The Outfit

This post is part of the Robert Duvall Tribute Blogathon hosted by 

Taking Up Room – Reviews. History. Life.

Writing as Richard Stark, Donald Westlake authored 24 novels about a career criminal named Parker (just Parker), who has been described as ruthless, amoral, cold, methodical, efficient, murderous and humorless.

They all fit.

Ranking the movies adapted from Parker novels, at least those I’ve seen, the less said about The Split (1967) with Jim Brown the better. Payback (1999) with Mel Gibson is Parker as superhero. The best is Point Blank (1967) with Lee Marvin and The Outfit (1973) with Robert Duvall.

In The Outfit, Parker is renamed Earl Macklin, who learns upon his release from prison that there are contracts out on him, his brother Eddie and their partner Cody (Joe Don Baker) as payback for a bank the three robbed, not knowing it was a front for the Outfit crime syndicate.

Thugs kill Eddie and threaten Macklin’s girlfriend Bett (Karen Black), leading Macklin to decide that the Outfit owes him $250,000 – “to make things right” – and until he gets the money, he plans to rip them off of whatever he can.

Macklin and Cody knock off a series of Outfit operations, getting the attention of its boss Mailer (Robert Ryan), who agrees to the $250,000 payoff. An arranged meeting is an ambush that Macklin and Cody barely escape and that, plus Bett’s death during a bogus police traffic stop, sets into motion a seemingly suicidal plan to attack Mailer’s heavily guarded compound.

Robert Ryan and Robert Duvall 

Having Bett around is something new for Macklin, and Cody upon meeting her, makes his mistrust known to Macklin: “You start worrying about the girl, you forget your work.” Maybe Cody was spooked by her beret-style headwear reminiscent of Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde, knowing full well how that ended.

And unlike Bonnie and Clyde, there’s nothing romantic about Macklin and crew. They move around between crummy motel rooms, Macklin and Cody living in a foxhole, wiling away the hours with trivial small talk, sharing cigarettes and bottles of beer.

Robert Duvall as Macklin: "Cold and ammoral"

Director/screenwriter John Flynn adds some terrific hardboiled dialog. “I don’t talk to guys wearing aprons,” says Macklin to a bartender blocking him from speaking to an Outfit goon. At one point an exasperated Mailer barks, “I want (Macklin’s) ass wrapped in cellophane!”

Along with Ryan, the supporting cast includes film noir veterans Elisha Cook Jr., the always scary Timothy Carey, Jane Greer and Marie Windsor, plus familiar faces Richard Jaeckel, Sheree North, Joanna Cassidy and Henry Jones. In a nod to The Maltese Falcon, Carey refers to Macklin as a “gunsel,” Humphrey Bogart’s name for Elisha Cook.

The Outfit was one of Ryan’s last movies. He died of lung cancer three months before the movie opened.

The grand finale siege of Mailer’s compound involves lots of shooting and explosions courtesy of a bundle of dynamite sticks, complete with timer and suction cup attached to the bottom of a table, right out of a Roadrunner cartoon. Flynn ends the movie with a cheesy Starsky & Hutch freeze frame of Duvall and Baker laughing, an adrenalin rush after beating the Outfit (and which doesn’t quite fit the Parker image).

That's a wrap. Roll credits 

Duvall’s Macklin allows himself moments with Bett specifically when talking about his grandfather where he comes off as human and nearly sentimental, but those are the only glimmers of daylight in an otherwise dark existence. Macklin is grimly professional and intense, and there’s very little that’s likeable about him. But that’s how it’s supposed to be.

The Day New York Went Dry

Intrigued by the cover art, 59 years ago I bought a paperback copy of The Day New York Went Dry at a second-hand bookstore. Over the years it was moved from box to box with other paperbacks and, for some reason, I overlooked it until now. It’s a good thing I didn’t attempt to read it at age 13 because I wouldn’t have lasted past the first few pages.

The Day New York Went Dry, published in 1964 and written by Charles Einstein, is – despite the cool cover – not science fiction but something more along the lines of social satire. The premise is real and somewhat scary: there hasn’t been any measurable rainfall in more than a year and the reservoir levels that serve New York City are dropping.

But the story revolves around several bureaucrats and politicians who are trying to solve the problem, none of whom are very appealing or sympathetic, speaking in self-aware shorthand, quoting lines from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in casual conversation.

The book is just 160 pages, and one gets the impression that the author was researching a comprehensive piece about the New York City water supply infrastructure, something that would have been at home in The New Yorker and, looking over his notes, decided to turn it into a novel.

Satire? There’s a senator from Alabama who suggests that black professionals migrate from New York City to Africa (less people to consume water), the notion of the disenfranchised turning on all their taps and running water as an act of civil disobedience and a professor who cites in mind-numbing detail why water shouldn’t be served with meals.

Along the way there’s also a fair amount of padding, including (for three unforgivable pages) blackjack strategies.

It isn’t until the final chapters that The Day New York Went Dry starts to feel like science fiction. An apocalyptic gloom settles on New York City as rationing takes over, travel drops off the charts, a plan is drafted to move schoolchildren out of the city and the Pennsylvania National Guard is mobilized to protect that state’s waterways.

Author Charles Einstein was a San Francisco sportswriter, serving for many years as editor of The Fireside Book of Baseball, a ubiquitous compendium found in nearly every library in America. He wrote a couple of books about Willie Mays, dabbled in fiction and wrote How to Win at Blackjack: The Einstein System.

His father was Harry Einstein, the radio comedian known as Parkyakarkus, remembered today mostly for his very public death in 1958, suffering a fatal heart attack on the dais during a Friar’s Club roast of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

After Einstein delivered his monologue, he returned to his seat, ad-libbed a joke then slumped down. Everyone laughed when Milton Berle, who was seated next to Einstein, called out, "Is there a doctor in the house?" Einstein never regained consciousness.

Comedians Albert Brooks (yeah, he named his son Albert Einstein) and Super Dave Osborne were Charles Einstein’s half-brothers. Einstein died in 2007.