Dusty and Sweets McGhee

Dusty and Sweets McGee

D. Floyd Mutrux

Finally had a chance to catch up with this after Thom Anderson's write-up in Film Comment.  Here he is talking about the film (cutoff at the end):




It has finally come out as part of the Warner Archive collection here as both a DVD and download.  It is also available in the Comments section below.

Beautifully shot by WIlliam Fraker with a sense of place in early 70's Los Angeles that s palpable.  There is also a great soundtrack with Van Morrison, Harry Nilsson, and a selection of older rock and doo-wop.  Anderson points out the similarities between the movie and Pedro Costa's recent work and it is an apt comparison.  Though I find Mutrux's work to be looser and not nearly as aesthetically stringent. Both though share a sense of empathy with their subjects that reviewers have taken as morally dubious, though I don't think this is the case.

What is interesting to me is how films like this or Barbara Loden's Wanda are essentially about drift and how those films did not speak to an audience in 1970 but, for whatever reasons that modern life has, speak to us (or at least a select few of us) now.

When I took this out of Odd Obsession, the gentleman behind the counter recommended Cisco Pike to me as another early 70's LA movie in a similar vein.  That will be one that I rent today.