The Friends of Eddie Coyle

Infobox Film
name = The Friends of Eddie Coyle


caption =
director = Peter Yates
producer = Paul Monash
writer = Paul Monash George V. Higgins (novel)
narrator =
starring = Robert Mitchum Peter Boyle
music = Dave Grusin
cinematography = Victor J. Kemper
editing = Patricia Lewis Jaffe
distributor = Paramount Pictures
released = flagicon|United States June 26, 1973
runtime = 103 min.
country = US
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:92381
imdb_id = 0070077

"The Friends of Eddie Coyle" is a 1973 crime film starring Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle. Directed by Peter Yates, the screenplay was adapted from the novel by George V. Higgins.

Plot

Eddie Coyle is an aging, low-level gunrunner for the Irish Mob in Boston, Massachusetts. Facing several years in prison for a truck hijacking and hoping for a sentencing recommendation, he informs on a non-mob gun buyer - only to learn that is not enough.

In desperation, Coyle finally agrees to inform on a group of gun buyers who are engaged in house break-ins and ransom/extortion, only to learn the group was arrested that morning. The mob thinks Coyle was the snitch and assign his best friend, Dillon, to kill him. However, before carrying out his orders, Dillon treats his friend to a night on the town, taking him to dinner and a Bruins hockey game. In the final scene, we learn that Dillon was the snitch.

Cast

* Robert Mitchum as Eddie "Fingers" Coyle
* Peter Boyle as Dillon
* Richard Jordan as Dave Foley
* Steven Keats as Jackie Brown
* Alex Rocco as Jimmy Scalise

Production

Filming took place throughout the Boston area, including Dedham, Cambridge, Milton, Quincy, Sharon, Somerville and Weymouth, Massachusetts.cite web | title = Filming Locations for The Friends of Eddie Coyle | publisher = Internet Movie Database | url = http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070077/locations | accessdate = 2007-01-30]

Reception

"The Friends of Eddie Coyle" was well-reviewed on its initial release and continues to be among the most highly regarded crime films of the 1970s. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave it four stars, his highest rating, while Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" also reviewed it favorably, calling it "a good, tough, unsentimental movie." [http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0CE1D6123DE63ABC4F51DFB0668388669EDE] Both reviewers singled out Mitchum's lead performance as a key ingredient of the film's success. Ebert wrote: "Eddie Coyle is made for [Mitchum] : a weary middle-aged man, but tough and proud; a man who has been hurt too often in life not to respect pain; a man who will take chances to protect his own territory." [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19730627/REVIEWS/301010311/1023] As of March 2008, the film has never been officially released on DVD, and it frequently appears on critics' "wish lists" of films that ought to be released in that medium. [http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2006/10/absence_of_eddi.php]

Disputed Storyline Beginnings

The main character Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum) bore an uncanny resemblance to ex-convict William (Billy) O'Brien, one of James J. Bulger's old bank robbing associates who had been murdered before the film's release in 1967. Like Eddie Coyle, O'Brien had just been arrested and the newspapers reported that O'Brien's associates like the fictional Eddie Coyle's, were concerned that he might become a turncoat. O'Brien's slaying was never solved, and neither is Eddie's. The fictional murderer is an ex-con named "Dillon", who set up the failed truck hijacking for which Coyle was to be sent back to prison. Dillo owned a bar, and was a freelance contract killer. The fictional Dillon was also an informant, shown both protecting and promoting his own interests by funneling information about his underworld competition to the police. Investigative journalist Howie Carr states that, "In other words, Dillon appeared to be a prototype of the gangster that James J. Bulger would become, although the novelist whose book the movie is based on, just before his death, denied that he had based the character "Dillon" on the real life Boston mobster James J. Bulger.

See also

* List of films, operas, and plays set in Boston
* The Friends of Eddie Coyle (novel)

References

External links

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* [http://www.starpulse.com/movie/The_Friends_of_Eddie_Coyle/V92381/0/2/ Review at Starpulse]