The first of the books fared best, when 1962\u2019s The Hunter<\/em> was adapted five years later by director John Boorman into the dazzlingly prismatic, psychedelic masterpiece Point Blank<\/em>. The artsiest B-movie ever made (I once described it as \u201cif Alain Resnais had directed The Terminator<\/em>\u201d) this very loose adaptation finds Lee Marvin\u2019s \u201cWalker\u201d seemingly returning from the grave after a botched heist to collect an old debt with a dead-eyed single-mindedness that spills over into surreal, sicko comedy. Point Blank<\/em> is one of the great films of the 1960s, but Boorman\u2019s freaky-deaky experimental flourishes are a far cry from the meat-and-potatoes pleasures of Stark\u2019s novels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For those, you\u2019re better off with The Outfit<\/em>, writer-director John Flynn\u2019s unassuming, coolly competent 1973 take on the third Parker book. This one stars Robert Duvall as \u201cEarl Macklin,\u201d a gruff heist guy fresh out of the joint who, along with his brother Eddie and their good-old-boy sidekick Cody (the great Joe Don Baker) made the mistake of robbing a bank that turned out to be a front for the mob. Now Eddie\u2019s dead and there are contracts out on Earl and Cody. Our steely-eyed anti-hero decides that their only chance of squaring things with the syndicate is by stealing from them some more. Macklin figures that if he and Cody can become expensive enough pains in the ass, the outfit will eventually come to the conclusion that it\u2019s cheaper and easier to just pay them off to go away. Hey, it beats sitting around waiting to get shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plan is pure Parker, assuming that his adversaries are also businessmen who share his Vulcan-logic approach to the calculus of crime. But gangsters aren\u2019t always good at doing math in their heads, especially when they\u2019re hot under the collar \u2013 even moreso when they\u2019re played by legendary screen weirdo Timothy Carey, who heads a supporting cast of classic crime movie veterans including his The Killing<\/em> co-stars Elisha Cook Jr. and Madge Windsor, as well as Out of the Past<\/em>\u2019s Jane Greer as Earl\u2019s grieving sister-in-law. The big boss is played with marvelously exhausted menace by Robert Ryan in one of his final film appearances (he would be dead before the movie hit theaters); he\u2019s had it up to here with the incompetence of his foot soldiers and the ungrateful grousing of his new trophy wife (Joanna Cassidy, in her big screen debut.) Poor sonofabitch just wants to watch the damn football game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s most enjoyable about The Outfit<\/em> is the sparkling chemistry between the brusque, all-business Duvall and the grinning, shit-kicker antics of Joe Don Baker as his unruly sidekick. Karen Black is along for the ride as the emotionally remote Earl\u2019s long-suffering girlfriend, and it\u2019s easy to imagine her as if Rayette from Five Easy Pieces<\/em> had found an even worse-for-her new beau after Jack Nicholson abandoned her at that gas station. Their little crime spree targeting outfit operations is really rather delightful, as the lackadaisically guarded cash businesses are staffed by blowhards incredulous that anyone would dare attempt to rob them in the first place. Duvall is clamped down and coiled like a cobra while big teddy bear Baker is expansive and gregarious. The latter basically steals the picture, lending his considerable, cherubic warmth to the sometimes too-cool proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photographed by early Eastwood favorite Bruce Surtees, The Outfit<\/em> has been assembled with an unfussy expertise that seemed like no great shakes to film critics 49 years ago, but feels like a lost art today. The smart location work alternates familiar urban crime story locales with more unexpected midwestern farmhouses and rolling hills. There\u2019s a terrific suspense scene at a chop shop located out back behind a chicken coop, where a mechanic\u2019s lonely wife (Don Siegel regular Sheree North) is trying to stir up trouble as the men go about their business. The sequence becomes a fraught negotiation staying just this side of a free-for-all. We\u2019re watching seasoned professionals trying to do their jobs well with a minimum of muss and fuss, which is not just pure Parker but also an apt description of The Outfit<\/em> itself. “The Outfit” is streaming on HBO Max. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/outfit2-1024x576.jpg\")
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