Jason M. Jones

Truffaut once said of Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes that whenever he sat down to try to examine the mechanics of the film, he’d become too engrossed in the plot to notice them. I’m not sure what his exact quote was, since I can’t be bothered to look it up. But I bring it up here to say that this is exactly how I feel about what is probably my favorite Coen Brother’s movie, Miller’s Crossing. The odd thing is that in doing this retrospective and rewatching all the Coen’s films, this third film might be the least interesting from a thematic standpoint. Rather than focusing on contemporary issues, the Coen’s go back in time to the prohibition era and do a mob movie. They also can’t help but reference some of the great mob movies and noir films of the past, and this makes Miller’s Crossing a lot of fun to watch. There’s a noticeable improvement in production quality and the script is tight, which is essential in hard-boiled noir. And when you have exchanges as well-written as Tom and Verna’s in the women’s room at the club (“Sister, when I’ve raised hell, you’ll know it!”), I don’t really care about theme, social acumen, or political commentary the way I did with Blood Simple or Raising Arizona.

The film bookends with film references to the greatest of both genres. As it opens, we see Irish mob boss Leo having a conversation with the Italian mob boss Casper over a desk. The positioning evokes the initial “I believe in America” scene from The Godfather. A less powerful man is coming to ask a more powerful man for a favor. Casper keeps fixing boxing fights, hoping to make a big return, but the fix keeps leaking out, and he thinks it traces back to a Jewish bookie named Bernie Bernbaum. Casper is there as a simple courtesy: to notify Leo he plans to take Bernie out of the picture. He gives a big long ironic speech on ethics. “It’s gettin’ so a businessman can’t expect no return from a fixed fight,” Casper says, in a parody of the code of honor adhered to in more serious mob movies. “For a good return, you gotta go bettin’ on chance, and then you’re back with anarchy, right back in the jungle.” As amusing as the opening scene is, Casper is right. Leo refuses to give up Bernie, a movie his right-hand man Tom Reagan (played to perfection by Gabriel Byrne) disagrees with, and this creates a rift between the mobs that leads to violence and deaths throughout the city.

“Think about what protecting Bernie gets us. Think about what offending Caspar loses us,” he says. But Leo is embroiled in an affair with Bernie’s sister, Verna, and in return, Leo is providing protection for Bernie. When it turns out that Tom is also having an affair with Verna, he reveals this to Leo to try to set Leo’s head straight, and Leo gives him a public beating that allows Tom to defect to Casper’s mob. Of course, one of the great things that can be said about Miller’s Crossing is that the first time you watch, you wonder what Tom is up to. You don’t know where he’s allegiance lies or what his plan is. Then after you’ve seen it and you know what happens, Byrne is so good, it’s utterly compelling to watch how he does navigates the shark-infested waters of double-crossing Casper and his bodyguard Eddie Dane.

Eddie is Tom’s opposite on Casper’s side. He’s smart and dangerous, and he’s onto Tom from the get-go. When Tom joins Casper’s mob, the first act they ask him to perform is the execution of Bernie, instigated by the Dane. The way Tom’s character has been set up, he’s cool under pressure, but he doesn’t seem to be a killer, and we see the fraught emotions on his face as he walks Bernie into the woods at Miller’s Crossing. Bernie pleads with him and even says, “You’re not a killer, Tom!” And Tom fires a shot into the air and lets Bernie go, a decision he’ll come to regret. Later, when the Dane questions if the killing ever happened, since the two heavies he sent with Tom have to admit they only heard the shots but didn’t see it, the Dane takes him back out there. “You understand that if we don’t find a stiff out here, we leave a fresh one,” the Dane tells him, but Bernie has taken care of this. He’s killed Mink, another bookie who also happens to be Eddie Dane’s alluded-to paramour and placed the body in the woods. It’s a move that saves Tom but ultimately condemns Bernie. When Bernie shows up at Tom’s apartment and tries to blackmail him, stating bluntly that if Casper finds out he’s alive, it’ll be bad for Tom, Tom sparks an idea that will remove the Dane, Casper, and Bernie all at once and place Leo firmly back in control of the city.

Throughout the film, friendship is continually mentioned in a world where friendship doesn’t seem to exist. “I’m talkin’ about friendship. I’m talkin’ about character,” Casper says in the opening scene. When he meets with Tom to ask for his help intervening with Leo, he says, “Friends is a mental state. What do you say, kid?” requesting Tom’s allegiance. As Tom leads Bernie to the woods, and Bernie pleads for Tom not to kill him, he says: “…I never crossed a friend, Tom. I never killed anybody, I never crossed a friend, nor you, I’ll bet. We’re not like those animals! This is not us!” Even when Bernie comes back to blackmail Tom, they have exchange where Tom says, “You’re the only one I know who’d knock and then break in.” Bernie replies, “Your other friends wouldn’t break in, huh?” And Tom comes back, “My other friends want to kill me so they wouldn’t have knocked.” Yet for all that, true friendship seems to exist between Leo and Tom. Tom knows Leo is pulling a boneheaded stunt in protecting Bernie because he loves Verna. And still, Tom puts himself at great risk to protect Leo. Regardless, this pushes the bonds of their friendship past the limit.

In the end at Bernie’s funeral, Leo asks Tom to return to work for him. “Damn it, Tom, I forgive you,” he says. “I didn’t ask for that and I don’t want it. Good-bye, Leo.” And we’re left with a great homage. Verna slips past Tom without even acknowledging his presence. She passes the car they came in and walks down a long road into the distance. It was a risk the Coens took, echoing the closing shot of Carol Reed’s The Third Man in Miller’s Crossing. Generally, I’d say you don’t want to evoke a superior film in yours, put the audience in mind of a great work. It speaks volumes about how good Miller’s Crossing is that it can take this shot and stand on its own merits. The Coens have made films as good. I’m not sure they’ve ever made one better.