DEAD MAN WALKING (1995)



The funny thing about Dead Man Walking (and, admittedly, “funny” doesn’t come up a lot in discussions of Tim Robbins’ excellent but grim 1995 adaptation of the memoir by Sister Helen Prejean) is the way its tale of a nun (Susan Sarandon) driven to become an activist against capital punishment in the wake of her experiences with death row inmates (embodied by Sean Penn’s fictional composite, Matthew Poncelet) did nothing to change my own views on capital punishment at the time. In the film, Sarandon (as Prejean) is contacted by Poncelet, a convict facing execution who swears he was only an innocent bystander to the crimes he’s been charged with and needs help with his final appeal. Yet for all her Christian charity, it’s hard for Prejean not to see Poncelet for what he truly is: an arrogant, ignorant, self-pitying racist thug...not to mention, as it eventually turns out, a rapist and cold-blooded killer. When his appeal is denied and Poncelet eventually gets lethally injected for his senseless, brutal crimes, I remember my thought at the time was...good. True, with death staring him in the face (and after weeks of selfless work by Sister Prejean), Poncelet finally starts acting like a human being and feels bad for his evil behavior, but...so what?  Without the catalyst of his own looming execution, it’s doubtful Poncelet would have shown any remorse at all, and his jailhouse conversion is too little too late: the victims are dead and even a last-minute call from the governor would only upgrade Poncelet’s remaining time on Earth to life in prison (while offering no closure for the victim’s families). Recounting my initial reactions, I realize I’ve mellowed a bit since 1995: given the inequities of the American legal system, I’ve come around to a generally anti-capital punishment perspective (except in extreme cases involving no-doubt-about-it Hall-Of-Fame assholes like Timothy McVeigh and...well, I'll get back to you on Cheney). But it’s a tribute to Sarandon, Penn, Prejean and Robbins (not usually known for his subtlety in political matters) that Dead Man Walking is even-handed enough to credibly illustrate both sides of a difficult issue without preaching exclusively to any particular choir.

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The release this week of all five "Dirty Harry" movies starring Clint Eastwood on DVD and Blu-ray gives fans the chance to settle in for a long weekend spent admiring the charismatic intensity and skillful range of a familiar but sometimes underappreciated American actor--Albert Popwell. Popwell, who died in 1999, goes way back in the Dirty Harry franchise: he has a small role as a hippie in the movie that many see as a precursor to the Harry Callahan character (as it was molded by Eastwood and director Don Siegel in the 1971 Dirty Harry) and TV's McCloud to boot: the 1968 Coogan's Bluff. In that film, the first collaboration between Siegel and Eastwood--they'd later team up for The Beguiled, Two Mules for Sister Sara, and Escape from Acatraz--Eastwood plays a shitkicker cop from Arizona who hits New York City at the height of the counterculture era to track down an escaped hood and inspires everyone's reluctant admiration for the effectiveness of his uncivilized approach enforcement. Popwell would go on to appear in a small but key role in Dirty Harry and return, in a different role each time, in the first three of its four sequels. Grady Hendrix recently noted that Popwell "twice the actor Mr. Eastwood is in the series;" his repeat appearances also serve as a handy guide to what possibilities were open--and closed--to talented African-American character actors in movies of the period. (I don't necessarily mean to imply that things have changed a whole hell of a lot.)

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