99 and 44/100% Dead!

I had high hopes for this, on the basis of various claims as to its quirky black humour, but began to tire of it pretty early on. Its just not funny enough and often ends up just seeming silly. A big problem for me was the very low key performance from Richard Harris and the fact that with his weir hairdo and glasses looked like Woody Allen. That in itself needn't have been a problem but Harris just didn't seem to be able to indicate for us whether something was meant to be serious, poignant or just a joke. bothering me all the time was the fact that Woody allen, on the other hand, would have been very able to do this. There are some decent sequences but despite the lovely pop art credits, this seemed to go downhill very quickly. I note that Harris married his co- star afterwards, maybe his attention had been elsewhere all the time.

Robert Dillon's script was considered by producer Joe Wizan to be a black comedy along the lines of Dillon's earlier one for "Prime Cut" (1972: d. Michael Ritchie). Director Frankenheimer, on returning to the USA after much time in France, was faced with a situation wherein years of bad reviews of his films were taking their toll. He accepted this project, and wanted Robert Mitchum for the main role, but the producers wanted Richard Harris, fresh from the hit film "A Man Called Horse".

Critically however, the released film was felt to be a total fiasco, many reviewers holding that it represented the director's career at rock bottom. The film's dark, bleak humour and use of caricature were considered testimony to a certain sadism on Frankenheimer's part, and evidence of his growing contempt. In later years, even the great director plays down this most unusual gangster satire.

It concerns a hitman trapped between rival gangs, and takes place in a vaguely futuristic city, which seems spatially to constantly re-define itself. It is filmed obliquely, so one is never on sure footing as to how to react. What is most interesting about this peculiarity, are the number of bizarre, surrealistic pop-culture set-pieces in a world of futile violence and rampant egos. Only despair and nihilism at the absurdity of it all enables the characters to hold on to whatever shreds of honour they can maintain although they all succumb to personal pride at the expense of everything else.

Frankenheimer directs with a stylistic over-kill at times which sits uneasily with a certain lethargic quality, although it probably guarantees the film a cult audience in the future. Perhaps the film is best seen as a failed, but intriguing attempt to reconcile the director's frequent recourse to stylization with genre-based social satire. Still, the film seems uncertain of its aims, and tends to flounder in its often considerable visual panache. The remarkable opening sequence however, is amongst the oddest ever put to film, and typifies the film's sense of comic despair. A curio.

99 and 44/100ths Percent Dead is the story of a mob war between two rival bosses, Edmond O'Brien and Bradford Dillman and the two hit men working for them, Richard Harris and Chuck Connors. The film is enjoyable but it can't seem to make up its mind whether it's a spoof of the genre or a straight out action film.

Richard Harris is hired by O'Brien to help him in his war with Dillman over the Los Angeles territory. O'Brien needs Harris bad especially since Dillman has Connors on retainer. Harris and Connors have some history with Harris leaving Chuck with a permanent reminder.

Which is in the form of a handy/dandy claw which has various attachments for whatever need you have at the moment. When I saw this in the theater back in the Seventies it was that claw I remembered. Connors who first started in films playing villains like Buck Hannessy in The Big Country went to television and became a hero in The Rifleman and Branded. Personally I always thought Connors was better as a bad guy.

Bradford Dillman though I had forgotten, his was an incredibly hammy performance as the rival gang boss. It would have been appropriate and would have succeeded if the satire that might have been intended had come off.

The film while not memorable in his career did furnish Richard Harris with a wife. Tall and leggy Ann Turkel made her second film and was billed as being 'introduced' here. The old adage about having no attachments is certainly true as the bad guys can get to Harris through Turkel and nearly succeed.

Sadly this was the farewell film for Edmond O'Brien who was another victim of Alzheimer's Disease and spent the last ten years of his life losing his career and memories thereof to that terrible curse. He could have probably done something better, but at least it was no Cuban Rebel Girl that terrible film Errol Flynn capped his career with.

99 and 44/100ths Percent Dead is still enjoyable, but could have been done a lot better by director John Frankenheimer.

It's certainly different, but it's not very good. Richard Harris plays a hit-man hired by a mob boss to knock off a rival. Director John Frankenheimer starts things off with a bang with Roy Lichtenstein inspired titles and a pretty fun shoot out/car chase. The film itself is so slow that quirky touches like a giant balloon sculpture, a lesson on cement shoes and an incorporated brothel offer a lot of relief. Harris looks otherwise engaged and Ann Turkel, though gorgeous, isn't much of an actress...and she's certainly too classy to be convincing as a school teacher/dancer named Buffy! A very old and tired looking Edmond O'Brien plays "Uncle" Frankie, the mob boss --- he looks like a puffy Humphrey Bogart and sounds like a near dead Jason Robards. Connors " plays "Claw" and clearly has a lot of fun with his prosthetic. Bradford Dillman is awful as O'Brien's rival...he affects some sort of Brooklyn accent even though no one else does AND the film is set in L.A. Henry Mancini's jazzy score is great, but becomes increasingly intrusive as the film progresses.

Flaws aside, the film is surely a high-water mark in the spotty career of Richard Harris...he went on to star in ORCA, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING, etc.

The title refers to the now very old Ivory Soap claim of 99 and 64/100% Pure - and there is another "old" meaning for 'pure' that would be known to Frankenheimer and Dillon. It's another word for the material tanners would use in browning leather - dog turds. This should have been a clue to the humor to follow.

This is an interesting and odd film.