BY FRED BLOSSER
Philip
Borsos’ “The Grey Fox†(1982) has been released on Blu-ray in a 4K restoration
by Kino Lorber Studio Classics. The film
opens with good news and bad news for its protagonist, Bill Miner (Richard
Farnsworth). Good news first: Bill
emerges a free man from San Quentin in 1901 after serving twenty years for
armed robbery. The bad news? Nearing sixty, Bill has one expertise-
holding up stagecoaches. Illegality
aside, it’s now a useless specialty because stagecoaches have become
obsolete. Then, watching “The Great
Train Robbery†at a nickelodeon, he has an epiphany. Although stagecoaches may be a thing of the
past, holding up trains that carry express shipments can’t be that much
different, he reasons. His first robbery
goes sour, but he experiences better success after he crosses the border into
British Columbia to prey on the railroads there with his junior associate
Shorty (Wayne Robson). Needing a base of
operations, he finds a new name and cover identity in the remote town of
Kamloops as “George Edwards,†a mining engineer, thanks to local businessman
Jack Budd (Ken Pogue), a former associate in crime. Budd doesn’t do the favor out of the kindness
of his heart. He has his eye on a herd
of horses that he wants Bill and Shorty to rustle for him. But the arrangement proceeds smoothly enough
that Bill begins to feel at home in Kamloops. He even finds romance with Kate Flynn (Jackie Burroughs), a self-employed
photographer in her forties. She is as
fiercely independent as he is. She has
to be, she argues: “In this country, you’re not taken seriously unless you’re
Caucasian, Protestant, and most of all, male.†He admires her spirit and she is charmed by his modest, respectful
demeanor. Like everybody else in
Kamloops, including the friendly resident lawman Fernie (Timothy Webber), she’s
unaware that “George Edwards†is actually the notorious Bill Miner, “The Gentleman
Bandit.†Unaware that is, until a
tenacious Pinkerton detective (Gary Reineke) shows up in town on Bill’s trail
from the botched robbery in Washington.
“The
Grey Fox,†a Canadian production, was Philip Borsos’ first feature film. The production is distinguished by the
striking compositions, assured pace, and keen sense of time and place that
you’d expect to see from an older, more seasoned filmmaker. In fact, Borsos was only 29. The director’s promising career encompassed
only four more movies, including an ambitious but troubled Canadian-Chinese
co-production, “Bethune†(1990), before leukemia claimed him at age 41. After “The Grey Fox†became a hit in Canada,
it was distributed by Zoetrope in the U.S. on the art-house circuit, a wise strategy
for Borsos’ low-key, character-driven Northwestern. Richard Farnsworth, in his first starring
credit, was the only U.S. actor on the marquee. A veteran Hollywood stunt man and bit player, Farnsworth had won acclaim
and an Academy Award nomination for a supporting role in “Comes a Horsemanâ€
(1978). While a star like Henry Fonda,
Burt Lancaster, or Lee Marvin would have given the production a higher profile
at neighborhood theaters, it’s difficult to imagine that any of them could have
bettered Farnsworth’s quietly sly, believably weathered presence. Farnsworth
was nominated for a Best Actor Golden Globe and a Best Performance by a Foreign
Actor Canadian Genie Award. He also received the London Critics Circle Film
Award for Actor of the Year. The rest of the cast is comparably good.
The Kino Lorber
special edition of “The Grey Fox†is packed with special features, including
audio commentary by Alex Cox, interviews with producer Peter O’Brian and
composer Michael Conway Baker, a featurette about the 4K restoration, and a
theatrical re-release trailer. Fans of
Westerns and flavorful period dramas will welcome the opportunity to revisit
the movie they may have seen long ago on home video in the VHS era, or to
encounter it here for the first time.
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(Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)