1973 film directed by Peter Yates
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
is a 1973
American
neo-noir
[1]
crime film
starring
Robert Mitchum
and
Peter Boyle
and directed by
Peter Yates
. The screenplay by
Paul Monash
was adapted from the 1970 novel
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
by
George V. Higgins
.
The film tells the story of Eddie Coyle (Mitchum), a small-time career hoodlum in the
Irish Mob
in
Boston
,
Massachusetts
. The title is purely ironic: Eddie has no friends.
While critical reception was positive, with particular praise for Mitchum's performance, the movie was not popular with filmgoers and failed to rank in the top 30 either in 1973 (when it was released mid-year) or 1974, and failed to recoup its budget in combined box office.
Plot
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Eddie Coyle is a low-level
gunrunner
based in
Quincy, Massachusetts
. He supplies pistols to a bank robbery crew led by Jimmy Scalise and Artie Van, first obtaining the guns from a fellow gunrunner named Jackie Brown. At the same time, Coyle is facing several years of jailtime for a truck hijacking in
New Hampshire
set up by Dillon, who owns a local bar that Coyle frequents. Coyle cooperates with
ATF
agent
Dave Foley in order to get his sentencing cleared, but is unaware that Dillon is an informant for Foley; Dillon meets with Foley in person every week to receive $20 from him.
After kidnapping Mr. Partridge, a bank manager, the crew successfully rob the South Shore National Bank and make a clean getaway. Afterward, Coyle meets with Foley to discuss his sentencing. Coyle tells him that he knows a gunrunner, Jackie, that he could potentially have Foley arrest in order to ease the sentencing; Foley sits on this idea. Meanwhile, Jackie meets a hippie couple in
Cambridge
who wish to purchase
M16 rifles
off him. He reluctantly agrees to sell them in a discreet location at a specific time. Jackie then meets with Coyle who requires Jackie to acquire guns for the next day. While unsure at first if he can complete the task, Jackie complies and heads to
Rhode Island
later that night with an associate to get the guns, which he is successful in doing.
The crew robs a second bank, this time in
South Weymouth
. Towards the end of the robbery, one of the tellers triggers a silent alarm and is shot dead by one of the robbers, requiring a hasty exit. The crew are able to flee without any police following them but become wanted for murder as a result. Afterward, Jackie meets Coyle in the parking lot of a
Dedham
grocery store to deliver him the guns. Once the exchange is finished, Coyle calls Foley from a payphone to tip him off about Jackie's exchange with the hippie couple at the
Sharon train station
. There, Foley and a group of agents watch the area from afar with
sniper rifles
. The couple arrive, though Jackie tells them to meet him elsewhere at a later time, believing that he is being watched. Once the couple leaves, Foley and his team move in to make the arrest. Jackie recognizes the agents' cars and attempts to flee but is boxed in at the exit and arrested, immediately realizing that Coyle had set him up.
Foley tells Coyle at their next meeting that Jackie's arrest was not enough to clear Coyle's sentence. In preparation for the third robbery, the crew moves in to kidnap the bank's manager but are ambushed by Foley and other ATF agents and placed under arrest. The next day, Coyle decides to tip Foley off about Scalise and his crew but is unaware of their arrest. Foley shows him the arrest in the newspaper and departs, leaving Coyle anguished. Soon after, Dillon is told that a mob boss wants him to assassinate Coyle, thinking that Coyle ratted out the robbery crew. Dillon invites Coyle out to a
Boston Bruins
game at the
Boston Garden
along with a hood whom Dillon claims is his "wife's nephew". At the game, Coyle becomes severely drunk and eventually passes out during the car ride afterward. The hood drives them to a discreet location, where Dillon shoots Coyle in the head. They swap out cars in the parking lot of a bowling alley and leave.
Dillon and Foley meet outside
Boston City Hall
the next day, where Foley thanks Dillon for giving him Scalise and his crew. Foley is largely unconcerned that Dillon cannot tell him who murdered Coyle, leaving the impression that he knows Dillon is involved but likely would not have pursued the killing of Coyle himself. After they finish conversing, they walk away in separate directions.
Cast
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Production
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Filming took place throughout the
Boston
area, including
Government Center
in Boston, and
Dedham
,
Cambridge
,
Milton
,
Quincy
,
Sharon
,
Somerville
,
Malden
, and
Weymouth
,
Massachusetts
.
[2]
During the making of the film, Mitchum was interested in meeting the local gangsters as part of his research. Journalist
George Kimball
, a sports writer on the
Boston Herald
at the time, claimed that Mitchum wanted to meet
Whitey Bulger
and was warned against it by Higgins. What is claimed instead is that cast member
Alex Rocco
, who grew up in Somerville, introduced Mitchum to
Howie Winter
of the
Winter Hill Gang
.
[3]
Filming in Dedham
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On October 17, 1972,
scenes were shot
at the Dedham Plaza, showing W.T. Grant's, Woolworth's, Barbo's Furniture, Liggett's Drugstore, Capitol Supermarket, Friendly's, and Plaza Liquors.
A few weeks later, on December 1, the crew shot the film's opening scene in Dedham Square.
The South Shore Bank
[a]
was the used as the bank robbed in the film.
Local businesses including Geishecker's, P.J.'s Pastry Shop, McLellan's, and Gilbert's Package Store can be seen as the movie's bank manager drives through the Square.
Mitchum signed autographs for fans in between takes.
Reception
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The Friends of Eddie Coyle
was not well received by the filmgoing public. It failed to place in the top 30 in film revenue in 1973
[5]
(when it was released mid-year)
[6]
or 1974,
[7]
and failed to recoup its estimated $3 million budget in combined box office returns. It was, however, well-reviewed by critics, and today is among the most highly regarded crime films of the 1970s by some.
Time
magazine
wrote: "Now, at last, Mitchum achieves a kind of apotheosis in Peter Yates' strong, realistic and totally absorbing rendition of George V. Higgins' bestselling novel... Self-consciously, and with an old pro's quiet skills, Mitchum explores all of Coyle's contradictory facets. At 56, when many of his contemporaries are hiding out behind the remnants of their youthful images, he has summoned up the skills and the courage to demonstrate a remarkable range of talents."
[8]
Upon the film's release,
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".
[9]
Both reviewers singled out Mitchum's lead performance as a key ingredient of the film's success. Ebert wrote: "Eddie Coyle is made for him [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."
[10]
On
Rotten Tomatoes
, it holds an 98% approval rating, based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 8.50/10.
Home media and real life bank robbery
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The Criterion Collection
released a special edition DVD of the film on May 19, 2009. It included a director's commentary by Peter Yates, who died less than two years after the DVD came out. Criterion released a
Blu-ray
version on April 28, 2015.
[11]
On June 16, 2009, just a few weeks after the DVD release, the same bank was robbed in a manner reminiscent of how it was done in the film.
Delroy George Henry drove up to the bank minutes before it opened.
[13]
He then forced his way in the bank and tried to get the staff to open the vault.
[13]
He also ordered staff to sit on the ground while brandishing a gun, just as was done in the film.
An employee sent a text message to an employee in another branch who then called the
Dedham Police Department
.
[13]
A police officer working a detail 100 yards away responded quickly and apprehended Henry.
[13]
See also
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Explanatory notes
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- ^
As of 2023, it is a Citizen's Bank.
Citations
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Works cited
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]
- Parr, James L. (2009).
Dedham: Historic and Heroic Tales from Shiretown
. The History Press.
ISBN
978-1-59629-750-0
.
External links
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]