Pocket Money

Caught this one on American Movie Classics, thinking that a Lee Marvin / Paul Newman pairing couldn't be all bad. Indeed, it wasn't all bad, but it was no great success either. A premise with possibilities for interesting developments never seems to play out in a fruitful manner. The Marvin / Newman interaction is indeed the main redeeming factor of the film, along with evocative cinematography, but ultimately the movie never seems to go anywhere in particular, and indeed it does not end - it just all of a sudden stops. I have rarely seen such an abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion - all of a sudden we are seeing the closing credits and wondering "what happened?" Unfortunately, this can only be recommended to diehard fans of Lee Marvin &/or Paul Newman. (Incidentally, "Maltin's" remark that Marvin's car is "the damnedest thing you'll ever see" indicates he was not alive in 1960, the model year this particular Buick was a common sight on the roads of America)

Throughout this thoroughly confused movie, I kept waiting for the point to become clear. Is it an innocent cowboy against the the corrupt cattle barons movie? Is it a buddy movie? A character study? What's the point?

Paul Newman seems to be playing a slightly retarded rancher, with an accent that is neither consistent nor believable. Lee Marvin plays the only character that is at least interesting, even though it's not at all clear just what his purpose in the movie is. Strother Martin is just painful to watch.

Mexicans may want to avoid this movie. It contains enough slurs to keep the producers in law suits for a decade if it had been produced in the more politically correct 90's.

It was a struggle to stay awake through this movie. I sure hope the book was better.

A low-key and wry modern-day western from the early-'70s. Filmed in Arizona and Northern Mexico in the spring and early summer of 1971 and shown in cinemas in that most downbeat of hippy years -1972: it records the 'feel' of the early-'70s which were pioneering years so well. Jim Kane (good-looking blue-eyed US actor Paul Newman) is a naive, broke and in debt cowpoke i.e. An everyman and loser. Needing the money, he agrees to work for a pair of crooked rodeo cattle dealers -Bill Garrett (Strother Martin) and Stretch Russell (Wayne Rogers) who hire him to squire 250 steers from Mexico to Arizona. Kane locates his equally broke buddy Leonard (Lee Marvin) in a Mexican hotel room and the two undertake the imprudent business venture with failed results marked by their inability to make astute decisions. The inner rhythm of the film is strange, languid and existential with Beckettian undertones. It features some great scenes - the sun-bleached urban aesthetics of Nogales, Phoenix, Chihuahua and Hermosilla and the enchanted and evocative interior scenes featuring exotic Mexican bordellos, bars, mariachi/rock and roll musicians, street hucksters etc plus the barren cattle lands of Northern Mexico and the Mexican transport/rail infrastructure ca. '71-72 all recorded by ace Hungarian cameraman Laszlo Kovacs. Leonard - who sports white hair, a 'Forties style suit, fedora hat and jazzy tie in one scene is seen imbibing olives, fajitas, tacos, chili and the Cuervos-brand of tequila. Pocket Money is in my top ten films of all time.

Stuart Rosenberg directed this meandering film that stars Paul Newman as Jim Kane, a near-broke cowboy who is approached by a shady rancher(played by Strother Martin) to go into Mexico to buy him some cattle and bring it back. Though suspicious, Jim needs the money, so takes a chance and accepts the job. While there, he meets up with old friend Leonard(played by Lee Marvin) who is also in need of money, so they team up to collect the cattle, but their suspicions are confirmed when the deal goes awry, placing them in a tough situation... Thoroughly blah film coasts along on its star power, which is considerable, though film never amounts to much and is largely unmemorable.

This film is not as bad as the previous reviewer would have you believe. It just takes a different kind of mindset to enjoy it--you have to like nonlinearality. You have to be in a relaxed, maybe even coming-down-off-a-jag state of mind to appreciate its structure.

Paul Newman, affable as always in the lead, is not placed in any of the more familiar predictable, and simplistic predicaments cited by my colleague ( though, if anything, "character study" would come the closest to describing this film).

But, instead of an "easy" situation--the kind that makes us smug to be able to identify quickly--in this picture Newman battles ineffectually against a more subtle and insidious malaise, one not often focused on in film in this manner. Its a common problem--something we all deal with at one time or another--its that type of confidence-effacing, will-sapping, ego-draining personal economic debt that for many adults never really seems to go away.

Just like the rest of us, Newman's simply got an ego that wants to assert itself--but at every turn he's being strung up by the short-and-curlies due to lack of $$. He keeps trying however. Still, we see that throughout the film, each new situation somehow gets away from him and leaves him with nothing to show for his troubles. He's just too nice a guy to come out a winner.

He always needs more money than he's got and it affects everything he does--prevents him from really enjoying what might be an otherwise pleasant life. In the end he's forced to face that:

1) his troubles are maybe never going to be conquerable,

2) there will be a lot more (of the same kind of humiliation he's undergone all throughout the movie)throughout the rest of his life, and 3) despite this, there are still some dividends in life that make things easier to bear, like having a best friend, a car that runs, or just having enough money in your pocket to get a Coke.

Its true the movie has an unsatisfying conclusion--the very human plot in this film just doesnt have a happy resolution, (coincidentally, just the way real-life problems dont work out, what a concept for a film, right?).

But the hangdog ending, just like the rest of the film, is somehow difficult to forget. It has such an unusual, low-key pace and rhythm that it really stays with you. I have seen it come up at least 4-5 times on the late show and never been displeased--its rather like seeing an old friend.

Dont dismiss it--its a movie that can cheer you up under the right circumstances.