VHS SPECIAL: "FIGHT PUB" (FAT CITY at 50)

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VHS SPECIAL: FAT CITY  *FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY*   

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VHS, in its heyday, was the best way to watch movies. They opened up a generation to movies previously impossible to see if they weren't circulating in movie theaters years and decades after release. You could argue our current nerd culture, where everybody has seen everything, was kickstarted by GEN X getting their hands on previously obscure movies.  A lot of transfers of older movies to VHS were crappy. Available film prints were Paleolithic, compression was an issue,  and, frankly, studios did not care how they looked when monetizing their libraries; Too dark, pan-and-scanned, color resolution sometimes bordering monochromatic. But in 2022 it IS a visual  aesthetic filmmakers try to replicate to give their films a grimy, unwashed and somehow dangerous feel.

1972's FAT CITY was John Huston's first film shot in the US in over a decade and signaled a return to form after a string of disasters and financial disappointments. His previous film ended with him either being fired or walking off, depending who you ask. Going small and character-driven with a main character on the ropes, his best days far in the past, was exactly what Huston needed at the time.

Jack and Thomas both read Leonard Gardner's 1969 novel of the same name and bring a treasure trove of changes made between the book and Gardner's own adaptation. Gardner suffered through a number of rewrites and changes during a production that somehow ended up taking the film back to being closer to the book.

Taking place in resort wonderland, Stockton, California, the book and film follows drunken, onetime boxing contender Billy Tully (played by Stacy Keach in a career highlight), who keeps talking of getting back in shape and back into boxing in tragic repetition momentarily paused when he actually does get back into boxing after meeting a very young Jeff Bridges, who boxes as a lark but may have something special in his form  - or may be replicating Tully's own narrative life journey. These are folks who supplement what meager finances they have by picking onions and nuts in the sweltering heat of California's unyielding breadbasket. Tully spends his $ on booze, Bridge's character has a pregnant girlfriend. They are all on the margins, where so many great 1970s movies founds its people.  We are fortunate to live in a gilded age where there is little financial anxiety or people living on the ragged margins of society (according to the movies we get from studios, anyway.) Tully takes up residence with Oma, a barfly of an undetermined age played by Susan Tyrrell in one of the great performances of the era. You will swear they hired her from an actual dive bar in Stockton. She got an Oscar nom for all the trouble she had butting heads with Huston on the set.  We all love her performance here as something special and possibly iconic.

Another sweaty, grimy, gorgeously depressing early 1970s film perfect for rewatch on VHS. Damn, those 1980s transfers of old movies  was complete ass and it serves FAT CITY well.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

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Letterboxd (follow us!):
Ken: Ken Koral
Jack: jackk1096