Cutter's Way (1981)

Cutter's Way (1981) (aka Cutter and Bone)

In Czech-born filmmaker Ivan Passer's R-rated, introspective, neo-noir crime thriller about justice, alienation, murder, and revenge - it was a precursor to the Coen Brothers' The Big Lebowski (1998) . The film was first released in March of 1981 with its original book title "Cutter and Bone" written by Newton Thornburg and published in 1976. But it was a major flop with early negative reviews and a poorly marketed and botched publicity campaign. After some delayed positive reviews and showings at film festivals, the film was re-released theatrically with a new title later in the same year, and it became a minor hit.

The gloomy, cynical and downbeat film provided dramatic commentary - profound discontent and disillusionment - about the state of America following the prolonged Vietnam War and the political scandals surrounding Watergate in the 1970s. These attitudes were personified in the characters of two misdirected friends: an ex-radical and current beach-bum "golden boy" without much of a will to do anything, and a disillusioned, traumatized, damaged and physically-disabled veteran who remained indignantly bitter and aggressive toward everything - mostly due to his military experience and the US' pro-war policies. The film's score by Jack Nitzsche provided the haunting, discordant sounds of a glass harmonica and zither. The film's MacGuffin - the whodunit murder mystery - wasn't as crucial as the character interactions between the three leads.

The title character's direct, intense and hardcore approach to life was evidenced by the tagline: "Cutter does everything his way. Fighting. Loving. Working. Tracking down a killer." Another tagline stated: "Alex Cutter had a fantasy...one his friends could not escape." And a third gave away some of the plot about the two friends: "Bone saw the killer. Cutter knew the motive."

• in the amazing opening slow-motion sequence (under the credits, with music by Jack Nitzsche), an Old Spanish Days parade was being held on the main street of Santa Barbara, CA; the sequence slowly changed from b/w to color - emphasizing majorettes in the background in red, white, and blue outfits, with the camera following a blonde twirling in a white frilly dress
• the sequence then wiped into an introductory scene with both a day and night-time shot of the exterior of a local hotel (labeled El Encanto Hotel in neon); the scene introduced one of the film's two main characters - laconic, non-committal, yacht-salesman and aging beach-boy-bum Richard "Rich" Bone (Jeff Bridges); he appeared with a side close-up of the chin-mustache; after a one-night stand as a gigolo, shirtless with his blue jeans unbuttoned and loose, he was touching up his facial hair with a woman's electric shaver following hiring out his gigolo services to a striking blonde (Nina Van Pallandt); when he asked for cash (lying that he was buying medicine for a sick friend), she obliged and suggested (as a disappointed lover - "It wasn't that good anyway") that he also buy some vitamin E for himself; as a customer he had met her at the marina in his yacht-sales business that afternoon; he followed up by asking her about the possibility of purchasing a yacht; she responded that her husband would be a reluctant boat customer: ("I don't think I can convince my husband")
• after leaving her company, a blonde smiled at Bone in the lobby-entrance to the El Encanto Hotel as he awaited his car's valet delivery; afterwards during the rainy night, the small-time hustler Bone (in his broken-down, green 1966 Austin-Healy 3000 with a dead battery) stalled in a dark alleyway, and watched a car pull up behind him next to a garbage container; Bone vainly tried to flag down the driver of a large 1969 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado that sped away and almost ran him over; at first, Bone wasn't aware that a body of a young girl (with her stilettoed shoes extending out) had been dropped into a trash dumpster

• Bone abandoned his car, walked by the dumpster, and met up with a close friend in a bar at about 1:30 am - embittered, self-righteous, drunken, one-eyed (with an eye-patch), one-armed, one-legged, crazed and angry Vietnam vet and misfit Alexander "Alex" Cutter (John Heard); he had been a resident of Santa Barbara throughout the 1970s, and was suffering from internal wounds and scars after fighting and being seriously injured in the war
• during their conversation in the pool-hall bar where his drunken friend was holding court with others at a table (whom he playfully named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Karl Marx), "Alex" offended a number of black pool-playing patrons with racial nicknames and epithets - and then realized he had created tension: "What are we white, well-intentioned liberals supposed to call you cats these days, eh? Blacks? Coloreds? Negroes? Darkies? Jeez, you know, I don't know. What would you call 'em, Rich?"; Bone apologetically and wisely attempted to defuse the tense situation: "I'd call 'em 'sir' if I were you"; Alex's foul attitude was blamed on his service in the war

