Favorite L.A. Movies

Saturday night, the American Cinemateque screened director Robert Mulligan's The Nickel Ride. In the Cinemateque's schedule the film was described thusly: (1974, 20th Century Fox, 99 min.) Superb neo-noir with Jason Miller as a downtown LA stolen good manager. When his boss, John Hillerman, bids him to buy more warehouses, problems snowball for Miller, threatending his 'career' and his life. Beautifully realized, from the low-key performances to the evocation of a dying downtown. With Bo Hopkins.

Gloomily photographed by Jordan Cronenweth, the Nickel Ride, counts Skid Row, Echo Park, the Biltmore, and the Olympic Auditorium amongst its many unburnished L.A. locations. Mulligan's film is a choice example of under-revered 1970's urban American cinema, torpid and dissolute.

Reportedly, Turner Movie Classics intends to schedule the Nickel Ride, which is not currently available on DVD.