![]() ![]() ![]() It wasn't actually Sarrazin's debut-he'd appeared in a couple of low-budget films and a TV shows-but it was his first leading role and the film is built on his relationship with Scott's Mordecai and on the character's conflict between his sense of morality and his loyalty to the paternal swindler. ![]() "Introducing Michael Sarrazin," reads the credit of the young Canadian actor who plays Curley, the earnest army deserter who becomes Mordeecai's protégé and shill. "I play the part and get paid what it's worth-I hope. "I like him, he's a funny old duck," he told New York Times reporter Brian St. For The Flim-Flam Man the 39-year-old actor got the opportunity to play the 70-year-old Mordecai Jones, a legendary confidence man who works the small town rubes of the rural South. He came to the film with Academy Awards nominations for his supporting roles in Anatomy of a Murder and The Hustler as well as two Emmy Award nominations to his credit. Strangelove aside, Scott was known for his dramatic roles on the stage and on screen. The Flim-Flam Man, a comedy about an irascible con artist working the small towns of the Deep South, was indeed different. Scott, 1966, in an interview with the New York Times during the production of The Flim-Flam Man. Neither is easy in this business." - George C. "I try to do something different every time. "Thank you son," he murmurs and then he hops a freight train slowly moving out of town. Watching from the shadows is Mordecai, who has merely walked around the corner. ![]() As Curley is arrested, Bonnie and her influential father promise to see that he is treated fairly. Once Mordecai has supposedly left town, Curley reveals that his threat was just another confidence trick-he never had any dynamite. Curley escapes, gets some dynamite boxes, and threatens to blow up the courthouse unless Mordecai is released. Eventually, despite his affection for Mordecai, Curley decides to give himself up to the Army but before he can do so he and Mordecai are captured and jailed. Curley, meanwhile, has been having clandestine meetings with Bonnie, who lovingly urges him to become respectable. Having wrecked the car, they steal a truckload of moonshine whiskey which they quickly peddle for cash and supplies. When the police spot the stolen car and the local sheriff gives chase, Mordecai races through the town, crashing into store windows, upsetting fruit trucks, and terrifying startled citizens. Following several successful swindles, they "borrow" a car from pretty Bonnie Lee Packard, a 17-year-old with whom Curley immediately falls in love. One day he meets Curley Treadaway, a Carolina farm boy who has gone AWOL from the Army after slugging his "big-mouthed Yankee sergeant." United by a common need to survive, the two renegades join forces once Mordecai has assuaged Curley's conscience by promising to cheat only other cheaters and the greedy. Widely known throughout the South as the Flim-Flam Man, he is always seen carrying the beat-up satchel that contains the tools of his trade: decks of playing cards, dominoes, punchboards, play money, etc. Mordecai Jones is an old-fashioned confidence man equipped with a glib tongue and a heart of pure larceny. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |