Lean, mean and paranoid, convict Hank McCain (John Cassavetes) is sprung from prison by West Coast mobster Charlie Adamo (Peter Falk) to rob a Las Vegas casino that is owned by an East Coast Mafia boss in the same syndicate. Adamo’s underhanded attempt to muscle in on his fellow gangster’s territory ignites a gangland war between factions with McCain caught in the middle and running for his life after he successfully pulls off a $2 million dollar heist. Along the way, McCain is double-crossed by his own son, hooks up with Irene (Britt Ekland), a bar hostess, is briefly reunited with his former mistress Rosemary (Gena Rowlands) and goes down fighting in a genuine noir finale. Although it didn’t get any respect from the critics or even much notice from film reviewers at the time, Machine Gun McCain (Italian title: Gli Intoccabili, 1968) is a remarkably taut, fast-paced B-movie crime thriller that is as feral and cagey as its title hero. Cassavetes imbues his role with a pent-up intensity that threatens to explode at any moment and often does. It’s one of his best performances and demonstrates why he was more in-demand as an actor in Hollywood instead of a director.
While Cassavetes and Peter Falk agreed to do Machine Gun McCain strictly for the money, the movie proved to be a lucky charm in more ways than one. It was during the making of the film that Cassavetes got to know Falk and began to collaborate with him on his next independent feature, Husbands (1970). He also recruited Ben Gazzara, who was in Europe during the same period shooting The Bridge at Remagen (1969), to complete the trio featured in Husbands, a story of three married friends who go on a drinking binge in London after a close friend dies of a heart attack. Thanks to Bino Cicogna, the co-producer of Machine Gun McCain, Cassavetes was able to secure financing for his film when no Hollywood studio would commit to it. Cicogna, unfortunately, was not the most reliable investor, and like a subplot from Machine Gun McCain, he ran into trouble with creditors and fled to Brazil. Nevertheless, Cicogna’s initial investment allowed Cassavetes to make Husbands and eventually work out a favorable distribution deal with Columbia Pictures.
One fascinating aspect of Machine Gun McCain is to see members of Cassavetes’ tight-knit filmmaking ensemble appear in a Euro-crime thriller and bring the same style of improvised, spontaneous acting to their roles. Val Avery, who previously worked with Cassavetes as an actor in Edge of the City (1957) and then under his direction in Too Late Blues (1961) and Faces (1968), appears here as a Mafia businessman. Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes’ wife, has a scene-stealing cameo toward the end as a former gangster moll who tries to arrange safe passage for McCain and his girlfriend, Irene, out of the country. And Falk, who is perfect as the treacherous, power-hungry Adamo, would go on to work with Cassavetes on five more films.
Montaldo’s film is based on the crime novel Candyleg by Ovid Demaris and the screenplay by Mino Roli includes appropriately hard-boiled dialogue by Israel Horovitz that harkens back to the kind of tough repartee you’d encounter in a classic Hollywood B-noir like The Narrow Margin (1952) or Kiss Me Deadly (1955). A perfect example is this exchange between Hank and Irene as they cruise down the Vegas strip:
Hank: Twelve years of prison and I still get a kick out of these lights.
Irene: They’re beautiful.
Hank: They’re not beautiful. They’re cheap. It’s an attraction for sad, fat businessmen begging for more money…for hustlers, for thieves, for pimps. I LOVE IT!
Other prime examples include this exchange between Hank and Jack (Pierluigi Apra):
Hank: Who are those two slobs out there?
Jack: Cuda and Barclay.
Hank: Cuda and Barclay!
Jack: They’re good!
Hank: They’re bums. They’re punks. They’re fringe nuthings.
And a conversation between Hank and his former mistress (played by his real-life wife Gena Rowlands) that sounds like it could have been pulled from a Cassavetes movie:
Hank (to Rosemary): Boy, you really look morbid.
Rosemary: Oh yeah. You don’t look so hot yourself. You’re all grayed up.
Hank: So what? I got my personality to pull me through.
Rosemary: Oh yeah. You’re a real card.
Connoisseurs of giallos, spaghetti Westerns and Eurotrash movies will also get a kick out of Machine Gun McCain‘s supporting cast which features such distinctive Italian actors as Gabriele Ferzetti (Once Upon a Time in the West [1968]), Luigi Pistilli (Death Rides a Horse [1967]), Tony Kendall, also known as Luciano Stella, who appeared in Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Body [1963] and Django Against Sartana [1970], and Brazilian born actress Florinda Bolkan, star of Elio Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen Under Suspicion [1970] and the gruesome historical drama Flavia the Heretic [1974] in which she is skinned alive in the finale. The other noteworthy Italian contributor on Machine Gun McCain is composer Ennio Morricone who provides a memorable score including the influential “Ballad of Hank McCain.”
