Parker: The Outfit

The third in Richard Stark's Parker series, The Outfit sees our favorite hunter turned hunted as the criminal organization once known as The Syndicate fails in its first attempt on Parker's life.  Bad move, friends.  Parker knows that the only way to get out is to hit back and hit hard.  Once deemed untouchable, Parker lets all his low-rent criminal buddies know that The Outfit is free game and as he hits one Outfit association after the other so do his friends.  After all, how do you get revenge on a corporation?  You go for the wallet.

Darwyn Cooke takes a few more liberties with The Outfit than he did with his adaptation of The Hunter.  He condenses the second novel, The Man With The Getaway Face into 23 pages, setting up Parker's new mug as well as the rat who finks his location to The Outfit.  Sure, this makes sense but I'm a little bummed that the crazy switchbacking plot of Getaway Face will never get its proper moment in the sun as that armored car heist (and the complications that ensue) is one of my favorites from the series.  Second, Cooke introduces the criminal thespian Grofield into the series one book too early.  I find this to be most curious.  Grofield is a bit of a goof, a comic character that plays well in larger cast stories like The Score, but he sticks out like a sore thumb here.  Why does Cooke bring him into this plot?  He has a couple scenes and then he's gone.  Very strange.

Darwyn Cooke's work on the Parker books is some of his finest.  As much as I love The New Frontier (and  its animated adaptation), The Hunter & The Outfit are just unbelievably amazing.  Obviously, a lot of my love stems from my love of Richard Stark's character and the fact that even though we've had some pretty fine film adaptations (Point Blank, The Outfit, Payback: Straight Up Edition), we've never quite seen the real Parker outside of the novels.  Well, the only other place to find the real Parker is in Darwyn Cook's books.

The film adaptation of The Outfit has been unavailable on DVD for far too long.  However, if you you click on over to the Warner Archive you can score yourself a bare bones edition for $19.95 ($9.95 for a downloadable version).  Although, not a perfect adaptation of the Stark novel it is totally worth the twenty bucks.

Directed by John Flynn (Rolling Thunder, Best Seller, Lock Up), The Outfit is much more of personal revenge story than the book.  Since they didn't have The Hunter's narrative to fall back on as the catalyst, this film's plot is sparked when The Outfit kills Duvall's brother for an unsanctioned bank job.  Duvall in retribution starts hitting The Outfits payroll where and when ever he can.

Duvall is Macklin not Parker, but there are several familiar names sprinkled throughout.  In a much more prominent role than the book, Karen Black is Bett Harrow.  There is an Alma in Jane Greer.  A Madge in Marie Windsor.  A Jim St. Claire in Bern Hoffman.  But even though Joe Don Baker is obviously playing Handy McKay, he's called Cody instead.  Handy is a pretty big part of the series and I wonder if Donald Westlake had the same rules about his name as he did about Parker's.  And the villainous Robert Ryan isn't Fairfax or Bronson, he's just Mailer.

But Duvall is a pretty darn good Parker.  And if you watched that brief interview with Westlake I posted earlier in the week than you heard that the man himself thought Duvall captured Parker's attitude even better than Lee Marvin in Point Blank.  That Workmanlike Crook attitude.  And I guess I get that.  But Marvin is still my cinematic Parker.  But more on that later.

--Brad