A scene from the 1973 film The Last Detail directed by Hal Ashby.
A vintage Scene review of Hal Ashby's The Last Detail, screening 7 p.m. tonight at The Belcourt:
Jack Nicholson had one of his meatiest roles as Billy "Bad-ass" Buddusky, a Navy career man dispatched with sailor Mulhall (Otis Young) to deliver a prisoner from their Virginia base to naval prison in New Hampshire. Trouble is, the prisoner is a kid: a green, kleptomaniacal 18-year-old mope (Randy Quaid) who's about to spend the next eight years in stir for copping $40 from a polio fund. The two sailors decide to give the kid a taste of the high life, introducing him to the joys of boozing, brawling, and whoring. But as Buddusky and Mulhall grow increasingly more ambivalent about their duty, they start to wonder if they're the ones serving time. When this was released in 1973, Robert Towne was widely considered the best screenwriter in Hollywood, and his script (from Darryl Ponicsan's novel) is a pip, an expert blend of boisterous humor, poignant character detail, and some of the saltiest dialogue heard to that point in a mainstream film. It suited not only Nicholson, who's at his raunchy, rebellious, swaggering best, but also director Hal Ashby (Being There), whose gift for character study, conversational rhythm and offhand observation enhances its pungent realism. As much blather as has been written about the early '70s as Hollywood's last golden age, it's still hard to imagine adult dramas of this texture coming out of modern-day Tinseltown. The supporting cast, pocked with future stars, includes Carol Kane, Michael Moriarty, Nancy Allen, Clifton James, Luana Anders, a brief cameo by Gilda Radner, and the movie's cinematographer, Michael Chapman (Raging Bull).
