![]() ![]() Look out for a very young Sid Haig ( Rob Zombie’s Captain Spaulding) as one of Reese’s guards, and Kathleen Freeman ( The Blues Brothers’ Penguin and Singin' In The Rain's elocution teacher) as a socialite at the fundraiser. Point Blank location: the well-guarded penthouse of double-crossing Mal Reese: Huntley Hotel, 2nd Street, Santa Monica The novel is set entirely in San Francisco, but for the film, Walker’s quest for the $93,000 owed to him, leads down the coast to Los Angeles. Walker is shot – but is what follows a revenge drama, a ghost story or a dying man’s dream? Trips are understandably popular so, if you want to avoid disappointment, best book ahead. Despite the prison's fame, few inmates were household names, though celebrity guests included "Machine Gun" Kelly, Robert Stroud (the ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’), and of course, Al Capone.īy 1963, when the concept of confinement without hope of reformation had become outdated and the cost of maintaining the island prohibitive, the prison was closed.Īlcatraz is now a national park and can be visited by boat from Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. The island functioned as a Federal prison, in effect little more than a dumping ground for problematic convicts, from 1934. It’s been followed by Don Siegel‘s Escape From Alcatraz, with Clint Eastwood, Murder In the First and, of course, Michael Bay’s The Rock. Point Blank was the first feature to be shot on the island ( Birdman of Alcatraz, made in 1962, was filmed on studio sets). It kicks off with the double cross and shooting of Walker ( Lee Marvin) during a money drop in the exercise yard of a deserted Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. Not the greatest moneyspinner on release, but with its surreal flourishes and carefully controlled colour scheme, John Boorman’s dreamlike thriller was hugely influential, not least on the work of Nicolas Roeg, and has gained a deserved cult status over the years.
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