrack, but the picture itself doesn’t really leave the mark it should. It’s difficult enough
to get behind a picture about a leering brute. Compounding this, Harry’s plan is
so unhinged Hickox has no option but to become enmired by its B movie trappings.
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