Having recently watched two immaculately directed movies from each end of the 70s, the wild gore fest that is Fulci's, Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979) and the wondrous Tristana (1970) from Bunuel, I am thrust into the laid back, let it all hang out world of Hal Ashby. Both the other films it is clear that the director has a clear visual and complete control, even if they are starkly different films. Here Ashby delights it letting, things happen. Nicholson was clearly given his head and allowed to let things run, not only away from his director, but himself. Nevertheless there is something endearing about Last Detail and I'm sure its director would agree that a fixed notion of what was going to happen all the time would have ben too stifling for him. For me one result of this casual approach is that not everything works and the actors seem to be having more fun than me but maybe that's too harsh. Certainly worth seeing and influential in its own way. For good or bad.

Alternately funny, ribald, rude, candid, thoughtful and occasionally boring odyssey of three sailors on liberty. Signalman First Class Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and Gunner's Mate First Class Mulhall (Otis Young) are assigned to escort young Seaman Meadows (Randy Quaid) from Norfolk, Virginia to a naval prison in Maine; Meadows, a chronic shoplifter, attempted to steal $40 from a polio charity collection box and was handed a stiff eight-year sentence in the brig ("Six with two years off"). Getting to know each other on the train heading north, Buddusky and Mulhall take pity on their virginal captive and decide to make the most of their free time with some carousing in Washington, D.C. and in New York City. A few of their pit-stops--to a bar to get loaded, to a men's room to pick a fight with a few Marines, and finally to a whorehouse--are de rigueur for a military piece (one almost expects it); however, a side-trip to a Buddhist chanting session is rather disarming, and the three men look both ridiculous and wonderful while cooking wieners outdoors in the dead of winter. Written by Oscar-nominated Robert Towne, adapting Darryl Ponicsan's novel, the film has to go a long way on dialogue, and some of Towne's chatty passages just feel like filler. Still, while the picture isn't exactly witty, it does have some very funny scenes, and the acting is terrific (Nicholson and Quaid were both Oscar-nominated--Quaid in what is probably the best acting of his career). Michael Chapman's "colorless" color cinematography took some criticism in 1973 for being too dark, though it looks great today. Hal Ashby's too-leisurely direction is prodded by amiable and subtly moving moments. **1/2 from ****

It was cold.Snow fluttered from grey skies as their breath whipped away with the wind. The answer was already written down.Two men teach a boy about being men while they turn in to boys again.Friendship only lasts until the door closes in front of you. And you can't see because he's looking forward.

Two Navy lifers Buddusky and Mulhall are given the unwanted detail of escorting a young sailor called Meadows to military prison up the east coast of the United States. The youngster is to serve eight years for trying to steal $40 from a charity donation can. Buddusky decides to show Meadows a good time in the last free week of his formative years. Various male rituals ensue, including drinking, fighting and getting laid, while Meadows also is shown how to stand up for himself. Meadows learns so much from the experience that he ends up even more depressed about going to jail and even attempts to escape, while Buddusky and Mulhall ultimately complete their detail and go back to work, acknowledging that despite their cynicism this is the only life they know.The Last Detail was one of several high quality films directed by Hal Ashby in the 1970's. Like the others, this one is a very good example of a film from the New Hollywood era, with its uncompromising material and decidedly uncommercial approach. In fact, Robert Towne's hyper-realistic script was so full of profanity it led to the studio Columbia putting off releasing the movie for several months and only once Jack Nicholson won best actor at Cannes for it. But even then they did not support it much and it was not much of a success at the time, going on to be a sleeper. Its anti-authoritarian leanings do ensure that it fits right in with the times it was made though and in Nicholson, Otis Young and Randy Quaid it has a trio of actors all putting in very fine work. Nicholson is once again the perfect fit for the rowdy non-conformist, Young does good work as his more even-headed and cynical partner, while Quaid has never been better than as the naive Meadows. It's a film with a real edge and it has an authentic feel on account of the script and acting but also the unglamorous dirty backstreet locations in New York and Boston where the bulk of the action occurs. Because it is about a journey, it's quite an episodic movie too, with a number of small encounters making up the whole, and this works very well as a means of telling this particular story. All-in-all, a very good example of the kind of interesting and unpredictable films that the American studios released for a time in back in the 70's.