Conference bookie::movies

63.0. "Show Them No Mercy" by DSSDEV::RUST () Wed Mar 10 1993 12:55

    I caught this little item on AMC the other night. The premise: amiable
    young couple with cute baby and cuter dog get lost in the boondocks,
    and take shelter from the rain in an old farmhouse that's been
    earmarked by <gasp!> a gang of kidnappers as their post-ransom hideout. 
    
    The crooks are led by an incredibly amiable Cesar Romero, twirling his
    watch on its chain and trying to keep his troops calm. The rest of the
    gang consists of a quasi-psycho and a pair of comic-relief/cannon-
    fodder types, who all spend their time playing practical jokes on each
    other and/or threatening violence; you know, the "boys will be boys"
    take. They are, at first, willing to give the hapless young couple the
    benefit of the doubt, but <of course> eventually come to the conclusion
    that the young folk must not be allowed to "squeal". Will the young
    couple escape? Will they get medical care for the sick baby in time?
    And *what will happen to the dog*???
    
    By way of contrast, the state and federal agents are so upright/uptight
    conservative that they're barely memorable. I don't know if they
    garnered more audience sympathy when the film originally played, even
    in the days when most of the public really trusted the law enforcement
    agencies to take care of things. In any case, _I_ couldn't root for
    them, and kept hoping they'd fall flat on their faces while the young
    couple, or a passing stranger even, saved the day...
    
    While this flick doesn't quite stand with, say, "Reservoir Dogs" as an
    example of the aftermath of a well-planned crime gone wrong (!), it has
    its moments, from the scene involving the amiable young mother wielding
    a tommy gun to the amiable young dog playing keep-away with the least
    emotionally stable member of the gang. And then there was my favorite
    sequence, which involved a rather clever, if time-consuming, technique
    for laundering marked money: the second-most amiable of the crooks
    attends several church services in a row, each time placing a $5 in the
    collection plate and taking back $4.00 in change. I was really pulling
    for him, too; pity he - oh, but that would be spoiling it. 
    
    OK, so perhaps this wasn't a particularly notable film. But it was,
    well... amiable. ;-)
    
    -b

    Times being what they are, I'm still playing catch-up with this notes 
    file and don't have time to put in any lengthy replies.  
    
    Still I thought it worth noting that the basic storyline of "Show Them 
    No Mercy" was reused in the 1951 Western "Rawhide".  Tyrone Power and 
    Susan Hayward starred.  
    
    Ron D.