Made in U.S.A (1966 film)
| Made in U.S.A. | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Jean-Luc Godard |
| Screenplay by | Jean-Luc Godard |
| Based on |
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| Produced by | Georges de Beauregard |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Raoul Coutard |
| Edited by |
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| Music by | |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Lux Compagnie Cinématographique de France |
Release dates |
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Running time | 85 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Budget | $50,000[1] |
| Box office | $95,209[2] |
Made in U.S.A is a 1966 French
Because neither Godard nor the producer got permission or paid for the rights to adapt The Jugger, Westlake brought legal action, and the film was not released in the United States for over four decades. A newly restored print of the film was distributed by Rialto Pictures in 2009, starting with a screening at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on April 1, which was three months after Westlake's death.[4] The Criterion Collection released the film on DVD in July 2009.[5]
Plot
In 1968, journalist Paula Nelson goes to Atlantic-Cité to meet her ex-boyfriend, Richard P[olitzer], who wrote
Paula begins to investigate on her own, and finds herself being followed by Paul Widmark, the local police inspector, and Donald Siegel. She begins to suspect Richard's death may have something to do with the death the year before of Lacroix, the communist mayor of Atlantic-Cité. Someone knocks her out, and she wakes up in a garage with Widmark, who asks if she knows where Richard kept some evidence relating to Lacroix's death and plays her some audio tapes of Richard espousing his communist political views.
When Widmark takes Paula back to her hotel, they find it abuzz with police, and learn that Typhus and Doris have been killed, and Inspector Aldrich has come from Paris to investigate. Widmark tells Paula that Aldrich suspects her, but he will help her if she helps him find the evidence he is looking for, though she does not trust him, as she suspects he killed Richard. Aldrich interrogates Paula, but lets her go after David, who initially says she is the murderer, changes his story.
Continuing her investigation, Paula learns that Richard owned a secret villa. Siegel, having been cast aside by Widmark, shows her pictures of Richard's murder, reveals he killed Typhus and Doris because they caught him searching her room, and offers to take her to the villa in exchange for money, but Paula shoots him instead.
Aldrich tells Paula he has received orders to suspend his investigation and goes back to Paris. Paula, having figured out that an extremist wing within the local Communist Party arranged for Richard to kill Lacroix so they could blame the more moderate leftists as part of a power grab, and then killed Richard to tie up loose ends, meets with Widmark and takes him to Richard's villa. As a way for them to protect themselves from a double-cross and be able to trust each other, Paula suggests she write a letter confessing to murdering Typhus, and Widmark write a letter confessing to murdering Richard. Once she gets Widmark's letter, which, as it also implicates the powerful Dr. Edward Ludwig, will protect her from being killed, Paula reaches in her pocket for a gun. Widmark stops her and is about to shoot her, when David sneaks up and shoots Widmark from behind, killing him. Paula then kills David.
Standing at a tollbooth on a highway, Paula sees her friend
Cast
- Anna Karina as Paula Nelson
- László Szabó as Paul Widmark, a police inspector in Atlantic-Cité
- Jean-Pierre Léaud as Donald Siegel, Widmark's sidekick
- Marianne Faithfull as the singing customer in the bar
- Yves Afonso as David Goodis, a writer
- Uncredited
- Danielle Palmero as the hotel chambermaid
- Ernest Menzer as Edgar Typhus, David's uncle
- Kyôko Kosaka as Doris Mizoguchi, David's girlfriend
- Marc Dudicourt as Paul, the barman
- Rémo Forlanias Thomas, the worker in the bar
- Claude Bakka as the man with Marianne Faithfull
- Alexis Poliakoff as Dr. Ludwig's lackey
- Roger Scipion as Dr. Edward Ludwig
- Jean-Claude Bouillon as Inspector Aldrich, from Paris
- Jean-Pierre Biesse as Richard Nixon, a police officer in Atlantic-Cité
- Sylvain Godet as Robert MacNamara, a police officer in Atlantic-Cité
- Rita Maiden as the woman who tells Paula where Richard's villa is located
- Philippe Labro as himself, a journalist
Jean-Luc Godard provided the voice of Paula's ex-boyfriend, Richard P[olitzer], on the tapes Widmark shows her.
Production
Made in U.S.A was shot at the same time as Two or Three Things I Know About Her. Godard put the film together quickly as a way to try to help his friend and producer Georges de Beauregard through financial difficulties stemming from the censorship of Jacques Rivette's film The Nun (1966), which de Beauregard also produced.[6]
The film is the last feature-length project on which Godard and Karina collaborated. The last time they worked together was when he directed her in the segment "Anticipation, ou l'amour en l'an 2000" (Anticipation, or Love in the Year 2000) for the 1967 anthology film The Oldest Profession.
Most of the characters in the film are named after real-life personages, among them actor Richard Widmark; directors Don Siegel, David Goodis, Kenji Mizoguchi, Edward Ludwig, and Robert Aldrich; and American political figures Robert McNamara and Richard Nixon. It has been suggested that the character of Paula Nelson is named after Baby Face Nelson, about whom Siegel had made a film starring Mickey Rooney in 1957. The film is dedicated to "Nick and Sam", referring to Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller, "Hollywood mavericks who were objects of filial awe and Oedipal aggression" for Godard.[7] In the bar, Marianne Faithfull sings the song "As Tears Go By", which, in reality, had been a hit for her in 1964.
Reception
Before its release in 2009, Made in U.S.A had "rarely been seen in the U.S.A."
There is, for one thing, a pouting and lovely
squawk box. And of course there is a maddening, liberating indifference to conventions of narrative coherence, psychological verisimilitude or emotional accessibility.[7]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 85% based on 20 reviews, with an average score of 7.6/10.[9]
References
- ^ Box Office Information for Made in U.S.A. IMDb. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
- ^ "Made in U.S.A, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
- ^ Gates, Anita (15 December 2019). "Anna Karina, Star of French New Wave Cinema, Is Dead at 79". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 15 December 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
- ^ Made in U.S.A. Archived 2011-06-13 at the Wayback Machine from Rialto Pictures
- ^ Made in U.S.A from The Criterion Collection
- ISBN 978-0-8050-6886-3.
- ^ a b c Scott, A. O. (8 January 2009). "Godard's '60s Policier, Set in Atlantic City, France". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ^ "Movie Review: Made in U.S.A.". The New York Times. 28 September 1967. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ^ "Made in U.S.A.". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
External links
- Made in U.S.A at IMDb
- Made in U.S.A at AllMovie
- Made in U.S.A. from Rialto Pictures
- Made in U.S.A. from Film Forum, including a January 2008 Q & A with co-star László Szabó
- Made in U.S.A: The Long Goodbye an essay by Criterion Collection
