The Last Detail ***** (1973, Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, Otis Young, Carol Kane, Clifton James, Michael Moriarty, Gilda Radner, Nancy Allen) – Classic Movie Review 924

Jack Nicholson stars in 1973 with Otis Young as US Navy lifer veterans who are commissioned to escort a young pilferer named Meadows to the brig in Portsmouth. His terrible crime was to try to steal $40 from the admiral’s wife’s pet charity, for which he has been sentenced to eight years behind bars.

They decide to show the late teenage sailor Meadows (Randy Quaid) a last good time before they get him to the clink to serve his time for the theft. But the prisoner looks prepared to break into tears at any moment and he has the lowest self-image imaginable. So drinking and whoring are high on the agenda of life lessons.

One of the best movies of its early Seventies period at a time of great cinema, this is an exceptional film thanks to one of Nicholson’s most magnetic and charismatic performances as Bad-Ass Buddusky, Robert Towne’s dazzling (and exceptionally frank-speaking) dialogue and Hal Ashby’s intense and gritty direction.

Randy Quaid is also very effective in a pitiable performance as the pathetic victim Meadows. Otis Young exactly fits the bill as Mule Mulhall.

Based on the novel by Darryl Ponicsan, this is brilliantly hard-edged, thrilling drama with a barrage of salty language. There were three Oscar nominations, Best Actor (Nicholson), Best Supporting Actor (Quaid) and Best Adapted Screenplay, but no wins. But Nicholson won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. Ponicsan also wrote the screenplays of Cinderella Liberty (1973), Taps (1981), Nuts (1987), School Ties (1992) and Random Hearts (1999).

Carol Kane (as the Young Whore), Clifton James, Michael Moriarty, Gilda Radner and Nancy Allen co-star.

Nicholson turned down Robert Redford’s role of Johnny Hooker in The Sting to make this film, written by his friend Towne. Both he and Redford were nominated as Best Actor of 1973 at the Oscars, losing out to Jack Lemmon in Save the Tiger.

Towne wrote the script in 1970, but the studio felt there was too much swearing to shoot it as written and tried to get him to re-write it. But by 1972 they went ahead as written, as the standards for strong language on screen had relaxed. A tamer version with less profanity was filmed at the same time for TV showings.

The sentence here ‘let’s shag ass’ was later re-used in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).

Alas, the film flopped, so the studio re-released it as a supposedly ‘hilarious comedy’, using the ridiculoue adline ‘What’s The Last Detail? 300 beers and a barrel of laughs!’

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 924 derekwinnert.com