The Outfit (1973) Southern Cal Revenge Noir

Directed by John Flynn (Rolling Thunder)

Written by John Flynn and based on Donald E. Westlake's novel. Cinematography by Bruce Surtees (Dirty Harry, Tightrope, Lenny). Music by Jerry Fielding.

The film stars Robert Duvall (TV noir Naked City, Route 66, The Twilight Zone, The Fugitive, Transitional Noir The Detective, Bullit, The Godfather) as Earl Macklin, Karen Black (The Prime Time, Easy Rider, Born To Win) as Bett Harrow, Joe Don Baker (Cool Hand Luke, Charlie Varrick) as Cody, Robert Ryan (Classic Noir Vet) as Mailer, Timothy Carey (Classic Noir Vet) as Menner, Richard Jaeckel (Classic Noir Vet) as Chemey, Sheree North as Buck's Wife, Tom Reese as Hit Man, Felice Orlandi as Frank Orlandi, Marie Windsor (Classic Noir Vet) as Madge Coyle, Jane Greer (Classic Noir Vet) as Alma, Henry Jones as Doctor, Joanna Cassidy (Blade Runner) as Rita, Elisha Cook (Classic Noir Vet) as Carl, Bill McKinney (Deliverance) as Buck Cherney, Archie Moore as Packard, Bern Hoffman as Jim Sinclair, and Emile Meyer (Classic Noir Vet) as gun salesman Amos Hopper. 

Robert Duvall as Earl Macklin and Karen Black as Bett Harrow

                                                          Joe Don Baker as Cody

Elisha Cook as Carl

Jane Greer as Alma

Timothy Carey as Menner rt.

Robert Ryan as Mailer rt.

Marie Windsor as Madge

Emile Meyer as gun salesman

Sheree North as Buck's Wife

Richard Jaeckel as Chemey

Roy Roberts as Sheriff

Ok, not having ever read all of Westlake's Parker novels beyond maybe the first one, this much I can tell you.  

The Outfit is based on the second Parker novel of the same name by Donald E. Westlake. As far as I know, at least the first two Parker novels revolve around organized crime in New York and Chicago, and on the East Coast. However all hard connections with the East Coast are removed in the film, locations are kept vague. There's one sequence that takes place at a horse auction with a stable / corral set that looks out of place in the California landscapes, you wonder if it was originally supposed to be Connecticut, or Westchester and they gave up and jettisoned the idea of trying to get the East coast feel at all or was it all a low budget decision. Somebody who is really interested can check.

The first Parker novel The Hunter was turned into Point Blank (1967), and of course if you've seen it,  all the action is switched to California.. In that film Parker is called Walker, and played by Lee Marvin. Walker was hired by Mal Reese to join him in a heist. Reese had a gambling debt that he had to pay off. The heist goes off without a hitch, but the take is too small and Reese double crosses Walker, shoots him, takes his cut, and leaves him for dead.  

Some time later, a recovered Walker decides it's time to get his share of the money, and starts tracking Reese down through his ex-wife Lynne, and her then her sister Chris. He throws Reese off his own penthouse roof apartment when he doesn't get his money, and then works his way up through "the outfit" towards head man Fairfax looking for his $93,000. It ends with a money drop in Alcatraz. 

So, The second Westlake Parker novel is a continuation of the first story. In the second novel Parker has escaped to Florida with the money he got from knocking over outfit operations. The organization puts out a contract on Parker. However the Florida hit on (Parker) while he's with gal pal Bett goes wrong. 

He gets info from the hit man that that a local Florida outfit stooge fingered him. The outfit sent the hit down from New York. Parker tracks the local Florida stooge down in hotel poker game. Parker kills him then goes to war against the outfit. He gets a car from a souped up getaway car builder named Chemy in Georgia. (The same fracas in the film happens in the novel but with Chemy's brothers wife and Earl, however in the film it's with an added character named Cody). 