• Bone left his friend soused at the bar, took his car keys, and drove in Cutter's 1957 Buick Special convertible to Cutter's house to speak to his friend's cynical, sad, also wounded, drunk and desperate wife, Maureen "Mo" Cutter (Lisa Eichhorn); she was a defeated, resigned and neglected marital partner who had also turned to alcohol; she prophetically and cynically noted: ("Any minute now, Prince Charming will, uh, ride by on his grand white charger and take me in his arms and carry me away"), she also succinctly put down the hedonistic slacker: "Speaking of which, you're home awfully early, aren't you? Couldn't you find a matron with a taste for gutter squalor?"
• the laid-back Bone (with a completely different personality and nature from Alex) was a frequent house resident at the Cutter's place, without anywhere else to go, except an occasional night on a marina yacht; he often looked after his best friend, while also having a dysfunctional affair with "Mo"; she was in a very troublesome and unsatisfying marriage, exacerbated by the love-triangle between the trio; she called Bone a "golden boy" - "Never say no to Richard. Really must be tough playing second fiddle to a one-eyed cripple"; he cautioned her to not wait around for Cutter's "resurrection" or change - "It's not gonna happen"; she facetiously admitted that she wasn't sorry for having married Alex: "I'm really happy with the way things are"
• early the next morning, two garbage-truck men (Billy Drago and Caesar Cordova) discovered a female corpse in the alleyway's dumpster; around the same time, Bone's boat salesman boss George Swanson (Arthur Rosenberg) dropped off the hung-over Cutter back at his home; Mo asked Cutter: "What'll it be, Alex - coffee or sleep?" and he answered: "Any other choices?" as he took a swig from a bottle of Jim Beam
• Bone was confronted by two policemen at the Cutter house and taken down to the local police station; suspiciously, his abandoned car had been found in the alleyway near the slain body of a female in the dumpster; during the interrogation, Bone was told the results of the autopsy report - the sex-crimes victim had a crushed trachea, fractured skull, and semen in her throat and on her face; she was identified as a 17 year-old cheerleader named Vickie
• Bone wished to clear himself and vowed he wasn't responsible: "I didn't do it"; he reported that all he had witnessed was a dark silhouetted figure and a face with sunglasses: ("I didn't see the face, right? I only saw the body. What I saw of the body was a dark shape with sunglasses on, and I can't identify a face for you"); Bone was introduced to the victim's distressed sister Valerie Duran (Ann Dusenberry); after six hours, Bone was released
• [Note: Had the murdered blonde girl been seen under the opening credits of the film, dancing in a white ruffled dress in the street during a Old Spanish Days Fiesta ceremony, accompanied by mariachi music? Or was she one of the cheerleaders? Or was she the one that eyed Bone in front of the El Encanto Hotel?]
• outside City Hall during the day's preparations for the town's Fiesta celebration parade, Bone again met up with Cutter and "Mo"; Bone was shown a newspaper headline and front-page picture in The Santa Barbara Courier naming him as a possible murder suspect in the slaying: ("SUSPECT HELD IN SLAYING"); Bone remained adamant that he had only seen a silhouette at the crime scene
• the drunken Cutter sarcastically commented on the parade's hypocritically-historical floats - about how the indigenous peoples of California were overtaken by the 'white man': "Look, our glorious past, commission of Santa Barbara. Happy padres, happy Indians. The blessings of the white man. Wiped out in less than two hundred years by disease and forced labor. You can still get one to clean up your kitchen, or, you know, park your car. They died with Christ's blessing. Happy corpses, each and every one"; he also lasciviously observed one early-maturing, baton-twirling cheerleader and suggestively speculated about how she might use the end of her hard, smooth, and polished chrome baton, within earshot of "Mo"
• suddenly, Bone pointed out an impressive, white-haired individual (with sunglasses) riding on a white horse that he claimed resembled the dumpster-killer: ("That's him!...That looks like the guy I saw at the trash can...This guy right here!") - the man was identified on a loudspeaker as the Honorary Presidente of the parade - an important figure in town named James J. Cord (Stephen Elliott) - an elite and menacing oil businessmen and tycoon, and a Time Magazine cover star; as Bone pointed out Cord, George Swanson rode by and asked: "How do I look?" - and Alex replied: "You look like a fat-man on a horse, Georgie"
• after the parade during lunch in a downtown diner with Alex and Bone, "Mo" mentioned details from a recent newspaper account - that J.J. Cord's car was found burned the previous night at the marina, after Cord had attended an oil conference at the El Encanto Hotel and had decided to go for a drive at midnight to his yacht club; there, his car was burned (or blown up); Bone confirmed that he had seen J.J. Cord at the El Encanto Hotel the previous night (when he was leaving at around 12 midnight), and then saw him at the parade: "Then I made the connection"
• Cutter became intensely interested in the details of the case (and kept pressing Bone for his recollections), and was determined to seek justice; he was now armed with incriminating clues that Cord might be the victim's killer; however, Bone seemed more ambivalent and uncertain about making any false accusations about Cord being the killer, especially during the Fiesta: ("Cars are blown up all the time, girls get killed all the time"); Cutter insisted that there were two "intriguing" facts that stood out to him: (1) Bone had clearly identified Cord: "That''s him!", and (2) "His car takes it in the shorts within 90 minutes of when the girl's body is found"; Bone remained skeptical and thought Cutter was letting his "imagination" run wild; Cutter countered that he based his conspiracy theory solely on facts: "I haven't even begun to let my imagination loose on this one"
• that night, "Mo" and Bone watched from inside the house as the drunken Cutter returned home and crashed his car into the side of his neighbor's green 1970 Toyota Corona parked on the curb; Cutter then apologized to the enraged neighbor (and wife) (Frank McCarthy and Katherine Pass): "It was an honest mistake," as the man shouted back: "You lying bastard. You crazy, crippled, son-of-a-bitch!"; after things calmed down, "Mo" mentioned to Cutter inside the house that Alex's auto insurance had lapsed and that his driver's license had expired
• outside, Cutter was confronted by a policeman (George Planco) who had been called to the scene, and Alex was cited for a "license violation"; the neighbor again reiterated his complaint about Cutter: "This bastard's a goddamn crazy menace. He's a f--king loony! Aren't you gonna do something?" and then he insulted the officer by calling him a "goddamn stormtrooper!"; as the officer drove off, the neighbor added: "You goddamn fascist pigs! You assholes!"; when the neighbor threatened to attack Cutter, he held up his cane and stated simply: "I'm a cripple"
