Alan Sharp was born on 12 January 1934. He was Scottish but by the end of his life, he had homes in Scotland, New Zealand, and the US. Otherwise, I don’t know much about his personal life.
Sharp was a very successful screenwriter. He went through phases. He started in TV, moved on to feature films, and went back to TV. In the middle of his later TV work, he penned his best-known film, Rob Roy. He also wrote a few well-reviewed novels early in his career. But I haven’t read any of them.
He wrote (or co-wrote) two films I’m really not fond of. But I don’t think the problem was his scripts. The first is Damnation Alley. Sharp was brought in to rewrite the script to keep the budget under control. It was still expensive for its time and it’s just horrible to even look at. The second is The Osterman Weekend. It suffers from two problems: Robert Ludlum’s ridiculously complicated novel and Sam Peckinpah’s bad direction.
My favorite of Alan Sharp’s films is Dean Spanley. It is based on Lord Dunsany’s novella. But Sharp only took the basic idea. His script is so much richer than the book. I highly recommend watching it. There’s a good print on OK.RU. But it isn’t psychotronic. (Not that I couldn’t make the case. It’s about a guy getting a priest drunk because he remembers being a dog when drunk.)
But a close second is Night Moves. It is another of those great 1970s paranoia films that I love so much. But it is far deeper and more disturbing than other films of this type. The takeaway of the film is that there is no ultimate truth — just another layer of reality. And idiotic is he who expects an explanation.
Alan Sharp wrote a lot of other great screenplays. Pyschotronic fans may want to check out his first three features: The Last Run, The Hired Hand, Ulzana’s Raid. But for now, watch Night Moves.
Night Moves (1975) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
I love this line: “Not that I couldn’t make the case. It’s about a guy getting a priest drunk because he remembers being a dog when drunk.”
And, one could also say psychotropic by association. Sam Neill’s been in a John Carpenter movie, a cheapie The Omen sequel, and Event Horizon *might* count. (Supposedly, the original director’s cut is super gross, but I don’t believe it’s ever showed up anywhere yet.)
I get the feeling Sam Neill is kind of a super-talented guy who might have been considered a great actor if he’d gotten the right parts. (As it is, nobody considers him a bad one, not at all.) I adore what he does in Spanley. He’s such a stuffy vicar dude (and you know a NZ guy probably enjoyed mocking stuffy British vicar dudes), until he gets a sniff of his Special Wine. And then he goes into a trance…
Of course Hackman IS considered a great actor (and correctly so). I wish he’d had more great roles… but that’s Hollywood for ya. Most scripts are trash. At least he got a juicy one to chew on here. And I enjoyed Hackman getting to play a guy who had relationships. Generally, he played “intense yeller” (or “intense loner” in The Conversation).
In movies, guys like Gene Hackman or Steve Buscemi are odd-looking, compared to all the identical Dick Powell-looking non-entities. In real life, somebody like Buscemi or Hackman is terrific-looking! So in Night Moves, Hackman has a complicated love life, which makes sense! He would be very attractive; he’s a handsome dude with principles and a sharp intelligence.
Maybe the obsessive “gotta find the truth” thing might be a turnoff after a few years, when he’s like “gotta bug out for a few weeks, maybe a few months, to obsessively find The Truth. Sorry to cancel our vacation on short notice, be a dear and get refunds from the airlines/hotels we’d booked, okay sweetie?”
I’ve always assumed that Sam Neill was widely admired. He’s a great actor! I just looked up his awards. Lots of NZ and Australian awards. There are Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. But not much. I do think a lot of actors like him don’t get the credit they deserve. And by “like him,” I mean people who just do their jobs and don’t make a big deal out of it. An even bigger gap is Sean Bean. I think he is one of the very best actors of my lifetime. And no one seems to notice. I always go back to this one scene in Ronin where Bean has a major scene with Robert De Niro. And there is no doubt at all that Bean could kill doing the De Niro character but De Niro would never be able to pull off the Bean role. But De Niro is a “method” actor so all the critics pretend that makes him great. (To be clear: De Niro is a great actor. It’s just that he’s also a very limited actor. He does a great job at what he does. Nicolas Cage has far more breadth.)
Hackman’s character in NM is clearly troubled. And I’m afraid he’s hopeless. He has the breakthrough. He tells his wife about not talking to his father. But then off he goes again. And at the end of the film, he hasn’t learned anything. Nothing is better. And if he managed to get out of that, he’d still be the same way. I identify with the character. But that says a lot that isn’t good about who I am!
That’s the best thing about NM, though… the willingness of the script to end without anything being fixed. No Life Lessons Learned. The boat goes in circles. And Hackman’s great enough that this bummer of a story isn’t a bummer to watch. It’s seedy without being tawdry.
Bean is great! I’ve never seen Ronin, but I’ve seen Bean in big movie dreck, and he always brings it even as a Bond baddie. He’s like a much easier to watch Ray Winstone. (Who is a gifted actor, he’s just kinda off-putting to me.)
And Neill is so good! I can’t even watch Jurassic Park, it’s so calculated a soulless money machine, yet Neill gives heart to his role. I think you’re right that he’s just a great actor who doesn’t care about getting attention & praise. I think he deserves praise! But as you point out, he’s gotten the awards that probably matter more to him. And I’m sure that because of dinosaurs, he’s gotten a nice chunk of money, too.
One great thing about Night Moves is the way we kind of become Hackman when we see the producer flying the plane. “Aha! Now I know the truth!” Except we don’t. Sure, we know all these people were involved in smuggling art treasures. But it doesn’t get deeper than that. And it doesn’t tell us anything about the girl’s death, which probably just was an accident. There is no secret truth, much as we may with there were!
That’s a great observation about the audience becoming like the character.
I recently rewatched Rear Window, and that movie has some of the worst critical overwriting of all time. “The audience becomes voyeurs…” BORRRRRING! We”re not voyeurs who want to see ookiness, we’re audiences who like a good scare. And we’re pretty sure Perry Mason isn’t gonna kill Grace Kelly.
That’s no more “voyeuristic” than 30s horror movies… and arguably MUCH less “voyeuristic” than Freaks! So all that critical writing is gunk. Impressive huge set on that one, though…