Written by Erin Free
At FilmInk, we honor the work of creators who have never truly received the recognition they deserve. This time it’s screenwriter Gerald Wilson, who wrote “Chato’s Land,” “Lawman,” “Scorpio,” and “The Stone Killer.”
Recently, our Unsung Auteurs column featured several individuals who remain creatively successful despite existing in the great shadow cast by their most famous and far more famous collaborators. Directors Anthony Harvey (who edited Stanley Kubrick) and William Dear (who often realized musician and producer Michael Nesmith’s on-screen visions) are followed by screenwriter Gerald Wilson. . A prodigiously gifted scribe, Wilson was a key collaborator with the often controversial British director Michael Winner, with the outspoken filmmaker producing some of his best work throughout the 1970s. The eloquence and famously larger-than-life persona of the late Michael Winner (who passed away in 2013 after enjoying a second career as an outspoken food critic) made Wilson a key contributor to the director’s work. It was often ignored.
Gerald Wilson was born in Pittsburgh in 1930 and raised in Canada. Wilson spent much of his early life as a sailor, then studied geology and then studied extensively throughout the Americas and in the Arctic. In a major career change, Wilson moved to England in the mid-’50s and eventually began writing for television in the ’60s, appearing in films such as Cranes, No Hiding Places, and The Man in Room 17. He has written episodes for series such as “Champion House” and “Vendetta.” Wilson made his screen debut in the 1967 thriller The Train Robbery, directed by Peter Yates (who would go on to direct the 1968 classic Bullitt starring Steve McQueen). This work is loosely based on the incident. A tense and powerful piece of work, Robbery offers a glimpse of where Wilson would ultimately go with his screenplay, but the film’s original script was heavily rewritten and left a vague impression on the burgeoning screenwriter. Only the “Based on a Story” credit remained. The experience was not a particularly happy one for Wilson, who bounced back with his next big film after an uncredited role in the 1969 biker film Scream Free.
Burt Lancaster in “Roman”
For Wilson’s script for the 1971 Western Roman, he found a far more sympathetic director in Michael Winner, who, unlike Peter Yates, brought the writer’s work to the screen almost verbatim. The results are examples. One of the most unjustly forgotten Westerns of the 1970s (a powerful and interesting period for the genre), Roman is a tough, brooding work rife with fascinating themes. The film’s simple plot revolves around a stubborn and unyielding lawyer played by Burt Lancaster who goes to town to bring justice to a gang of rowdy cowboys who have left innocent bystanders dead in wild celebrations and random shootouts. However, it has a rich social nature that is hard to believe for this movie. Explanation. Wilson poses interesting questions about the nature of justice and law, and the film resonates strongly with the concerns of the time, with Lancaster’s absolutely straight-talking, law-all-things sheriff acting as something of an avatar for the case. It is. American police at the time. Michael Winner’s vision of the West is admirably dusty and drab, and the performances are great (Lancaster is played by Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Jordan, Robert Duvall, Shelley North, John Beck, and Ralph). Wilson’s concise, easy-to-read, deeply thought-out script is the star of the show.
Wilson’s script will again take center stage in his next collaboration with Michael Winner. Far better known than Roman, the bloody 1972 Western Chat’s Land is an absolute masterpiece. Like its predecessor, the film’s plot is misleadingly simple: after Charles Bronson’s prototypical killing machine Rambo Apache shoots a bullying sheriff, former Confederate leaders led by Jack Palance He is chased out of a bad region by a group of violent and morally inclined men. Again, Wilson peppers the script with all sorts of fascinating details, essentially setting up the film as a kind of Vietnam allegory, with an arrogant, well-armed army in uncharted territory. , where it is slowly improved by the adversary. A seemingly much weaker opponent whose local knowledge can give you an advantage.
Charles Bronson of Chat Country
Wilson’s dialogue here is particularly memorable, with Palance’s deeply conflicted personality tending to take often unusual but quite eloquently detours into philosophical talk, and most of his subordinates being foul-mouthed cretins. It consists of. It’s a powerful mix, and along with the film’s inventively staged violence and excellent performances (Bronson is great, this is really Palance’s film), it makes Chatto’s Land truly unforgettable. . “I don’t know of any Hollywood director other than Sam Peckinpah who actually knows Native Americans as much as I do,” said Wilson, who lived with the Cree tribe while working as a geologist. told Bright Lights Film. People who step into the wilderness without experience are bound to encounter some kind of disaster, but for the indigenous people living in the area, they are strong allies. ”
Wilson and Winner moved from the Wild West to the modern world of espionage and politics in 1973’s Scorpio, and Wilson radically rewrote this icy, fast-paced and highly underrated thriller. Ta. Former CIA operative Miles Copeland (police drummer and father of fellow shadowy powerhouse Stewart Copeland and police manager Miles Copeland III) and Czechoslovakian communist Artur London. Drawing on his own friendships with the Cold War, Wilson crafts a labyrinthine meditation on the Cold War that is both moody and triumphant. Burt Lancaster’s old CIA stage man is relentlessly pursued by his protégé, the eponymous assassin essayed by French legend Alain Delon. Scorpio is convincingly dark, relentlessly cynical, and very much a 1970s thriller that literally screams rediscovery.
