27: Fat City

           From the IMDb* I learned what might have been, in the case of John Huston’s Fat City (1972).  Huston was interested in Marlon Brando for the role of the down-on-his-luck boxer Tully, but Brando was indefinite about signing on for the film.  This was perhaps due to the fact that he was holding out for the role of Vito Corleone in The Godfather, a part that Paramount didn’t want him for.  The role seemed like a perfect fit for the actor who’d fallen from Hollywood’s good graces, but when Huston could wait no longer for Brando, the part went to the relatively unknown Stacy Keach.  Huston also thought he had a lock for the film’s second lead— an up-and-coming fighter— but Beau Bridges thought he was too old for the role, and ultimately suggested his younger brother Jeff, whose resume consisted primarily of TV work before breaking out in The Last Picture Show in 1971.  Had Brando, or a slightly more accomplished actor than Keach— let’s say Jack Nicholson—taken the lead, and the older Bridges brother been less insistent, 1972 might have been a very different year for movies.

            I mention Nicholson for two reasons.  First, in 1972 he starred in the underappreciated The King of Marvin Gardens for BBS productions, a film remarkably similar in theme to Fat City.  Second, and more notably, I found it impossible to watch Keach’s performance in this film and not think that he was doing his best Nicholson.  In most cases when critics make this claim about an actor they mean it as knock on their performance, but here I intend it as the highest form of compliment to both parties.  Nicholson’s dark and edgy style was worthy at the time of being imitated, and Keach, looking very much like Nicholson, nails the restrained frustration and controlled rage that I think is Jack at his best (I can take or leave him when he goes really over the top). 

            As Tully, Keach uses his energy economically, and in this way handles the material more effectively than perhaps Nicholson could have.  The film opens as he searches for a match.  He’s got his cigarette—the last one in the pack—but he needs a light.  By the time he puts on pants and exits his shabby hotel room to go to the corner he doesn’t want the smoke any more.  He heads to the YMCA to workout, trying to make his way back into the fight game.  There he meets Duane (Bridges) and asks him to spar.  Tully can only dance for a few moments before the abuse he’s put his body through catches up with him, but from what he’s seen he thinks Duane may have a shot as a fighter.  He directs the reluctant kid to his old trainer, Ruben (Nicholas Colasanto).

            The remainder of the film charts the divergent, but often linked paths these two fighters will follow.  Both men meet women that hurt their chances of success, but the narrative moves back and forth between the two in showing how much they seem to care about this fact.  Tully falls in with Oma (Susan Tyrell), an alcoholic who’s opinion of her man is only cushioned from rock bottom by her opinion of herself.  She and Tully seem to need each other in the way some truck drivers say that they need to pick up hitchhikers to keep them awake.  It’s dangerous and irrational, but it’s better than falling asleep at the wheel alone.

            Duane makes the mistake that many young men make in cars with girls, and he feels more or less obligated to do the right thing.  He loves Faye (Candy Clark), but didn’t see himself supporting a family at nineteen.  After about a year he and Tully run into each other as they both work as day laborers, and somehow the two convince themselves that they should both take one more shot in the ring.  However, it may not be so easy for the aging Tully, especially when old wounds between he and Ruben don’t seem to have scarred over.  

            Because Fat City is a relatively short film at just under 100 minutes, particularly when compared to The Godfather, it’s entirely possible that the filming of that epic had completed by the time Brando was offered the role in this picture.  However, I can think of another reason he might have been reluctant to sign on to Huston’s film.  He may not have wanted to deliver another “I could have been a contender” speech, which is effectively what much of Tully’s late dialogue is, and be accused of becoming a parody of his former self.  After all, eighteen years after On the Waterfront (1954) is a long time to have been a washed-up boxer.  But there is still another coincidence that makes this actual vs. desired casting bout so interesting.  In this role Keach beat out Brando in initial voting for the New York Film Critics Circle choice for Best Actor of 1972.  However, neither performer garnered a majority of the vote, which was required by the rules of the time.  A necessary rules change was implemented that called for a revote, and both men ended up losing to Laurence Olivier for his performance in Sleuth.

                Though I was unaware of all of this while watching the film, I was nonetheless, as I noted, distracted by the thought of Nicholson in the lead.  I think Keach’s performance here is particularly good, and he leaves more room for the other actors (particularly Colasanto and Tyrell) to give their own fine performances than Jack would have left.  It is a fine film, and one that deserves a wider home video release**, but there is a truth that no reviewer can ever avoid.  If during a movie you’re unable to keep from thinking of what it would be like if a certain detail was tweaked, then it isn’t a great movie.  But Fat City comes awfully close.

Language: English

Runtime: 99 Minutes 

Grade: 3.5 Hats Off

*The IMDb blurb on this film mentions that the two primary characters are brothers.  There was nothing in the film that even implied this in my recollection.  The two men seem to meet for the first time just after the opening title sequence.

**It should not have been difficult to find to the point that I’m seeing it with only 26 films remaining on the 1001 list.