John Huston began his film career as a writer and adapted many "classic" novels for or to the screen, including Moby Dick, The Red Badge of Courage, A Farewell to Arms, Under the Volcano, Wise Blood. These all have striking moments and most have outstanding performances, but the parts do not cohere into good movies the way that many of his films of less sacrosanct, less canonized texts such as Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon B. Traven's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Tennessee Williams's Night of the Iguana, Carson McCullers's Reflections in a Golden Eye, C. S. Forster's The African Queen, Arthur Miller's "The Misfits," and Richard Condon's Prizzi's Honor do.*

The source material for Huston's 1972 film "Fat City," the one and only novel by Leonard Gardner, who wrote the screenplay, is in this more popular though still critically acclaimed range (see my review of the 1969 book, but falls short of being one of his triumpant adaptations.

Gardner's account of the down-but-not-quite-out in his native California Central Valley city of Stockton is gritty. The main characters, a fledgling 18-year-old boxer Ernie Munger (Jeff Bridges) and Bill Tully (Stacy Keach), a 29-year-old puzzled by his fate and, in effect, echoing Terry Mallow's "I coulda been a contender" plaint from "On the Waterfront" (perhaps the most famous movie line from the 1950s) suffer the indignities agricultural day-laborers suffer before and after their back-breaking toil in the fields (where they are the lone Anglos). Professional boxing seems to them a more viable career, though they make very little money fighting in small cities in California (plus Reno).

In the book Ernie feels trapped by the pregnancy of Faye (played by Candy Clark who specialized in playing Central California small-city "man traps," most famously in "American Graffiti," one county seat further south). In the film he is less restive. His job at the filling station (and the best rant from the book, which is directed at him there) also disappeared between page and screen. In that Jeff Bridges was so perfect for the part, it is too bad his character does not have the place (of equality to Tully's) in the film it had in the book.

The star of the film is Stacy Keach, who I don't find convincing as a boxer with any chance of making it (being a contenda). However, he is completely convincing as a man who can't hold a job or a resolution and is in permanent mourning for a promising future (as a boxer) that one doubts was ever more than an unobtainable fantasy. Tully is not a drunkard, but he hooks up with one, Oma (Susan Tyrrell), who is a whiny, belligerent, and sentimental bar fly.

There is little plot. Other than realizing that living with Oma is bad for him, Tully does not achieve any insight into his condition or how to get out of it. Ernie has lower expectations and is less self-absorbed than Tully (or Oma). One feels that he will be alright even if his boxing career does not reach any great heights. The lack of resolution (and of any real plot development) comes from/with the book. (As I noted in regard to it, it's hard to write a satisfactory ending for dead end lives.)

Too much of the film's running time of less than an hour and a half is filled by Tully's comeback fight. It is brutish enough, but both fighters' heads are so unprotected so much of the time that I find it hard to believe that, even if they both failed to notice the opportunities, their managers certainly would have suggested how to win (and win quickly). I'm sure that John Huston knew more about boxing than I do, and can't understand why he didn't make the fight more plausible.

The acting is fine, particularly the small-time manager Ruben (Nicholas Colasanto, "Coach on "Cheers") and Jeff Bridges's usual seeming naturalness and unassuming charm. The cinematography by Conrad Hall (American Beauty) is outstanding. Though the fields look so beautiful that the image clashes with the point of the harshness of fieldwork, Hall filmed the seedy urban sets in ways that highlight the hopelessness. I think that Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through the Night" is a great song, and his rendition fits the tone of the film more than the one I like better (Gladys Knight's).

* Huston also made some horrible movies such as Annie, A Walk with Love and Death, and Freud. And my generalization is statistical, not categorical. Huston's final movie is well-nigh flawless and is based on the canonical James Joyce story from The Dubliners, "The Dead."

(Note: The first two paragraphs and appended note were temporarily removed for lean 'n mean III.)


Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age