Thoughts on The Spanish Prisoner

 

via Giphy/Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics

"It's a coat check room, Mr. Ross. It's not the office of anything. It's a coat check room."

"How many times has this scheme worked?" I wondered about three quarters of the way through The Spanish Prisoner. How often did Jimmy (Steve Martin) succeed with his cons? Did all the victims end up like Joe (Campbell Scott), facing personal and professional ruin? Were they always framed for murder, like with Joe and no less than his closest friend, George (Ricky Jay)? Did Jimmy deliberately target introverts? Did McCune (Felicity Huffman) always pose as an FBI agent? Were contingencies in place should the mark team up with a third party like Susan (Rebecca Pidgeon) or try to do right by the person he wronged? I was sure that I was watching one booksmart but gullible man vs. an expert, and I wanted to know all the secrets.

Little did I know that 10 minutes later, it would turn out that Susan herself was in on the con. I just figured that she was even more introverted than Joe, with the possibility to come out of her shell as she helped him. Susan and McCune weren't the only ones who weren't as they appeared to be. It turns out that Jimmy wasn't the big bad, Joe's boss Klein (Ben Gazzara) is. Klein couldn't get away with stealing the inside information that only he and Joe had access to. He had to manipulate Joe into stealing it. So, yeah, hell yes, the scheme worked. I was completely taken on a ride by writer-director David Mamet, and I loved it.

"Now, why would someone do that? Why would somebody go into a life of crime?"

"I don't know. I think there are people we can't understand."

"To steal what others worked for? ... To kill?"

"We can't know, Joe. ... I ... Golly, Joe, I ..."

*Susan looks at Joe and realizes that he knows about her.*

"(giggling slightly) Oh!"

"Why?"

"Why? For the money."

I'm apparently in the minority for liking Pidgeon's performance. This was my first time seeing Prisoner, and while I'm not sure if the movie or the acting will hold up on a second viewing, I'll likely hold onto the thrill of a "Wait, what?" moment like Susan turning out to be bad. I had no reason to not take the character at face value, which Mamet likely counted on. Then again, he also have figured, "I'm in charge and if I want my wife to be studiously quirky, then by gum, she's going to be studiously quirky!" I also liked that Pidgeon -- and Scott, for that matter -- didn't have the baggage of a movie star. Try imagining a version of Prisoner with Nicolas Cage and Winona Ryder and you'll see what I mean. Martin, of course, did have star baggage, but it's put to great use. We expect so much from Jimmy/Steve that like Joe, we wind up serving the con.

*Joe has found Jimmy, who had made overtures of friendship and stood him up the night before, at an exclusive, apparently clandestine luxury car dealership*

"Hello."

"*turns around* Hello. *goes back to looking over an Aston Martin*"

"Sir? I'm sorry, we're open only by appointment."

"No, I ... I guess I'd, um ... Well. I guess I'd better get out of your way."

Like I mentioned, Prisoner was produced by Jean Doumanian, whose partnership with Woody Allen ended when he accused her and her personal and professional partner, Jacqui Safra, of skimming profits from the movies they made together. One thing I like about this movie's ending is that it's ambiguous. Klein is likely to be brought to justice, but that doesn't necessarily mean Joe has won. He may have full ownership of the process, but what guarantee is there that it isn't tainted thanks to its association with Klein? Then again, Joe could just as well be set for life. "How would you like you get your hands on the money-making method that my ex-boss was willing to kill for?" You have to admit, it's a hell of a sales pitch.

"When you own the company, can I be queen?"

Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "The fellow with the airplane." "That's right." "A pleasure. Nice plane." "Beats walking."

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $9.6 million domestically on a $10 million budget, this had its widest release on 296 screens and came in at No. 132 for 1998.

-- Critic's Corner: "The problem with playwright-screenwriter-director David Mamet is that he insists on being David Mamet," Stephen Hunter wrote in the Washington Post. What Stephen meant was that Prisoner started out as "an artifice, composed of brilliant if precious shards of language." Eventually things got better "and the movie seems to take off. It becomes a gripping thing." Stephen's colleague, Michael O'Sullivan, believed the movie's moral was timely: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that someone isn't out to get you." Over in L.A., Kenneth Turan considered the line, "If I told you this story, would you believed it?" and asked a harsher question. "Even if you believed it, would you care?"

-- Critic's Corner, Pidgeon: "(She is) Mr. Mamet's wife and definitely has his number," Janet Maslin wrote. "Her performance, aggressively pert and unaccountably off-kilter, beautifully embodies the film's overall sleight of hand." Gwen Ihnat, in 2016 at the A.V. Club, was less charitable: "(Her) performance has to be endured more than enjoyed."

-- Awards Watch: The movie was Edgar-nominated, losing to Out of Sight. The screenplay lost the Independent Spirit Award to The Opposite of Sex.

-- Hey, It's ...!: Jonathan Katz, Ed O'Neill (the trailer spoiled his cameo, by the way) and Clark Gregg.

-- Fanservice Junction: The pair of beautiful, braless women in evening gowns that Joe and George are set to pick up, except they're "evidently intended for our betters."

-- "Hurt your feelings, did he?"

-- Next: Lost in Space. On deck: My Giant.