53: Cutter's Way (with Dan Boeckner)

Junk Filter

Dan Boeckner of Operators and Wolf Parade and co-host of The Bottlemen podcast returns to Junk Filter for an episode about one of the great underseen films of the eighties, Ivan Passer’s 1981 California neo-noir Cutter’s Way, based on the crime novel Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg.

One rainy night in Santa Barbara, Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) witnesses a man dumping the corpse of a young girl; when he later recognizes a local captain of industry as the man who could be the culprit, his unhinged and physically shattered Vietnam veteran buddy Alex Cutter (John Heard) takes this ball and runs with it, launching an ill-advised blackmail scheme against the tycoon.

Dan and I discuss the joys of what we'd call the Ambient Mystery genre, this film’s relationship not only to the seventies paranoia genre but also to The Big Lebowski, the brilliant performances from two actors who should have had bigger careers (John Heard and Lisa Eichhorn), how Cutter’s Way was mishandled by United Artists on the way to becoming a cult classic, and how we are all Alex Cutter now.

Plus! An extended chat about next week's Bad Vibes Election in Canada!

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Trailer for Cutter’s Way (Ivan Passer, 1981)