While most of Machine Gun McCain was shot in and around Las Vegas, there was some additional location shooting in Rome, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Tourists who remember Vegas in the late sixties will get nostalgic watching Cassavetes and Britt Ekland cruise past such once famous landmarks as the Golden Nugget, the Flamingo, The Golden Gate Hotel & Casino, the Fremont and the Frontier. Machine Gun McCain, however, is much better than a ride down memory lane and enjoyed critical acclaim in Europe when it was first released. The director, Giuliano Montaldo, was even nominated for the Golden Palm award at Cannes when the movie premiered there in 1969.
Here is a wide range of opinions on the film from various critics and reviewers:
“Between the Mafia with its familial network of courtly captains and deferential lieutenants, and the unyielding loner McCain, whose personal morality will exclude an only son if necessary, a rather interesting contrast develops. At best the contrast is never sufficiently dramatized, and it finally falls in the inexpressiveness of Cassavetes’s performance, the vagaries of the screenplay, and the superfluous introduction of an old flame (Gena Rowlands), who adds nothing but conventional confusion to the plot. But it is there to think about; to admire in passing, to lament its loss – as so frequently falls to those of us who love C movies.”
– Roger Greenspun, The New York Times
“…A perfectly respectable film with a few pleasant surprises…A reasonable international success, the film has regularly been a focus for discussion in reconciling [director] Montaldo’s status as an auteur with his general lack of box office success. [Gena] Rowlands turns in a good performance as the woman who commits suicide rather than squeal, a regular feature in Italian gangster films.”
– The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Gangster Film, edited by Phil Hardy
“This cheap little Italian feature was made originally in 1968. Its lovers-on-the-run theme and death-by-machine-gun sequence give it more than a striking resemblance to Bonnie and Clyde (1967), which undoubtedly was no accident. This was the sort of junk film in which Cassavetes continually appeared in order to finance his own artistic endeavors, such as Faces (1968).”
– TV Guide
“Dull but violent Las Vegas-set mobster story with some echoes of Bonnie and Clyde.”
– Halliwell’s Film & Video Guide
“Junk.”
– Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide
In regards to the making of Machine Gun McCain, Cassavetes agreed to star in it after unsuccessfully shopping around his Husbands (1970) project in Hollywood. Even though his previous film Faces (1968) had been a critical and commercial success, Cassavetes realized that every studio viewed Husbands as a completely uncommercial endeavor. So instead, he approached Bino Cicogna, head of Euro International, and the producer of Machine Gun McCain as a possible investor.
Cicogna, who also produced Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), was a tall, elegant looking man with a quiet demeanor, a facade that contrasted with his often suspect business dealings. He eventually would flee Europe and his creditors for the safety of Brazil but in 1968 he was quite open to the idea of financing a film by Cassavetes, especially since Faces had performed so well in Europe, making the young director a cause celebre.
According to Marshall Fine’s biography, Accidental Genius: How John Cassavetes Invented American Independent Film, “the opportunity to produce what sounded like a prestige film with American stars, directed by a rising American filmmaker, looked like a foot in the door to Hollywood legitimacy. Cicogna was only too happy to commit his funding – to the tune of $1.5 million – and to cede all artistic control to Cassavetes. The contract Cassavetes had worked out with Cicogna, Al Ruban recalled, “was totally in our favor. Contractually, they had nothing to say.” Thus, thanks to Cicogna and Cassavetes’ involvement in Machine Gun McCain, Husbands became a reality.
While Cassavetes and Peter Falk were filming Machine Gun McCain, they would work on refining the Husbands screenplay with input from Ben Gazzara who was cast as the third major character in the movie’s central trio. At the time Gazzara was in Prague working on The Bridge at Remagen (1969) while Cassavetes and Falk were in Rome for some location shooting for Machine Gun McCain. When Russian troops invaded Czechoslovakia – known as the “Prague Spring” – Cassavetes and Falk were worried about Gazzara’s safety but their colleague avoided any dangerous situations and was soon reunited with his friends.
Due to Cassavetes’ involvement in Machine Gun McCain, his wife, Gena Rowlands, was cast in a pivotal cameo role in the film as Rosemary, a former lover of McCain who he turns to for help when mafia hitmen pursue him. In their brief scenes together, Cassavetes and Rowlands display the sort of spontaneous, improvised acting that was already a distinguishing feature of Cassavetes’ movies.
Additional Trivia on Machine Gun McCain:
The film was an Italian production that was released in Italy as Gli Intoccabili. It was the second Italian gangster film made in 1968 that John Cassavetes appeared in. The first one was Rome Like Chicago (Italian title: Roma come Chicago). His involvement in both films was strictly for monetary reasons and he used his fees to help finance his own independent productions.
