While the ABC Movie of the Week most time, for us geeks, means strange and twisty horrors and murder mystery thriller starring old movie stars, there was from time to time also hard-hitting crime dramas - like Mongo's Back in Town. And I mean, wow. Look at the cast: Joe Don Baker, Telly Savalas, Sally Field and Martin Sheen - the last two so young they look like their mother gave birth to them just days before shooting this movie! Also starring, which is very cool, the short actor Angelo Rossitto - who starred in Tod Browning's Freaks and later in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Most of his work is pretty interesting and he was a wonderful character actor in his own right.
Joe Don Baker have always been a favorite of mine, even if he entered the cheese factory with 1985's Final Justice, playing Deputy Sheriff Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III, looking like this:
To be fair, that's one of the few parts where he entered silliness. He's excellent in Walking Tall (I never been a fan of Bo Svenson's version), Framed is a fantastic revenge film and when he later become a supporting actor in the late eighties and nineties I loved his parts in the James Bond films. He's done a lot of good shit except these titles of course, just choose and pick!
Mongo's Back in Town is bascially a christmas mvoie (and it was released december 10th, 1971). Mongo (Joe Don Baker) is a brutal hitman called home by his brother who wants to hire him to kill another gangster who threatens his business. Sally Field is Vikki who also comes home for christmas and falls in love with the quiet Mongo and against her will gets drawn in to his family business when his brother is killed by gun... and acid! In the middle of this are two cops, Tolstad (Savalas) and Gordon (Sheen), who are trying to figure who's gonna kill whom and when.
This is a production that oozes quality. The cast is superb, the story might not be original - but written with intelligence and wittiness by Herman Miller. There's scene after scene of brilliance. My favorite is when Mongo tries to get his brother to pay him more to make the kill, but just sitting there and thrown burning match sticks on him. Like a child, but still with a strangely comforting cruelty. Mongo is also a rather complex character, which becomes more visible in the end when it's quite clear he's not really comfortable with doing what he does - he's just doing it to get money and this time, to get some kind of revenge. It's a daring move for this kind of production, but that also - think - kinda characterizes the Movie of the Week concept: the stories could be a bit downbeat, the twists often have a slightly cynical feeling to them.
It's interesting, because you would expect it to be the opposite during the 70's, the cinema would deliver the darkness and television the relief.
Regarding the other actors... Savalas is bascially doing his Kojak stuff, but it's very interesting to see Field and Sheen, young and hungry, doing very fine jobs with quite under-written characters. Field comes of as the naive young girl, falling in love with a dangerous man and Sheen like the sidekick to the main star - we've seen it before, but both of them clearly tried to do something special with their parts. Field was actually on Jimmy Kimmel and she mentions Mongo's Back in Town, saying twice she think it was a great movie - but mr Kimmel starts joking about the title and she never gets a chance to elaborate on the subject.
Like all interesting TV-movies this is hard to get, at least officially. You can download it or get a bootleg. That's it. I wish it will find it's way someday to us in a restored edition...
this sounds really interesting. going to look for this. thanks.
Posted by: gk | February 23, 2013 at 18:55
"And I mean, wow. Look at the cast: Joe Don Baker, Telly Savalas, Sally Field and Martin Sheen - the last two so young they look like their mother gave birth to them just days before shooting this movie!"
Sheen had a very youthful look....surprised he never ended up doing rom coms, comedies like that....he looks like a a baby in Badlands (1973).
Of course Starkweather was very young, so Sheen fit the part.
"He's done a lot of good shit except these titles of course, just choose and pick!"
Yeah...I would to see you do a Joe Don Baker Week....reviews of The Outfit (1973), Charley Varrick (1973)would be great.
"It's interesting, because you would expect it to be the opposite during the 70's, the cinema would deliver the darkness and television the relief."
Today it´s almost the opposite thanks to US cable.
"Like all interesting TV-movies this is hard to get, at least officially. You can download it or get a bootleg. That's it. I wish it will find it's way someday to us in a restored edition..."
Damn....well, one day it might get a release.....or TCM will show it.
Good review, and thanks.
Posted by: Megatron | February 24, 2013 at 16:27