Eddie and Ben Friday Night Neo-Noir: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) outro 20210709 shown on July 9, 2021 From TCM's Friday Night Neo-Noir (Fridays at 8pm ET in July 2021) hosted by Eddie Muller and Ben Mankiewicz.
One point of clarification: Many people mistakenly think that TFoEC was "inspired" by the Whitey Bulger story. In fact, Bulger's consorting with the FBI - where some people get thrown under the bus (killed) and other nefarious Bulger activities are ignored and in some cases assisted by the FBI - started AFTER the film was released. That said, as Ben & Eddie mentioned, Mitchum DID hang around members of the Winter Hill Gang during (and after) shooting the film and Bulger was affiliated with that outfit before his "rise" in the late 70's-80's. In my interview with Alex Rocco from my Eddie Coyle tribute project (link posted in another comment), he mentions this interesting fact.
And a great interview it was J.P. I grew up in Cambridge on the Somerville line back then. I knew Howie Winter. He gave me a job at one of his Davis Sq. nightclubs back in the mid-70's. I was also on the set of some scenes in Friends of Eddie Coyle because my drama teacher at the time had a small part as the kid in the car who delivered the guns on that dark hill. Great movie.
George Higgins, the novels author, did clarify that while it was written long before Bulgers most notorious exploits, he did state that he “knew Bulger before he was ‘Whitey Bulger’…,” and he based the books events on the patterns of activity in the Boston underworld of the ‘60s. It doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to infer that the films events could be a dramatization of what likely went on around James Bulger in the early days of his career, long before his infamous tenure.
Very true. My father was a reporter for the Boston Herald and covered to an extent, some events of the “Boston, Irish, gang wars“ in the 60s between the McLaughlins and the McLeans which spawns the rise of Howie Winter and then, as you mention, eventually, Whitey Bulger. Lots of good hard-core criminal activity back in the day where reporters were embedded with the cops and some of the bad guys. probably way more than they are today. The results? We got some pretty good hard boiled/based on reality, from Mr Higgins. :)
Yeah, this and The Yakuza made him a personal favorite character actor of mine. I was already familiar with him on account of Logan’s Run, Dune, The Hunt For Red October, and even an episode of Kojak, but I didn’t really notice him until watching both of those features he shot with Bob Mitchum.
