In this promotional still from James B. Harris‘ prison drama Fast-Walking (1982), Timothy is expressing exactly how I’m feeling! The pathology report from my lumpectomy surgery last week revealed a 1.5cm tumor with negative margins, and the sentinel lymph node biopsy was also negative. No further cancer cells to be seen anywhere! Huzzah!!
Now on to a course of radiation and hormone therapy. This is the best possible news I could get at this point. Come on and celebrate with Tim and I!!
Let’s kick off the week with another look at Bullet, the junkie con of James B. Harris‘ prison drama Fast-Walking (1982). Here he expresses his displeasure with Wasco’s (Tim McIntire) money-making scheme.
As we all know, Harris is the man who fired Timothy from Paths of Glory (1957). As Harris recently recounted in an interview with Film Comment, “I got a call at six in the morning from the Munich police, saying Tim had been found abandoned on the highway, bound hand and foot, claiming he’d been kidnapped. They thought production was responsible, looking for publicity, that it was a staged act. I said I knew nothing about it, but we needed him to work—they were holding him down at the police station. I told them that Tim was making up this story because he wanted the publicity, not us. So they said they would accommodate us by bringing him to the film studio—they were gonna interview him there. But Tim wouldn’t agree to the statement he was supposed to sign, he kept changing things about it. So I went up to Tim and said: ‘We’re all waiting for you. Sign the paper and get to work.’ And he wouldn’t sign the paper, so I fired him right there.”
This week’s video is the tail end of Timothy’s pivotal scene from Fast-Walking (1982), directed by Paths of Glory (1957) producer James B. Harris. Junkie con Bullet tries to pull a fast one on Wasco (Tim McIntire), but soon comes to regret it.
I’ve expressed my reservations before about this rather sleazy film, but the two Tims definitely make it worth a look. Check it out!
Today we take another look at Bullet, the junkie con of James B. Harris‘ prison drama Fast-Walking (1982). It’s interesting how the shadow of Timothy’s profile is almost another character in the film itself.
Tim found himself playing a prisoner many times in his career. The role of the convict offers many rich characterization opportunities; perhaps that’s one reason why he appeared to be drawn to them. Bullet is certainly a piece of work. I do believe this is the only film in which Tim uses foul language on-screen. In this instance the character demanded it, but that was something he certainly didn’t need to depend on during his acting career. His personality was enough to make a statement.
Timothy Agoglia Carey was born Timothy William Carey in 1924 [sic; actually 1929]. And it was all uphill from there. A hulk at 6-foot-4, the man was born to play every weird, menacing background figure any movie ever needed. Often, he was called upon to do just that. Carey’s anarchistic and sometimes violent sense of whimsy wouldn’t allow him to just stand there behind the big names and glower. Too much kinetic energy bound up; it got released. […]
A polarizing figure both onscreen and off, Carey could be intimidating by just saying “Hello.” His reputation for unpredictability kept him from being cast in big movies (Spartacus, The Grifters, Reservoir Dogs – Tarantino dedicated the script to him) and got him into trouble with others – he and Elia Kazan almost came to blows on East of Eden (the actual fight is apocryphal); Richard Widmark and Karl Malden both did their own improvising during fight scenes with Carey in The Last Wagon and One-Eyed Jacks respectively, making sure that punches and kicks were not pulled. Also on One-Eyed Jacks, Brando got his revenge for the beer gag [in The Wild One] by stabbing Carey with a pen.
But those who were friends with him, good friends, were friends until the end. Longtime buddy John Cassavetes, who cast Carey in Minnie and Moskowitz and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, considered him to be a genius on a par with Sergei Eisenstein. Carey’s loyalty to Cassavetes led him to turn down the role of Luca Brazzi in The Godfather. […]
In Head, he played Lord High ‘n’ Low, the representation of everything evil in marketing, who tried to get the Monkees to sell their sweat and nail clippings. In Fast-Walking, he played the towering lunatic inmate Bullet. And in Beach Blanket Bingo, he played South Dakota Slim, who straps Linda Evans to a buzzsaw. Maybe you don’t know the name (even I have to confess that for years I confused him with both Timothy Leary and Professor Irwin Corey), but you know who he is. The face’ll get ya every time.
Mike Watt, “The World’s Greatest Sinner (1962)”, Fervid Filmmaking: 66 Cult Pictures of Vision, Verve and No Self-Restraint (McFarland and Company, 2013; Kindle Edition)
Our pic today revisits Fast-Walking (1982), the prison drama directed by James B. Harris, the co-producer of Paths of Glory (1957) and the man who fired Timothy from that film. Ill-smelling junkie con Bullet appears delighted by the business plan being outlined to him by Wasco (Tim McIntire).
Harris did indeed fire Tim from Paths, after all his major scenes had been shot. His shenanigans on the set had proved too much, the last straw being the faked kidnapping. Harris knew, though, that it was really too late. “You’ve already stolen all the scenes!” he exasperatedly told Tim. Twenty-five years later, here he was working with Tim once again. I can only guess that things went much more smoothly this time.
Before it gets taken down for “copyright infringement,” please enjoy this week’s video! It features most of Tim McIntire‘s epic drug monologue from James B. Harris‘ Fast-Walking (1982). Our Timothy, as junkie con Bullet, is mostly silent but reacts to McIntire’s riff as if he were grooving on a fine jazz performance.
It’s very sad to contemplate that only four years after this film was released, McIntire was dead, having lost his own battle with substance abuse.
Timothy William Carey was born 84 years ago today. My dear friend Anthony Vitamia said it best this morning: “I can’t think of one damn actor today who even comes close to Timothy Carey. The man was an enigma on fire; he rocked anything he appeared in, whether it was a dud or a diamond. And a live wire off-screen, too. May his legend grow by leaps and bounds.”
Since I usually don’t do a post on Saturdays, I am treating you to three pics today for the price of one! Just because I had them, and they were too good not to share. Our death scene theme shuffles off its mortal coil with Timothy dying spectacularly in, respectively, The Untouchables episode “Ain’t We Got Fun” (11.12.1959), the short Tarzana (1978), and the film Fast-Walking (1982).
Loxie the pyromaniac torpedo meets his maker in a hail of gunfire.
Benny the customs agent expires from a poison-tipped dart.
Bullet the junkie con bites the bullet after being tossed off the prison catwalk.
Now that we’ve got all that death out of our system, join us again next week for much happier prospects!
Our pic today takes another look at Fast-Walking (1982), directed by James B. Harris, the producer of Paths of Glory (1957) and the man who fired Timothy from that film (“You’ve already stolen all the scenes!”). Here junkie con Bullet is mulling over the business proposal just outlined to him by fellow con Wasco (Tim McIntire).
McIntire was born into a Hollywood family, the son of character actors John McIntire and Jeanette Nolan. His promising career was cut short only four years after this film was made, when he lost his battle with substance abuse at the age of 41.
The Timothy Carey Experience 