Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Can Take Him Out of Memphis, Can't Take the Memphis Out of...

Memphis native Michael Beck briefly loses his New Yawk mojo, which you can hear in this scene from the television version, then gets it back twofold in the last act.

I recall, when I first watched this scene on cable years ago, thinking that Beck's Southern twang was much more pronounced than it sounds to me now.  It does still sound different to me than the rest of his line readings as the hardened, laconic, (ironically named?) Swan, another in a long line of Western-inspired heroes in the cinema of Walter Hill.

One could argue that the aforementioned television scene should have been in the theatrical cut, as it makes clear to Swan that every gang is looking for the Warriors, under the mistaken impression that they are responsible for Cyrus' death.  It could also be surmised that Beck's slightly "off" line reading contributed to its deletion.

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