100 - The Squeeze
A journey through 'my' films.
Of course, they’re not ‘my’ films. However, whether I could watch them every day or would happily never see them again, these 100 films have had a marked impact on my life, my love of film, all manner of things, really.
The Squeeze (1977)
Like a lot of people who grew up in the late ‘70 and/early '80s, Euston Films’ TV series such as The Sweeney and Minder were a real highlight of the week’s viewing. Adult enough to make a teen feel grown up but not so grown up as to repel, my affection for these shows remains undimmed.
But what about versions of this kind of drama on the big screen? Well, of course, there are the two Sweeeney movies, the second of which is particularly strong. And there are pictures such as Douglas Hickox’s Sitting Target - starring Oliver Reed and Ian McShane - and Michael Tuchner’s Villain - starting Richard Burton and Ian McShane - which have no end of things to recommend.
But as far as transferring the grit and grubbiness of the Euston shows goes, Michael Apted’s The Squeeze accomplished the feat like no other movie. Okay, so it doesn’t star Ian McShane - who himself made the acquaintance of Terry McCann and Arthur Daley - but you can’t have everything, can you?
The Squeeze stars Stacy Keach as Jim Naboth, a policeman-turned-private detective whose a fighting a losing battle with the bottle. A divorcee, Naboth’s offered a chance of redemption by the new man in his ex’s wife after a criminal outfit kidnap the erstwhile Jill Naboth (Carol White) and their daughter. With Scouse minicab driver Teddy (Freddie Starr) his only ally, Jim sets himself to tracking down the gang, only to discover that this is no ragtag band of chancers but an firm run by Irish gangster Vic Smith (Stephen Boyd) and his aide de camp Keith (David Hemmings). Put another way, Naboth’s hands are full. Can he sober up and save the day? Tune in next week!
A compelling crime drama, The Squeeze features a who’s who of ‘70s TV crime favourites. Alan Ford, Roy Marsden, Bob Ramsey, Leone Greene - you’ll find all manner of unfriendly-but-familiar faces here. The unfriendliest face of all belongs to Stephen Boyd who couldn’t look further from the bronzed god who gave Charlton Heston a run for his money in Ben-Hur. Forty-four when he made The Squeeze, one can only assume Boyd spent his every birthday being repeatedly thrown down a fire escape.
Not that his haggard face doesn’t work wonders for the film. Likewise, the fact that the career of ‘The Battersea Bardot’ Carol White was on the downturn adds weight to her portrayal of a woman desperately clinging on to her glamour and sex appeal. And as for Edward Fox as Jill’s new love, you get the feeling he finds the project to be beneath him, so making his Mr Foreman even easier to dislike.
But what of Freddie Starr? Does he provide the comic relief? Well, no, not really. As Teddy, he provides a lot of the picture’s heart. Sure, he knows his way around a joke but it’s his willingness to stand by Naboth no matter how low the PI goes that not only justifies his presence but leaves you wishing he’d made more movies.
A film about people who’re willing to show their very worst side, the undisputed star of The Squeeze is Stacy Keach. With his decent-if-non-descript English accent, the classically trained actor has no qualms about walking the streets of Notting Hill with nothing but a shoe and a bottle of booze to hide his modesty. Similarly, running around the West End in the shortest of shorts doesn’t put him off his stride.
It’s his willingness to show the degradation that can accompany alcoholism that truly elevates Keach’s performance. The Squeeze opens with a tube pulling into King’s Cross from which a plastered Jim Naboth disembarks. Barely able to light his cigarette, let alone pull on his raincoat, he proceeds to fall ass-over-tit down the up escalator. A hospital visit, an unwanted sedative and a little aversion therapy follows. We’re barely 10 minutes into the picture and already Stacy Keach has exposed himself emotionally to an extent he’ll later match physically.
With his thinning hair and cleft palate, you might think vanity wasn’t so great a concern for Keach. This, however, would be to forget that, in 1977, Walter Stacy Keach Jnr was a bona fide film star, acclaimed for his performances as albino gunslinger Bad Bob in Judge Roy Beam, British Army Captain Stuart Harper in Conduct Unbecoming and the over-the-hill prize fighter Billy Tully in John Huston’s Fat City.
He was also an addict. In fact, Keach’s well-documented cocaine dependence only ceased in 1984 after being sentenced to six months in Reading jail for trying to smuggle his stash through Heathrow. With honesty similar to that displayed throughout The Squeeze, Keach emerged from jail sans hair piece and with a keenness to thank the British prison system for helping him overcome so terrible an affliction.
The authenticity of Keach is complimented by Michael Apted who draws on his documentary experience to show London as its rarely appeared on screen. Not for him the Notting Hill of Richard Curtis. This is a multi-racial community and while it’s as grubby as any other London manor in the 1970s, it’s a place where not having much needn’t stand in the way of neighbourliness. The Portuguese mother who looks in on Jim’s kids when he falls off the wagon, the black lady who offers him his coat as he staggers naked through the streets - all serve as a reminder that Peter Rachman and pissed-off teddy boys were but part of the Notting Hill story.
Real characters in real places, then - that’s why The Squeeze deserves the flowers its long been denied. Oh yes, and the man responsible for adapting James Tucker’s source novel? Leon Griffiths who, just two short years later, devised and created Minder, after which the world was his lobster.