Michael Mann's "The Keep"

A big fan of Mann but missed this film when it was released and never got around to watching it when it was released on home video.

Finally streamed it on Amazon tonight. God, what a mess of a film. The editors butchered the film when trying to trim it down from three hours to a ninety minute film (at the studio and producer's behest).

Stylish looking, great production design, good casting, bad acting all seem to dominate this production.

As with "Thief" some of the acting is a bit stylized but Scott Glenn gives a pretty awful performance and even the nomally reliable Ian McKellen does pretty poor job of chewing the scenery.

Thoughts? Anyone else recent this?

I can't imagine a three hour cut would make this into a great film but it would certainly make it better than what we see here.

Wonder if the hold up for DVD and Blu-ray (and the film would certainly benefit from the latter format because of its dense visuals) is the score by Tangerine Dream (which is quite good by the way).

Speaking of Mann--why can't we get "The Jericho Mile" released on Blu-ray? It's a marvelous movie.

 

I saw it back in the 80's when it first came to the video stores. I liked it. The part where that soldier with the flashlight comes to the open cavern, and the camera pulls back to show the whole thing is unreal. I was always haunted by that part.

 

It has it's faults, but I quite like it, would love to see a longer cut, I guess it's the Hollywood precursor to all those Nazi horror/supernatural films we get now, if you ignore "Raiders Of the Lost Ark" with it's supernatural ending. I seem to recall it was shot in a slate quarry in North Wales, it doesn't make a believable Romania, but is still a pretty good and unique location for a World War Two film.

 

I loved it when it first came out on video in the 80s, I know I watched it several times with friends. Revisited a few years ago and sheesh...definitely not as good as my memory had led me to believe. Pretty much looks like a 1980s music video and it seems like several different scripts stitched together Frankenstein-style. At this point I would say it's a curiosity more than anything else.

 

Indeed, there was a lot of "Raiders" in This movie but taken I a decidedly different direction. I admired it more than liked it as the narrative flaws (not Mann's fault as far as I can tell but I've never red the original script either) and the fact thst is built all about the climaxes without any of the build up robs it of some of its power.

Scott Glenn's performance is pretty awful in my opinion. He comes across as an even more spastic Jeff Bridges in Starman without any of the skill and Mckellen seems to think he's still on stage performing to the peanut gallery.

I also get the impression that Mann felt out of his comfort zone as director in an Unfamiliar genre and relied on technique to try and salvage the project.

 

It's been discussed her before Michael Mann's deep... disdain for this movie.
How he was hired after the original director died?
I think it should be released and restored by Criterion .
Bluray and dvd combo. Like my post I said there was going to Imax presentation
of it hosted Michael Mann, if he made fun of it then maybe he would
it be released.
I don't remember too much of it, when did see it.?

 

Haven't seen it in many years. The way I hear it, it is unlikely to make it to DVD, much less Blu ray. Mann has basically disowned it, there are rights issues, and the "cut" footage is likely no longer in existence.

I do need to see it again. I heard it was recently on Netflix (which I don't have) but appears it may already be gone from their current lineup. No clue about how good that would look or the Amazon version.

 

I enjoyed the book...

 

The book was great.

The film is indeed a mess, but it's a compelling mess to watch unfold before you. I don't know the details, but I believe there is some kind of legal entanglements with the TD score holding up an official home video release. I have a copy that was sourced from a 2009 Sky TV broadcast; I wonder if the Amazon version is exactly the same cut.

 

Alberta Watson died from cancer earlier this year at age 60.

 

Agreed. The movie itself led me to the F. Paul Wilsons novels (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack).

There was also a great series of graphic novels released several years ago. They are worth checking out...

 

I've seen it once and really liked it.

 

I recall the early part had an effective mystique that the rest of the film never paid off on.

 

It's one of the few Mann films thst I feel is just....bad. It has terrific technique but it's like he felt completely out of his element.

 

I liked the book a lot. The movie looked good visually and stylistically but the rest of it sucked.

 

I watched it a few months ago and generally enjoyed it, but it is a mess. Criterion generally doesn't do these kinds of films, but maybe Scream! Factory or Arrow can do a restoration.

 

Watched it a few times recently. In fact last was two weeks ago. Looks great. The creature effects are really good I think.

Would be nice to see the full version as it doesn't work in its current form.

McKellen spent time learning the Romanian accent then on the first day of shooting Mann tells him to drop it and 'go Chicago'. McKellen didn't feel he had enough 'star oomph' at that point so did as he was told , much to his bemusement.

Glenn's role is baffling with the final edit.

The only one that comes out of it IMO is Prochnow.

Oh and Byrne's uniform is all wrong but that's a common movie mistake.