With the getaway car he heads up to New York and hits an outfit operation. Parker meets with Fairfax who puts him in touch with a Walter Karns who is out fit head Bronson's New York rival who agrees to cancel the contract if Parker takes out Bronson. 

At a hideout motel run by a retired hooker named Madge, Parker meets up with Handy Mackay another heister who owns a diner in Maine. (in the film this character named Cody and his introduction is sooner. In the film Madge is the owner of what looks like a "backwoods" bar with cabins type place called the Big Horn Lodge). Earl makes Handy a deal, and they both go after crime boss Bronson.

In The Outfit like in Point Blank, all the action is again moved to California so by its dry landscapes, its all unmistakably set on the West Coast and roughly between the Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles, and West of Vegas.  

So the second film changes the name Parker to a heister named Earl Macklin. The film gives Earl a brother Eddie with whom he along with another guy Cody, bumped off an Outfit bank. They both go on the lamb but Earl gets picked up in Illinois on a gun charge and does twenty-seven months in a barbed wire hotel. Apparently, through some communication breach between Earl and his brother Eddie, just before Earl is let out of prison, the outfit, finds out the general vicinity of where Eddie is laying low. 

A cab with a priest arrives at a rural roadside filling station to ask some directions for whatever name Eddie is hiding under. The station attendant obliges. They drive out and kill Eddie.]

Killing Eddie

When Earl is let out of prison he is met in the waiting room by Bett his girlfriend. So remember he's supposed to be in Illinois, unless I'm misremembering. The landscape, though indicates California. 

They should have changed the script to Nevada. Anyway  She tells him about Eddie getting whacked. On the drive from the prison up to Eddie's place they stop about halfway at a motel for the night where Bett has already made reservations. 

It's one of those roadside cabins type of motel, and Bett made the reservation for cabin 18 the farthest off the highway. That fact plus, the fact that she reserved it on the way down to pick him up makes Earl suspicious of Bett and alert. 

Bett, in the cabin, is acting unnaturally, this causes Earl to ask her what is the matter. She tells Earl she wants leave and starts packing her suitcase. Earl tells her they are staying till after breakfast. Bett breaks down and tells Earl it is a setup. Earl turns off the lights, and waits.

One of the hitmen, the one who killed Earl's brother, the fake cab driver, is staking out cabin 18. When the lights go out he makes his move but Earl is waiting and ambushes him.

From the hit man Earl finds out that outfit man Menner ordered the hit. Earl has the hit man call in to say that Earl Macklin is dead. Driving away in the car Britt shows Earl her forearm with multiple cigarette burns and confesses that Menner threatened to cut her face if she didn't set Earl up at the motel.

.

Earl finds out through connections, that Menner is sitting in at a high stakes poker game at the Biltmore Hotel on Grand Ave., Los Angeles (in the novel Menner is actually in Chicago). 

After taking care of the door guard, Earl goes in and robs the game and in a personnel gesture shoots Menner in the hand he burned Britts arm with. Earl tells Menner that he calculates that The Outfit owes him $250,000.and that hell keep bumping over Outfit operations until he's paid.

Earl recruits Jack Cody a buddy heister who runs a cafe on Mulholland Highway (in the novel Cody has a diner up in Maine), to help him knock over Outfit ventures.

Menner goes to his boss Mailer (who in the novel is supposed to be in New York City but you can't disguise So Cal locations) and tells Mailer that we have a problem. Mailer tells Menner it's his problem. 

You have the problem

The film just ratchets up the action as Earl, Britt, and Cody work their way up the ladder towards Mailer.

Noirsville

It all feels like a local Southern Cal gangland dispute that got out of hand. The principal actors Duval, Black, and Baker play well off each other. The film has a great supporting cast of Classic Noir Vets that pop up in small cameos throughout film bringing along some cinematic memory to the film. The action sequences are done well enough and Jerry Fielding's score is complimentary. 7/10