Machine Gun McCain marked the first time John Cassavetes and Peter Falk worked together as actors in a movie. Cassavetes would go on to direct him in four of his own productions – Husbands [1970], A Woman Under the Influence [1974], Opening Night [1977], Big Trouble [1986]- and co-star with him in Husbands, the TV movie Columbo: Etude in Black [1972], Mikey and Nicky [1976] and Opening Night [1977].
The tagline for the film was “Even the Mafia calls him Mister!”
Britt Ekland divorced her first husband actor Peter Sellers the same year she starred in Machine Gun McCain. She had just completed The Bobo opposite Sellers in 1967 and would follow this gangster drama with the comedy The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968).
Peter Falk was no stranger to Italian film productions and had previously appeared in two World War II epics filmed in Europe, 1965’s Italiani brava gente (shot in the Ukraine and released in the U.S. as Attack and Retreat) and Anzio (1968), which was shot in and around Naples.
In addition to directing Machine Gun McCain, Giuliano Montaldo was also a respected actor and screenwriter. Among his acting credits are The Doll That Took the Town (1956) with Virna Lisi and Elio Petri’s The Assassin (1961) with Marcello Mastroianni. The sword-and-sandal epic Duel of the Champions (1961), Il Giorno Prima (English title: Control, 1987), a claustrophobic fallout shelter thriller, and the financial drama The Entrepreneur (2011), his final film and a multi-award winner at film festivals, are just a few examples of his diverse screenwriting skills.
Montaldo’s other directorial efforts included several movies with a World War II setting such as Dio e con noi (1969), Gli Occhiali d’oro (1987), and L’Agnese va a morire (1976). Montaldo is probably best known today for the stylish crime caper Grand Slam (1967) with Edward G. Robinson, Janet Leigh and Klaus Kinski!, his critically lauded biopic Sacco & Vanzetti (1971), which was nominated for a Palme d’Or at Cannes, and the cult film curio Circuito Chiuso (English title: Closed Circuit, 1978), which is stirring up new interest in the director’s career, thanks to a Blu-ray release from Severin Films.
Producer Bino Cicogna lost a lot of money on his film deals and eventually relocated to Brazil to escape his creditors. He was later murdered there – a stabbing victim. His last feature film production was I Cannibali (1970), directed by Liliana Cavani and starring Britt Ekland.
The music score of Machine Gun McCain is by Ennio Morricone and is one of his best. The brooding theme song, “The Ballad of Hank McCain,” has been recorded by other musicians, including John Zorn in his tribute to Morricone, The Big Gundown.
Brazilian actress Florinda Bolkan makes one of her first screen appearances in Machine Gun McCain as Peter Falk’s mistress. She would go on to appear in several acclaimed European films such as Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969) and Vittorio De Sica’s A Brief Vacation (1973). Giallo fans known her from such influential genre entries as A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971) and Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972), both directed by Lucio Fulci.
If you’re a fan of Italian exploitation films, you’ll recognize Luigi Pistilli as Peter Falk’s henchman and Claudio Biava as one of the hoods McCain kills. Although Pistilli was an acclaimed theatre actor and also appeared in prestige films such as Francesco Rosi’s Illustrious Corpses (1976), he more often appeared in giallos, spaghetti westerns and crime thrillers. Death Rides a Horse (1967), The Sweet Body of Deborah (1968), Mario Bava’s Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971, aka A Bay of Blood), Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972) and Tragic Ceremony (1972) are among his many credits. Claudio Biava has been equally active in Italian genre films, primarily spaghetti westerns and spy thrillers such as Django Kills Softly (1967), Ramon the Mexican (1966) and The Spy Loves Flowers (1966).
Cinematographer Erico Menczer began as an assistant cameraman, working for such internationally renowned directors as Michelangelo Antonioni, Mario Monicelli, and Federico Fellini. On his own, he lensed such memorable giallos as The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971) for Dario Argento and The Dead Are Alive (1972) for Armando Crispino.
Machine Gun McCain was first issued on DVD by Blue Underground in the English-language version and later upgraded to a HD transfer to Blu-ray in March 2010. The only extra features are the U.S. and Italian trailers and an informative interview with director Montaldo.
Other links of interest:
https://variety.com/2023/film/global/giuliano-montaldo-dead-sacco-and-vanzetti-1235714714/
https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/john-gena-dynamite-screen
https://www.theactorswork.com/2012/12/remembering-john-cassavetes.html
https://www.grindhousedatabase.com/index.php/20_Italian_Crime_Cinema_Classics
Cinema Sojourns 