Always be Closing
In the 1971 dystopian science fiction film The Omega Man, Charlton Heston is stranded in a shattered world where just about everybody else is either dead or been turned into a nocturnal psychopath.
I’ve never seen Woodstock, but I’ve been wondering what movie I would want to watch for the rest of my days.
As a diehard movie fan, I have so many candidates—Johnny Belinda, The Thief of Baghdad, High Noon—how could I possibly decide?
God forbid that would ever I have to make such a choice, but I recently realized that I may have a candidate.
Glengarry Glen Ross was a 1992 film adaptation of David Mamet’s Pulitizer Prize winning play.
Directed by James Foley—who was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, just like yours truly—the film features an incredible cast that includes Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Jack Lemon, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin.
It’s one of these films that, if I’m not careful, I will watch every time I pick up the remote. The movie is just that good.
The story concerns a group of real estate salesmen who are told that all by the top two employees will be fired.
Alec Baldwin has exactly one scene as Blake, who has been dispatched by Mitch and Murray, the company’s unseen owners, to strike fear into the hearts of the staff.
“Put…that…coffee…down!” he harshly orders Jack Lemon’s Levine at the start of his toxic tongue-lashing. “Coffee is for closers only.”
The scene was written specifically for the film, and it has so many fabulous lines as Baldwin declares that he is on a mission of mercy.
“The leads are weak?” he sneers. “You’re weak.”
“What’s your name?” Moss, Ed Harris’ character asks.
“Fuck you, that’s my name!” Baldwin roars. “Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove an $80,000 BMW. That's my name! And your name is you're wanting.”
Blake tells the salesmen that will be a contest where the top prize is a Cadillac, the second prize is a set of steak knives, and the third prize is termination.
He uses the chalk board to drive home the messages of ABC: Always be Closing and A-I-D-A: Attention, Interest, Decision, Action and lets the team know that “it's fuck or walk.”
Jack Lemon has a fabulous scene of his own, which was also written for the film and which I have only recently begun to appreciate.
Bad People Go to Hell?
His character is the stunning opposite of Baldwin’s. Instead of the swaggering barracuda, he is an aging, desperate man trying to get treatment for his daughter who has been hospitalized for an unspecified reason.
He goes to a potential customer’s house on a dark and stormy night, and the homeowner gently but firmly states his lack of interest as Jack Lemmon does everything to close a deal.
Adapting a play to film is never an easy task and Mamet’s work, which is dialog-driven is especially difficult. But Foley pulls it off, keeping the locations to a minimum, including the office, a restaurant across the street and a neighborhood bar.
Although the play is set in Chicago, the film was largely shot around Sheepshead Bay Road in Brooklyn with the elevated train station visible in the background.
Back in the Eighties I worked with a woman who was related to James Foley—his aunt, possibly—it’s been so long now.
He directed such films as At Close Range, After Dark, My Sweet, and two of the Fifty Shades flicks, and I was shocked to learn that he died of brain cancer in May, just weeks before my brother Peter. He was 72 years old.
I was in a Mamet state of mind last week, so I rewatched Michael Corrente’s 1996 adaption of the playwright’s American Buffalo, which missed the mark.
While the play is mesmerizing, that energy doesn't translate to the film since virtually nothing happens as the characters talk about robbing someone’s rare coin collection. And they talk and they talk.
There were casting problems and Corrente seemed obsessed with moving the actors all over the place in a bid overcome the lack of action.
On the plus side, we do have Mamet's priceless words and great locations in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Too bad the movie is wanting.
Glengarry Glen Ross film was a box-office failure, but it has since become a cult classic and rightfully so.
And if I have to pick my entertainment for Armageddon, this is a damn good choice.
But then I haven’t seen Woodstock yet.
But then I haven’t seen Woodstock yet.
Comments