• after the argument ended, Cutter described to "Mo" and Bone details of his investigation into the dumpster-murder; he had learned the name of the oceanside disco-nightclub where Vickie was last seen - across the street from the hotel; he had also determined from a PR man at the El Encanto Hotel that Cord left the hotel around 11:00 pm after a reception of "oil people"; Cutter was upset that Bone was unsupportive and uninterested in his search for the truth: "The world lacks heroes, Rich...You never wanted to be one"; Bone confirmed: "I don't want to be one"
• Cutter joined forces with the victim's sister Valerie during his own obsessed and fixated search to track down and confront the girl's killer; Bone remained stubborn and wouldn't confirm that Cord was the silhouetted person in the alleyway; over lunch at a fancy new French restaurant with Valerie and Cutter, Bone continued to refuse to cooperate: "I didn't see his face. I don't want to look at any pictures"; to be more persuasive, Valerie read incriminating quotes from Cord's Time Magazine cover article: ("I like to pick up hitchhikers, especially young ones. I like their input"); Alex had also learned that at a coast highway gas station at around midnight on the night of the murder, a guy with a "funny hat and glasses" bought two gallons of gasoline in Jeep cans
• Alex postulated that Cord had picked up a teenybopper hitchhiker, and when he was humiliated by her laughter during sex, he killed her, and then torched his car; with righteous indignation, he believed that a businessmen such as J.J. Cord had felt so entitled as a rich oil potentate: ("I turned a wildcat well into a dynasty") that he could easily and ruthlessly kill the young girl and cover up her messy murder "during fiesta time" when crimes always multiplied: ("Happens all the time. Bars get trashed. Cars get burned"); Valerie again urged Bone to confront Cord: "So we let him know we know"; the group was unaware that a disgruntled Mrs. Cord (Patricia Donahue) was observing and listening in at a nearby table; as George paid the lunch bill, he cordially greeted Mrs. Cord
• after leaving the restaurant, with Cutter's belief in a wild conspiracy theory, Valerie urged and suggested a "pretend" entrapment and blackmail scheme to extort a large sum of money to get Cord to pay up and confess and then report him to the police; they would threaten Cord with Bone's eyewitness account, but the vacillating and spineless Bone - who was often internally paralyzed and passive about what stance to take on any issue - was wary of challenging such a powerful and dangerous businessman: "You shouldn't be worried about blackmail, sweetheart, that's not your problem. Your problem is your ass, because if you're right and you mess with this guy, you're gonna wind up nailed to the mast of a leaky boat. If you're right, I'd be careful. Very, very careful!"; Alex reminded Bone that since he was the "witness" - he was the one who had to be the most careful; Bone agreed: "Your fantasy, my ass"
• Alex continued to insist that Bone needed to be more committed, and less of an amoral drifter: "You sanctimonious bore. Who the hell are you anyway, huh? Fastest dick on the beach. Hell. While you were getting laid in the Ivy League, I was getting my ass shot up. Don't give me any lectures on morality"
• Cutter (suffering from a condition later called PTSD) went on an embittered tirade toward Bone about the immoral Vietnam war that he had fought in that seriously injured him: "I watched the war on TV just like everybody else, okay? Thought the same damn things, you know, what you thought when you saw a picture of a young woman with a baby lying face down, dead in a ditch. Two gooks. You had three reactions, Rich, same as everybody else. The first one was real easy: 'I hate the United States of America.' Yeah. You see the same damn thing the next day and you move up a notch, 'There is no God.' But you know what you finally say, what everybody finally says, no matter what? 'I'm hungry.' I'm hungry, Rich. I'm f--king starved"
• at the end of his monologue, Cutter described how Cord represented all that was wrong with America in the post-Watergate, post-Vietnam era, and that the rich tycoon had to be vengefully paid back for all of his wrong-doings: ("He's responsible!... For everything! Him and all the mother-f--kers in the world just like him. They're all the same...You know why they're all the same, Rich? Because it's never their ass that's on the line, never. It's always somebody else's. Always yours, mine, ours. So leave off the morality, okay? And don't write me off as a money-grubbing bastard altogether"); Bone only answered that he "could be" with them on confronting Cord
• as he left, Bone invited Valerie to take a sailing boat trip with him; on the water, she hinted at seducing him to convince him to help them, but he resisted: "I didn't see his face...You don't want this"; he took no responsibility: "This is Alex's fantasy. You want to live it out, you do it with him, not me"
• meanwhile, George attempted to convince Bone to permanently work in his marina business as a handsome salesman of yachts: ("You look great on the deck") for a 5% commission; Bone mentioned Alex's recent behavior: "He feels the world's short of heroes. He's trying to fill the gap"; George advised Bone to be more personally decisive and less of a drifter: "Sooner or later, you're going to have to make a decision about something"; as a result, Bone phoned Cutter and claimed he had changed his mind about helping them - he would serve as a witness to the murder
• the next day in Cutter's house, Valerie typed up a blackmail letter to be signed by Bone and delivered to Cord's office; Cutter was thrilled: "We got that motherf--ker's balls in a vice. What a team!"; "Mo" arrived with bags full of groceries - she had impulsively purchased "real food" to make a difference in their artificial lives: "I was on my way to the Liquor Locker as usual, and uh, all of a sudden, I got an overwhelming desire to eat - to eat real food! I couldn't stop myself. You know, vegetable, piece of meat. I tried to stop myself, God knows I did, Alex. But then it happened. 7-Eleven"; she promised Alex that she would take everything back just to make him happy
• Cutter shared their plan about applying pressure on the suspected killer, by blackmailing and extorting money from Cord regarding the girl's murder: ("And if he pays, we're gonna bust him"), and he also vowed that they wouldn't keep the ransom money; "Mo" was highly disapproving and called Alex's plan insulting: "This is more bulls--t than I expect, even from you in a day. You're an asshole!"; Alex responded that they were seeking "justice, pure and simple"
• "Mo" told her disgruntled husband and his compatriots that their plan was itself a dumb crime: "A band of would-be extortionists. Really?...Dishonorable and gutless...Guts is hanging around in this pigsty month after month, waiting for you to get the nerve to start living again and what does it get me? You and your f--king cronies in the playpen planning a dumb crime....You're not some saint avenging the sins of the Earth, you know. Alex. And if you are, what am I doing here? Oh, I know. I'm like your leg. Your leg! Sending messages to your brain and there's nothing there anymore" - she was viciously slapped, and Bone stepped in to stop Mo's abusive treatment and warned Cutter about ever repeating it again: ("You make it the last, Alex")

