Joe [1970] Peter Boyle

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Joe (1969)


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065916/

Joe is a 1970 drama film starring Peter Boyle, Dennis Patrick, and Susan Sarandon in her film debut. The film was directed by John G. Avildsen.

Peter Boyle ... Joe Curran
Dennis Patrick ... Bill Compton
Audrey Caire ... Joan Compton
Susan Sarandon ... Melissa Compton
K Callan ... May Lou Curran (as K. Callan)
Patrick McDermott ... Frank Russo

Melissa (Susan Sarandon) lives with her drug dealing, junkie boyfriend. One day, he gives her a pill which sends her into an overdose, and she is admitted into hospital, where her parents come to the rescue. Her father, Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick), returns to Melissa's apartment to collect her things, but is interrupted by her boyfriend - a fight ensues, leaving the boyfriend dead and Compton shattered - until he meets Joe Curran (Peter Boyle) in a bar.

After Easy Rider came out, Joe was celebrated in some quarters as the next great film to put the divisions in contemporary America under the microscope, but in truth it comes across as a story for those viewers who thought Easy Rider had a happy ending. Written by Norman Wexler, it concentrates on the contempt the older generation had for the younger, hippy generation, with blue collar Joe teaming up with white collar Compton in a kind of mutual appreciation society.

The two men are shown to be unpleasant, but the young people are not shown to be any better - the film doesn't sympathise with anyone. The hippies we see are all obsessed with getting high and getting laid, which leads to a silly sequence where Joe and Compton go looking for Melissa (who has gone on the run), and end up at an orgy. With the copious nudity, far out music and drug taking, the film looks more and more like an explotation movie rather than a message movie.

What you take away from the film is Boyle's excellent performance of a hate-filled man whose hate is all that defines him. If he didn't have his racist, anti-gay, anti-drugs, far right patriotism to nurture, he would be empty inside. One nice bit has him noticing, with disgust, a poster in a boutique, which depicts then-President Nixon with the caption, Would You Buy A Used Car From This Man? But the film doesn't take sides.

Norman Wexler's screenplay for Joe received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

When Peter Boyle saw audience members cheering the violence in Joe, he refused to appear in any other film or television show that glorified violence. This included the role of Jimmy Popeye Doyle in The French Connection (1971). The role would earn Gene Hackman the Oscar for Best Actor.

Ten weeks before Joe was released in the United States, a real-life mass murder with similarities to the movie's climactic scenes occurred in Detroit, Michigan. At about 2 a.m. on 8 May 1970, a railroad worker named Arville Douglas Garland (b. 21 September 1924 - d. 26 April 2004) walked into Stonehead Manor, a student-hippie residence near the campus of Wayne State University, and killed his 17-year-old daughter Sandra, her 18-year-old boyfriend Scott Kabran, and their friends Gregory Walls (17) and Anthony Brown (16). Sandra Garland, Arville's oldest child, had graduated from high school at age 16. She was a resident at Stonehead Manor and was in her third semester of pre-med classes at the university.

Garland brought with him a 9mm pistol, a Luger ΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥ both of which he used during the crime ΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥ and two pocketfuls of extra ammunition. After shooting Sandra and her friends, he began reloading the guns as he went in search of Sandra's roommate, Donna Sue Potts. It was then that his wife Martha ΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥ who had ridden along with him, expecting that they would merely retrieve their daughter and take her home ΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥ forced him to leave the building. She then insisted that he turn himself in to the police.

During pre-trial deliberations, Judge Joseph A. Gillis saw Joe and strongly advised both the prosecution and defense teams to do the same. He then carefully screened each member of the jury pool and excluded any who had seen the movie. He also forbade any seated juror from watching the movie or discussing it with anyone who had seen it.

On 18 December 1970, he was sentenced to one count of manslaughter (10 to 15 years) and three counts of second degree murder (10 to 40 years for each count). Gillis allowed the four sentences to run concurrently.

Before and after sentencing, Garland received hundreds of letters from parents across the country who expressed sympathy with him. It was also reported that during the first weeks after his sentencing, he received no letters expressing outrage or condemnation of his actions

In the 1980s, there were rumors that Peter Boyle might appear in a sequel to Joe. The sequel would follow Joe as he tried to rebuild his life after spending a mere ten years in prison, as Arville Garland had. The film never materialized.

Joe also featured an original soundtrack, introducing artists such as Exuma with the song You Don't Know What's Going On, Dean Michaels' version of Hey Joe and other original songs by Jerry Butler and Bobby Scott.