McQ


McQ is a 1974 American neo-noir action crime film directed by John Sturges, starring John Wayne filmed in Panavision. The film made extensive use of Seattle locations. The beach scenes were filmed on the Pacific coast at Moclips.
Eddie Albert and Diana Muldaur co-star. The film also features Roger E. Mosley as a pimp and police snitch, Clu Gulager as a corrupt police detective, Colleen Dewhurst as a waitress who is a cocaine addict and informant, and Al Lettieri in one of his final roles, as the most visible villain of the film, the drug king Santiago.
McQ has a dramatic car chase with Wayne in a green 1973 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am "Green Hornet". It was influenced by Steve McQueen's chase scene in Bullitt.
One of Wayne's famous lines from this film is delivered after his character is rescued from his car after it has been crushed between two large trucks with him trapped inside. He says to one of the reporting officers, "I'm up to my butt in gas."

Plot

Just before dawn in Seattle, a man in a car dons dark glasses, leather gloves and loads a 9mm silenced automatic handgun. He drives into town, where he shoots a policeman on his beat, then drives to a police impound yard and shoots the officer on duty ; the gunman then drops off the car at a dealership and sneaks away. At a luncheonette, as he washes his hands, he momentarily flashes a police badge owned by Detective Stan Boyle. When a car pulls up, Boyle goes outside and gives the driver a satchel containing the 9mm and proceeds to his own car – but is shot in the back by the unseen driver.
Seattle Police Department, and the head of the homicide investigation, Captain Edward Kosterman, believe the shootings are the work of street militants; Kosterman orders an immediate dragnet. Elsewhere, Detective Lieutenant Lon "McQ" McHugh escapes an attempt on his life by a professional hit man named Patty Samuels. McQ had been woken minutes before by a phone call to him on his boat, telling him of the shootings of his longtime partner and the two other police officers. Because he and Boyle had been investigating drug trafficking in the city, McQ is convinced from the start that the target of their investigation, local shipping magnate and suspected narcotics dealer Manny Santiago, is responsible for the shootings, a view hardened by the hitman’s attempt on him.
Despite a warning from Captain Kosterman to leave the investigation to the department, McQ, after talking with Boyle's wife Lois, begins tailing Santiago. After seeing a TV news report that Boyle has died of his injuries, he rages after Santiago and beats him viciously in a men's room. When confined to desk duty by Kosterman, McQ angrily resigns, despite pleading from fellow detective Franklyn Toms.
Continuing to investigate the case through a partnership with local private eye "Pinky" Farrell, McQ learns that Santiago has assembled a heist team to steal the confiscated heroin and cocaine from the police department's evidence vault. The drugs are normally held by the department until turned over to the State Attorney General's Office for disposal. Santiago's men steal the drugs just as they are about to be burned in a hospital incinerator. McQ pursues Santiago's men, but they escape. After getting a much harsher warning from the increasingly exasperated Kosterman, McQ is informed by Kosterman that the approval for McQ's application for a private investigator's license is being placed on hold. Kosterman relieves McQ of his Colt revolver. McQ goes to a local gun store and acquires for himself a Browning Hi-Power pistol and a MAC-10 submachine gun.
McQ breaks into Santiago's office but is cornered by Santiago and his men. Santiago reveals that the drugs his men stole had turned out to be only powdered sugar. The real drugs, evidence in major and minor cases and investigations, was replaced over time with the sugar. Obviously this could only have been done by key corrupt members of the department. McQ also realizes that Santiago was not responsible for Boyle's death. Knowing McQ is not a threat, Santiago lets him go, though he beats him brutally as payback for the earlier assault.
McQ's investigation leads to the shooting of one of his sources, bartender Myra, and another attempt on McQ's life, in which his Firebird is crushed between two huge trucks. McQ escapes, but when he examines the wreckage, he finally discovers who is behind the police killings and the theft of drugs from the police, leading to a climactic chase and shootout at a beach with Santiago and his men.

Cast

The movie was filmed on location in Seattle, Aberdeen, Washington, and at the Quinault Indian Reservation in Washington.
Hal Needham, a stunt car driver, performed the very first car stunt using a black powder cannon charge to help flip the car without ramps in this film. The climactic car chase seen on the beach, near the end of the movie, was first practiced on the back lots of LA, and on the second practice run, the car was unknowingly overcharged, and Needham was nearly killed. Gary McLarty performed the stunt for the film.
While filming the beach scenes in 1973, the crew stayed at the Polynesian Hotel in Ocean Shores.

Novelization

A novelization of McQ, written by Alexander Edwards, was published in 1974 by Warner Books. The novel was written before the filming of the movie and consequent script changes. There are subtle differences, such as McQ living in an apartment rather than a boat. And the gun used by McQ in the climax is a Mauser in the book instead of the grander Mac 10 automatic machine gun used in the movie. Some scenes are deleted or modified, but on the whole the book is true to the movie in both dialogue and plot.

Reception

of The New York Times thought the movie was slow: "In this wildly undramatic picture, music and gunshots have to provide the gumption that the acting lacks. Surely Mr. Wayne should stick to Westerns: he's simply too slow to play any kind of policeman. Horseless in the streets of Seattle, he looks as though he needs a shot of sand." Pauline Kael dismissed it as "prostratingly dull". Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called the film "a good contemporary crime actioner" that was "extremely well cast. Coproducer Lawrence Roman's script has some good twists, turns and ironies, caught well by director John Sturges." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Like so many of his recent movies, 'McQ' would be nothing without Wayne. In fact, less than nothing, because tho its story takes a high number of unexpected turns, the pacing is excruciatingly slow, its supporting characters excruciatingly vapid. And yet the film holds together around Wayne." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times stated: "The most intriguing aspect of John Wayne's diverting but undistinguished new picture 'McQ' at selected theaters is its similarity to Clint Eastwood's 'Magnum Force'... The difference—and it may be crucial—is that Wayne, blustering and bombastic as ever, dominates his film whereas it's violence for violence's sake that takes over 'Magnum Force.' Eastwood's film looks lots more chic, but 'McQ' has lots more humanity." Wayne had rejected the lead in Dirty Harry a few years prior to this film, which he later admitted to regretting. The producers of that film chose Seattle as its location in an earlier version of the script; it was later changed to San Francisco when Clint Eastwood became connected with the project. Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "'McQ' can be recommended if you're in the mood for a commercial movie so stiff and perfunctory that it becomes unintentionally funny... Wayne really should have enough savvy to realize that he looks ridiculous speeding around town in a green Hornet. This sporty image doesn't do anything for him anymore than his toupee does."
James M. Tate of Cult Film Freaks said the movie has a film noir quality: "Director John Sturges was, like Wayne, best known for making Westerns, a genre McQ borrows from with the maverick loner versus an eclectic string of feisty antagonists, each with their own lethal agenda, sometimes even coming out of the woodwork with guns blazing.
But with the cool looking MAC-10 submachine gun and a snaky trail pitting one man against shadowy odds, this is really a modern Noir thriller providing a chance to see the American icon grittier, and often more vulnerable, than ever before: at least in a modern setting."
The film currently has an approval rating of 50% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 8 reviews, with a weighted average of 5.31/10.