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Joe (1970)
The core themes of Joe, showing on 35 mm on Monday, Nov. 4, are timeless and fervid in the American bloodstream: reactionary political rage, generational resentment, the elite outsourcing its violence to the working class.
The premise, though, is beautifully simple—imagine you had to share a secret with the worst stranger in the five boroughs.
That’s the predicament in which ad executive Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick) finds himself after a violent altercation with a drug peddler in late-’60s Greenwich Village. The “Mad man” stumbles into a dingy bar where a ranting racist boor, Joe (Peter Boyle), expresses unexpected admiration for what he perceives as Bill’s vigilante justice.
What follows is somewhere between social horror and cringe comedy as Bill the snob is forced to placate Joe’s murderous, fascistic fantasies (lest blackmail ensue). The Boyle performance is terrifying from beginning to end, eyes flashing with wrath beneath a brow so heavy he’ll play Frankenstein’s monster four years later in Young Frankenstein. Hollywood, Nov. 4.
Also Playing:
5th Avenue: White Riot (2019), Nov. 1-3. Academy: City of the Living Dead (1980), Oct. 30 and 31. The Dark Crystal (1982), Oct. 30 and 31. Halloween (1978), Oct. 30 and 31. Cinema 21: The Third Man (1949), Nov. 2. Clinton: Fangs (1981), Oct. 30. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Oct. 31 and Nov. 2. Nosferatu (1922), a silent synced film with music by Radiohead, Nov. 2. Hollywood: The Big Heat (1953), Nov. 2 and 3. Silent Assassins (1988), Nov. 5. Tomorrow: House (1977), Oct. 31. Fire (1996), Nov. 2. Coco (2017), Nov. 3.