Targets (1968) --Peter Bogdanovich
This much discussed first major film by Peter Bogdanovich (PB) suffered from poor release timing, following the assassinations of ML King and Bobby Kennedy. The public was not in the mood for a movie about a mass murderer, despite the fact that it was a very good picture.
There are two parallel stories: in the first, an aging horror film star, Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff) has shocked and frustrated all his management people by announcing he's decided to quit acting in films. With much prodding by a young director (Bogdanovich) he agrees to make a publicity appearance at a special presentation at the Reseda Drive In theater in the Los Angeles San Fernando Valley.
At the same time a young clean cut Vietnam War vet gradually has a break from reality, causing him to murder his wife and mother, and then to position himself atop an oil storage tank along a freeway where he shoots a number of people as they drive along the highway. He escapes and eventually takes refuge in the Reseda Drive In theater, where the two stories converge and lead to a gratifying ending.
The sniper portion of the story was partially fashioned after the "Texas Tower Sniper" incident in 1966 where a deranged 25 year old murdered 17 people from atop a tower on the campus of U.T. at Austin.
Karloff steals the show with his gravitas and fine acting. It was his next to last film before he died, and no one could have played the role more convincingly. Tim O'Kelly turned in a realistic performance as the sniper, Bobby Thompson. And PB fit his role perfectly as the young director. He had wanted another actor for the role, but the actor became unavailable, so PB simply took over the part himself. There was first rate cinematography by the great Laszlo Kovacs. Notably there was no film score.
The picture got good reviews at the time, but because of the overshadowing national news events, it quietly faded. Undaunted, PB went on to make The Last Picture Show, What's Up, Doc?, and Paper Moon.
Made on a shoestring budget, produced by the very frugal Roger Corman, the film has come down as a minor classic. Despite the restrictions and scrambling production, Bogdanovich gave the world an inkling of his savvy and brilliance early in his career.
Doc's rating: 7/10