The Last Detail
Jul 15 - Jul 16, 2008
Hal Ashby, USA, 1973, 35mm, 103 min
Screenwriter Robert Towne's adaptation of Darryl Ponicsan's novel accurately catches the flavor of peacetime military life. Randy Quaid is cast as a teenage misfit whose bungled swindle of charity money has landed him in prison. Jack Nicholson and Otis Young, awaiting new assignments at a military receiving station, draw escort duty. With several days of transit time allowed, Nicholson decides to set a leisurely pace. The essence of the story is the exchange of compassion between the guards and prisoner, and the latter's effect on his escorts.
“The Last Detail is one superbly funny, uproariously intelligent performance, plus two others that are very, very good, which are so effectively surrounded by profound bleakness that it seems to be a new kind of anti-comedy.” -Vincent Canby, NY TIMES
Darryl Ponicsan, author of the novel THE LAST DETAIL, will introduce the 7:30pm screening on July 15th
About Darryl Ponicsan
Darryl Ponicsan is best known as the author of the 1971 novel The Last Detail, which was adapted into a 1973 movie starring Jack Nicholson; and for the 1973 novel and screenplay Cinderella Liberty, starring James Caan. He was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, the son ofFrank G., a merchant, and Anne Kuleck. He attended Muhlenberg College, (A.B., 1959) and Cornell University, (M.A., 1965). He was teacher of English at a high school in Owego, New York, 1959-62; a social worker for Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California in 1965, and teacher of English in California from 1966-69. Ponicsan also wrote the screenplays for the CBS movie A Girl Called Hatter Fox (1977), the movies Taps (1981), Vision Quest (1985), Nuts (1987), The Boost (1988), School Ties (1992), the HBO movie The Enemy Within (1992), and the CBS series The Mississippi (1983).