PIC of the Week – The Hot Rock
Article series by Ray Schillaci
No, this is not about women pining away for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. This is also NOT a clear release yet, but a pre-order. But, my excitement as a cinephile got the best of me when going through the mundane selection of releases this week and happening upon Twilight Time Movies’ announcement of the August 8th pre-order for the delightful caper comedy, The Hot Rock. Clearly one of the oddball hidden gems from the ’70s with a mountain of talent behind it.
Let’s start with the director, Peter Yates. The man has impressive cred with ’68’s Bullitt and the Oscar-nominated ’83 film, The Dresser. But he also has his quirky cult-like films that fans love including ’73’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle starring Robert Mitchum, which was given the Criterion treatment. He reached down deep in our hearts with one of the best coming-of-age films, Breaking Away and made sci-fi and fantasy geeks giddy with excitement over the bombastic over-the-top Krull.
Here, the man worked his magic with a William Goldman script. Goldman gave us such gems as The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men. Goldman took the story from a Donald E. Westlake novel in which he spun the tale of his protagonist, John Dortmunder, a career criminal that he featured in fourteen novels and eleven short stories. What makes the film so unique from other caper films is the obscure characters that Dortmunder surrounds himself with.
With that being said, the line up is one of the best, featuring the talents of Robert Redford, George Segal, Ron Leibman, Paul Sand, Moses Gunn, and Zero Mostel. Redford had already established himself in such films as Downhill Racer and This Property is Condemned, but it was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid that took him beyond his good looks and boyish charm, and made him perfect for the part of the career criminal with a nervous stomach that leads a group of misfits to snatch a “cursed” diamond.
Redford’s co-stars were massively effective as actors with great comedic skills. George Segal made a bizarre funny splash with the cult comedy hit Where’s Poppa?. He also did mainstream comedy as well, co-starring with Barbra Streisand in The Owl and the Pussycat and with Glenda Jackson in the Oscar-nominated A Touch of Class. Segal is achingly funny as the criminal who cannot seem to do anything right. The other cast members had notable appearances as well, and if you have not seen them, make it a point to: Ron Leibman – Slaughterhouse 5, Zero Mostel – The Producers, Moses Gunn – Shaft. Paul Sand was a well-known comedian at the time, he plays a lock picker who loses his touch when he gets nervous…which seems like most of the time.
Putting all these guys together with crosses and double crosses, a heist so well planned, but with everything and anything that can go wrong, and you have a lot of fun watching it all fall apart as we cheer for Redford at every turn. The film does not fall in the comedy category of Mel Brooks, Woody Allen or slapstick movies like Airplane!, the comedy is more organic, coming out of the situation and the characters that end up being so memorable.
Twilight Time Movies has had a good run on the quality of their Blu presentations and this one should should be no exception. The Blu will definitely be a far better presentation than its previous DVD format. TTM will offer a 1080p HD picture at a 2.35:1 ratio. The audio will be English 2.0 DTS-HD MA along with optional English SDH subtitles.
Special features include:
¥ Isolated Music Soundtrack
¥ Audio Commentary by Film Historians Lem Dobbs, Julie Kirgo, and Nick Redman
¥ Original Theatrical Trailer
Twilight Time Movies is only offering a limited edition of this film with 3000 units. The price generally seems to go up from TTM’s price since they are more of a boutique company specializing in films rarely available.
Twilight Time Movie’s Pre-order Price – $29.95
Release Date – August 21st
