SIFF and Greg Olson Productions Present
L.A. NOIR
shadows in paradise
Point Blank (1967) In 1965 English director John Boorman landed in Los Angeles for the first time. “I rented a car at the airport and drove the length of Sunset Boulevard in time to see the sun sink into the Pacific. I spend days aimlessly driving the freeways. It was concrete over sand. I longed to make a film there. I met Lee Marvin in London and we discussed the idea of a Point Blank film. By 1967 Lee was a big star with a lot of clout, and we sat down with studio heads and producers to work out the film’s details. Marvin asked, ‘I have script approval, cast approval and technician approval?’ The producers all said, ‘Yes,’ and Lee said, ‘I defer all these approvals to John Boorman.’ Lee’s backing me all the way was a great inspiration.” Ralph O’Hara, bartender at Malibu’s The Raft: I could tell Lee felt the world of Angie Dickinson. He really liked her, and she did the same. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. If someone had come up and tried to hit on her, she wouldn’t hear a word they had to say. Angie Dickinson: On Point Blank we did have an eye thing. Oh, it was wonderful! But Lee never made any kind of move of any kind, emotional, physical, or anything towards me that would make me think he was ever interested in me. I would say if you asked me, “Do you think Lee digs you?” I would have said at the time, “No, I don’t think so.” If he did, I wasn’t aware. My guess would be that from him, a look would be comparable to a pass from somebody else. Hard to read Lee. Jeff Bridges, who made The Iceman Cometh with Lee Marvin: Lee taught me a valuable lesson. He said, “In acting there are certain unspoken rules. One is that when the camera moves in for a close-up, you have to be subtle in your performance because your face is going to be forty feet high on the screen.” But then he said, “That’s when I play it big. You have to learn the rules, and then you can do what you want with them to make them work for your performance.” Lee Marvin: People get a vicarious thrill out of what I do, I know that. But I reckon my films don’t have a bad influence on anyone; they won’t send people out into the streets with axes, or anything. The Shirley Temple movies are more likely to do that; after listening to “The Good Ship Lollipop” you just gotta go out and beat somebody. Stands to reason. I choose projects that have a certain quality I call the white eye, the inescapability of danger or death.
September 17, 2025
Directed by: John Boorman Screenplay by: Alexander Jacobs, David Newhouse, Rafe Newhouse from Richard Stark’s novel Cinematography by: Philip H. Lathrop Music by: Johnny Mandel Edited by: Henry Berman
THE PLAYERS: Lee Marvin as Walker Angie Dickinson as Chris Keenan Wynn as Yost Carroll O’Connor as Brewster Lloyd Bochner as Frederick Carter Michael Strong as Stegman John Vernon as Mal Reese Sharon Aker as Lynne James Sikking as Hired Gun Sandra Warner as Waitress