• the next morning, an armed Cutter accompanied Bone and Valerie in Cutter's open convertible to Cord's office building (CORD CONSOLIDATED OIL) so that Bone could drop off his signed, typewritten letter - Alex compared the delivery to action on the battlefield: (Alex: "There she blows...On point. Only place to be. Purple Heart land. That's where I was, Rich. Used to call this the wet-ass hour")
• after the supposed delivery, Bone was picked up and taken to the marina's pier, where as he played a shooting arcade game in one of the concessions, he first told Cutter that there was "no response" once Cord had received the message; Cutter reacted with crazed outrage as he wildly wielded a hand-gun and yelled: "The murdering bastard!"; Bone then divulged to Cutter that he had actually chickened out about entrapping Cord: ("I didn't deliver the letter, Alex...because the game's over. You may be suicidal, I'm not"); Cutter accused his friend of equivocation: "Yeah, it takes too much commitment"); Cutter vowed to deliver the letter himself: "I'm gonna nail the bastard!"
• Bone returned by himself to the Cutter house and discovered "Mo" sleeping on the outdoor hammock; he admitted to her that he had chickened out with the letter, and she reacted: "Amazing. A moment of weakness or sanity?"; they spent the day together and danced to "We're Old Enough to Know" (by Jack Nitzsche); although "Mo" worried that she might lose his friendship ("I'd lose a friend") if they made love, she told Bone: "I guess we really don't have that much to lose, do we?"
• during the act, "Mo" found herself more lonely and emotionally-confused than ever; afterwards in bed together, Bone expressed his true love for her, but she felt that she had only obliged him, and that his response was only customary: ("Relax, Rich. The, um, Richard Bone Fan Club is now complete. No more holdouts"); she expressed her growing apathy for her life and for both Alex and him: "I really wonder if I care. If I ever really cared...or if all I really do is pretend...It's - no Rich, it's not you, it's me"; he promised to stay with her, but then quietly left the house before morning

