TCM Alert: Straight Time (1978)


This Thursday at 12:45 AM EST you can catch Straight Time on Turner Classic Movies. Straight Time is a rare late seventies neo-noir gem starring Dustin Hoffman as recent parolee Max Dembo, who aims to go it "straight" and avoid returning to the clink.

But, fate has other plans for Dembo as he's entrapped by his cruel parole office (M. Emmet Walsh) and falls back into crime, hatching a big jewel heist with his old crew (Harry Dean Stanton, Gary Busey). Based on the novel No Beast So Fierce by convict turned screenwriter Edward Bunker, Straight Time began as a project directed by Hoffman himself, but with studio fears and self doubt about being in over one's head, Hoffman turned the gate over to Ulu Grosbard. 

Set in roaming L.A. County during the late seventies, Straight Time evokes a similar feel to another cult classic from that same year, Walter Hill's The Driver. Michael Mann was an uncredited co-writer and the nerve racking jewel heist sequence in Straight Time serves as a primer to the bank robberies that take place in Mann's Heat. Like DeNiro in Heat, Hoffman's Dembo is a relatable anti-hero that is easy to root for as both films showcase the disquieting solitude of criminal life.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Dream is Always the Same: From Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" to Timothee Chalamet in "Call Me by Your Name"

Image
Tangerine Dream's sultry synths pulse in the background as the camera zooms out from twinky Tom Cruise's wayfarers, a slim cigarette dangling from his lips as he flashes back to a reoccurring dream of sneaking into the neighbor's house and stumbling upon a beautiful girl showering, she invites him to wash her back, but the steam obscures his reach for her until he finds himself transported to a classroom, three hours late for the college entrance exams. With the aforementioned opening scene following the moody neon pastel credits as a night train rolls through a gritty Chicago twilight, we are introduced to Joel Goodson and for the most part, Tom Cruise, in Paul Brickman's 1983 classic Risky Business . The film was a breakout for Cruise, who some 35 years later has both delivered and disappointed on the potential of his brilliant performance in this early movie. Cruise can act and when he truly slips into character, as he did when portraying the innocent "Good
Read more