WINTER KILLS (1979: Dir. William Richert)
Writer-director-actor William Richert is a maverick filmmaker is every sense. With only four feature films in his 40 year career, Richert has skirted along the edges of the mainstream, persevering as an independent artist while contributing at least one minor classic to the Seventies cycle of paranoia thrillers. The film is Winter Kills, an adaptation of a Richard Condon novel that was Richert's screenwriting and directorial debut. It was an initiation into Hollywood that began in a whirlwind of anticipation and ended in a chasm of tragedy. Condon's novel was the stuff of provocative entertainment, a satirical speculation about the Kennedy assassination and the family's own complicity in its cover-up. Nearly twenty years before Oliver Stone re-opened the skeletons in the Warren Commission's closet, Richert fearlessly waded into murky waters with his version of Condon's controversial conspiracy theories. Showing the requisite bravado, he assembled one of the most eclectic casts of the decade, including Jeff Bridges fresh from the 1976 blockbuster remake of King Kong, legendary filmmaker John Huston of recent Chinatown-fame, Japanese superstar Toshiro Mifune (The Seven Samurai), and Elizabeth Taylor at the lowest ebb of her career, making a silent cameo appearance as a high-class prostitute. They were joined by a peerless crew of technicians and creative personnel, not least, award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (The Deer Hunter) and veteran production designer Robert Boyle (The Birds). Forebodingly, the film's independent financing came from a pair of fledgling producers whose primary source of income came from smuggling marijuana. Richert would later regret this dubious alliance when production was shut down halfway through shooting due to lack of funds. After a brief period of panic, filming resumed for a short time before one of the producers was found murdered in his home, thus seemingly putting a final halt to the production. Unbowed, Richert brainstormed a unique solution, he would make another movie with the same lead actors, Bridges and leading lady Belinda Bauer (Richert's girlfriend at the time), using its pre-release profits to finish Winter Kills. This quickly assembled film, an eccentric comedy made on the cheap in Germany brazenly entitled The American Success Company (1980), begat the necessary completion funds. So, after twice being cast to the winds, Richert and company were finally able to consummate their cinematic endeavours, and despite arguments with the distributors over the final cut, Winter Kills received its limited release to theatres. However, tragedy was to have its way again. It closed within a single week, perhaps owing to a cynical tone and surreal fable-like atmosphere that was far too confusing for a post Star Wars audience engorged on pulp panaceas. Some astute critics properly praised it as a worthy successor to The Manchurian Candidate (1962), another Condon adaptation that ironically, had been endorsed by President Kennedy. With its initial failure at the box-office, the aura of adversity lingered around Richert's film for decades, notwithstanding two subsequent re-releases featuring improved cuts of the film that did little to excite new interest. Nearly 25 years after its original lacklustre premiere, Winter Kills was finally given the respect it deserved when the director-approved DVD was released in 2003. At last devotees and cultists, like myself were vindicated when it received nearly unanimous praise for its flamboyant style and wit. No one could have been more overjoyed than William Richert, a self-effacing survivor who beat the odds to witness the well-earned adulation for his forsaken labour of love. It couldn't have happened to nicer guy. DVD REGION 1