• the next morning after spending the remainder of the night on one of the yachts at the marina, Bone was informed by his boss George about Cutter's house being burned to the ground; at a mortuary with a mortician (George Dickerson), Cutter grimly identified Mo's corpse in a body bag
• while Bone and Cutter watched a game of polo (with George participating) at the Montecito Polo Club in town, the two noticed one of the players was Cord; Cutter expressed his belief to Bone that the guilty, "smart and powerful" Cord was responsible for the house-burning death of his own wife "Mo" ("I know he did, so do you"), and had been watching the three of them ever since Bone's 'suspect' picture was in the paper: ("You think we haven't been watched?"); Cutter also discounted the effect the 'blackmail' letter had on Cord: "You never had to deliver any blackmail letter. All you had to do was go to the Cord Building...They weren't after Mo. They were after you. He just didn't see you leave"
• Bone told Cutter how "Mo" was pretty depressed the night before she died - and was possibly suicidal; Cutter angrily shouted that Bone was actually the one responsible for her death: "You are truly unbelievable. What a monster f--king ego! I mean, you walk out on a girl and what choice has she got, she just heads straight for the oven, right? I mean, what's left her?"; Cutter dared Bone to "walk, walk, walk" away as he usually did - to avoid confrontation; Cutter hobbled across the polo playing field, shouting out and attracting Cord's attention: "You killed my wifey!...They'll crucify you. You're gonna pay"
• the next day inside the yacht sales office at the marina, a scared George warned Bone that Cord could be a dangerous man if hassled about being a murder suspect: ("They don't play games, they play for keeps"); he was worried by Alex's haphazard and crazed behavior, and hoped that Bone could take care of him; George also explained how Cord had been his friend and mentor, and had helped set up his business
• without a house to stay in, Cutter was temporarily residing in George's guest-house, where he had barricaded himself in and was plotting against Cord; Bone visited with Cutter who mentioned how Cord had killed his father; he also murdered George's mother ("Old man Swanson's...old lady") many years earlier; the death "broke" George's father, and enabled Cord to take over ownership of the entire marina from him; the father sought retribution against Cord, but was found badly beaten up: ("Ended up a vegetable and died"); Cord then manipulatively paid for young George's college education and for the establishment of his marina-boat business, in order to influence and assuage his guilt and further control him ("to keep real close tabs on him")
• the next day, George Swanson entered the guest-house and realized that the obsessed Alex had been conducting thorough research on Cord; meanwhile, he and Bone were crashing a large garden party being held at Cord's mansion (Cutter had intercepted a copy of an invitation sent to George); Bone had only agreed to drive Cutter to the house posing as his chauffeur (and driving George's 1975 Mercedes Benz 280), but then had second thoughts after the armed Cutter announced his crazed plan to kill Cord: ("It's not gonna bring her back. It's not gonna take away our guilt. It's not gonna make you whole again, you know that. Nothing's ever gonna do that"); Cutter proceeded on foot to the mansion, while Bone drove and parked in a crowded parking area
• in the stunning concluding scene at the party, after the two entered the heavily-guarded residential mansion on foot, interloper Bone was recognized by Mrs. Cord in the foyer and reported to a security bodyguard; as Bone attempted to locate Cord, he came upon Cutter in one of the outdoor tents feeding himself - he suggested: "Let's go find the murdering bastard!"; when Bone asked for Cutter's gun, he was told it wasn't loaded; the two continued to search for Cord in the mansion to confront him
• Bone was apprehended and roughed up by a group of guards, although Cutter was able to escape and awkwardly ran through the outdoor crowd toward Cord's horse stables; Bone was brought to speak with Cord in his study; the influential businessman showed an eerie calm about being harrassed, after being alerted by a concerned phone call from George Swanson; he regarded veteran Cutter's war experience as the reason for his extremely paranoid "fantasy" beliefs:

