Country: USA
Year: 1983
Duration: 99'
After the uproar over Cruising,
Friedkin takes on a comedy similar to Dr. Strangelove. Luckup Industries has built a bomber that can be flown without a pilot.
Production costs are too high and the machine doesn't work, but they try
to sell it anyway in Latin America. Things become even more complicated
when Eddie Muntz and his partner Ray become interested in the deal.
Eddie reassures the buyers that the bomber works perfectly well. Ray,
whose conscience is bothering him, converts to universal love.
"And that's what our film is about: the chicanery that goes into the
aerospace business. It's not about preserving the world for peace; it's
about the making of weapons to make money. And it will never end. There
will never be an end to the arms race because it is the life's blood of
every nation's economy" (W. Friedkin).
Biography
film director
William Friedkin
William Friedkin was born in Chicago on August 29, 1935, the son of Russian Jews who had emigrated to the United States. After graduating, he began working in television in the midst of the economic boom of the 1950's, a factor which would prove to be fundamental to his professional and artistic development. His first job was as a messenger boy at the local station WGN; then in 1959, he moved to WTTV, only to return to WGN as a director and screenwriter. During that period, he met the journalist Frank Caughlin, a member of Chicago's progressive middleclass who was famous for his civil rights battles. This culture is reflected in his first documentaries, which he made for WGN with his friend Bill Butler (who was to become an important director of photography for films like Jaws, Grease, Rocky II and Rocky III). He also filmed The People versus Paul Crump (1962), a movie which was conceived and made to save a man from the electric chair. This film won him the prize for best documentary at the San Francisco Film Festival. His first full-length film, Good Times, was made in 1967, but true success arrived in 1971 with The French Connection, which won five Oscars (best film, director, screenplay, editing and actor, Gene Hackman), followed in 1973 by The Exorcist, which won Oscars for best screenplay and sound. Sorcerer (1977), a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot's film Le Salaire de la Peur (1953), was his unlucky film and weakened the relationship between Friedkin and the Studios. Between the late '70s and early '80s, the director alternated working on commission on a controversial film like Cruising (1980) and directing a milestone in detective films, To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). The 1990's saw him range from horror films like The Guardian (1990) to sports films, Blue Chips (1993), only to return to his favorite genre, noir films with Jade (1995). In Rules of Engagement (2000), Friedkin investigated the effective impossibility of reconstructing facts, on a historical and on a cinematographic level, while his most recent film, The Hunted (2003) takes dueling, a key feature of classic American cinema, to its extreme limit.
FILMOGRAFIA
Beginnings: The Ulveling Interview (cm, doc., 1960), The People versus Paul Crump (mm, doc., 1962), «Home Again» - 77 - Grange of Illinois (cm, doc., 1963), The Bold Men (mm, doc., 1965), Pro Football: Mayhem on a Sunday Afternoon (mm, doc., 1965), «The Alfred Hitchcock's Hour» - Off Season (mm, TV, 1965), The Thin Blue Line (mm, doc., 1966), Good Times (1967), The Pickle Brothers (cm, TV, 1967), The Night They Raided Minsky's (Quella notte inventarono lo spogliarello, 1968), The Birthday Party (Festa di compleanno, 1968), The Boys in the Band (Festa per il compleanno del caro amico Harold, 1970), The French Connection (Il braccio violento della legge, 1971), The Exorcist (L'esorcista, 1973), Fritz Lang Interviewed by William Friedkin (1974-2003), Sorcerer (Il salario della paura, 1977), The Brink's Job (Pollice da scasso, 1978), Cruising (id., 1980), Deal of the Century (L'affare del secolo, 1983), To Live and Die in L. A. (Vivere e morire a Los Angeles, 1985), To Live and Die in L. A. (videoclip, 1985), Self-Control (videoclip, 1985), «The Twilight Zone» - Nightcrawlers («Ai confini della realtà» - I serpenti della notte, cm, TV, 1985), Somewhere (videoclip, 1986), The C.A.T. Squad (TV, 1986), Rampage (Assassino senza colpa?, 1987-1992), The C.A.T. Squad: Python Wolf (1988), The Guardian (L'albero del male, 1990), «Tales from the Crypt» - On a Dead Man's Chest («I racconti della cripta» - Segno di morte, cm, TV, 1992), Blue Chips (Basta vincere, 1993), Jailbreakers (TV, 1994), Jade (id., 1995), 12 Angry Men (La parola ai giurati, TV, 1997), Rules of Engagement (Regole d'onore, 2000), The Hunted (The Hunted - La preda, 2003).
Cast
& Credits
Regia/Director: William Friedkin
Soggetto e sceneggiatura/Story and screenplay: Paul Brickman
Fotografia/Director of photography: Richard H. Kline
Scenografia/Set design: Bill Malley
Costumi/Costumes design: Rita Riggs
Montaggio/Film editor: Ned Humphreyís, Jere Huggings
Supervisione al montaggio/Editing supervisor: Bud Smith
Suono/Sound: Robert ìBuzzî Knudson
Interpreti e personaggi/Cast and characters: Chevy Chase (Eddie Muntz), Sigourney Weaver (Catherine DeVoto), Gregory Hines (Ray Kasternak), Vince Edwards (Frank Stryker), Fallace Shawn (Harold DeVoto)
Produttore/Producer: Bud Yorkin
Produzione/Production: Bud Yorkin Production e Warner Bros.
Distribuzione/Distribution: Warner Bros.
Soggetto e sceneggiatura/Story and screenplay: Paul Brickman
Fotografia/Director of photography: Richard H. Kline
Scenografia/Set design: Bill Malley
Costumi/Costumes design: Rita Riggs
Montaggio/Film editor: Ned Humphreyís, Jere Huggings
Supervisione al montaggio/Editing supervisor: Bud Smith
Suono/Sound: Robert ìBuzzî Knudson
Interpreti e personaggi/Cast and characters: Chevy Chase (Eddie Muntz), Sigourney Weaver (Catherine DeVoto), Gregory Hines (Ray Kasternak), Vince Edwards (Frank Stryker), Fallace Shawn (Harold DeVoto)
Produttore/Producer: Bud Yorkin
Produzione/Production: Bud Yorkin Production e Warner Bros.
Distribuzione/Distribution: Warner Bros.