Cord: As I understand it, this young friend of yours is pursuing some fantasy of his own, and it includes me. Is that correct?
Bone: Something like that.
Cord: I don't find that very pleasant, you understand that?
Bone: Yes, I do.
Cord: A veteran, isn't he?
Bone: Excuse me?
Cord: I understand he's a veteran. (Bone nodded: Uh-huh) Well, I've been in the war. I know what it does to some men. I'm willing to talk to your friend if you think it will do any good. Do you think it'll do any good?

• in the meantime, Cutter stole a white stallion from Cord's stables, evaded two bodyguards, rode away heroically (and tragically, almost quixotically on a "white horse"), and galloped into the party-goers in the crowded mansion grounds; he cried out: "CORD!" before lethally crashing through Cord's study window; Bone repeatedly cried out to his bloodied friend on the floor as he died: "Alex. It was him. It was him. (Alex's body went limp) Alex?"
• Bone turned from his dead friend to look accusingly at Cord as he stated: "It was you"; Cord scoffingly answered and admitted to the fact that he was the female's killer: "What if it was?"

• the passing of Cutter inspired the usually-uncommitted and reluctant Bone to take up his buddy's fight; as Cord non-chalantly put on his sunglasses, Bone aimed the weapon still in Cutter's dead, limp and lifeless hand at Cord, and then they pulled the trigger together; the gun blast abruptly ended the film ambiguously as it cut to black

• Note: Although Cord's guilt was assumed, there was no substantial evidence that he was guilty of the girl's murder