Burt Lancaster, Michael Winner and Alain Delon on the set of ‘Scorpio’
Roman, Chat’s Land, and Scorpio would be Wilson and Weiner’s most compelling collaborations, but the two would go on to co-star in several more films. Wilson was asked by Winner to adapt John Gardner’s wonderfully titled novel, The State of Perfect Death, which later became the equally wonderfully titled 1973 action film, The Stone Killer. Wilson’s affinity for stories filled with corruption, moral suspension, and tough guys doing tough jobs echoes Charles Bronson’s hard AF, Dirty Harry-esque cop caught in the middle of a gang war. It is once again beautifully demonstrated that “The Stone Killer” is a powerful, wildly funny, deeply gritty delight, but it has none of the brutal power and esoteric poetry that characterized Wilson and Weiner’s previous three films. do not have.
The two’s next collaboration was even less successful. After turning down the screenplay for Winner’s 1974 breakthrough blockbuster, Death Wish, because it deviated too much from the ideals of Brian Garfield’s original novel (Wilson had previously written Charles Bronson’s (He did not agree with making a vigilante killer into a hero), but agreed to work on the script for 1979. Firepower began life as a sequel to the unproduced Dirty Harry and eventually evolved into an international thriller starring James Coburn, Sophia Loren, and O.J. Simpson. Firepower, which Wilson recalled as “an absolute disaster,” did well in some quarters, but the relationship between writer and director soured during a long and troubled production, and the film was abandoned. It marked an ignominious end to what had been a wonderfully fruitful work. and an impressive collaboration that resulted in three truly great films. “I want to say one thing about Michael,” Wilson told Bright Lights Film in 2021. But Michael was very fair. He always treated me well. I found him to be honest and cooperative. I really enjoyed being with him when we were on good terms. ”
If you liked this story, check out other unknown authors such as Patricia Birch, Buzz Kulik, Kris Kristofferson, Rick Rosenthal, Kirsten Smith & Karen McCullough, Jerrold Freeman, William Dear, Anthony Harvey, Douglas Hickox, Karen Arthur, Larry Pierce). Tony Goldwyn, Brian G. Hutton, Shelley Duvall, Robert Towne, David Giler, William D. Wittliff, Tom DeSimone, Ur Grossbard, Dennis Sanders, Darryl Duke, Jack McCoy, James William Guercio, James Goldstone, Daniel Netheim, Goran Strewski, Jared and Jerusha Hess, William Richert, Michael Jenkins, Robert M. Young, Robert Thom, Graham Clifford, Frank Howson, Oliver Hermanus, Jennings Lang, Matthew Saville, Sophie Hyde, John Curran, Jesse Peretz, Anthony Hayes, Stuart Blumberg, Stewart Copeland, Harriet Frank Jr. & Irving Ravetch, Angelo Pizzo, John and Joyce Corrington, Robert Dillon, Eileen Kump, Albert Maltz, Nancy Dowd, Barry Michael Cooper, Gladys Hill, Walon Green, Eleanor Bergstein, William W. Norton, Helen Childress, Bill Lancaster, Lucinda Coxon, Ernest Tidyman, Shauna Cross, Troy Kennedy Martin, Kelly Marcel, Alan Sharp, Leslie Dixon, Jeremy Podeswa, Feld and Beverly Sebastian, Anthony Page, Julie Gavras, Ted Post, Sarah Jacobson, Anton Corbijn, Gillian Robespierre, Brandon Cronenberg, Laszlo Nemeth, Ayerat Menahemi, Ivan Toles, Amanda King & Fabio Cavadini, Kathy Henkel, Colin Higgins, Paul McGuigan. , Rose Bosch, Dan Gilroy, Tanya Wexler, Clio Bernard, Robert Aldrich, Maya Forbes, Stephen Kastricsios, Taliyaravi, Michael Rowe, Rebecca Cremona, Stephen Hopkins, Tony Bill, Sarah Gavron, Martin Davidson, Fran. – Rubel Kuzy, Elliott Silverstein, Liz Garbus, Victor Fleming, Barbara Peters, Robert Benton, Lynn Shelton, Tom Gries, Randa Haynes, Leslie H. Martinson, Nancy Kelley, Paul… Newman, Brett Haley, Lynn Ramsey, Vernon Zimmerman, Lisa Cholodenko, Robert Greenwald, Phyllida Lloyd, Milton Katselas, Karin Kusama, Seijun Suzuki, Albert Pyun, Cherry Nolan, Steve Binder, Jack Cardiff, Anne Fletcher, Bobcat Goldthwait, Donna Deitch, Frank Pearson, Ann Turner, Jerry Schatzberg, Antonia Byrd, Jack Smite, Mariel Heller, James Glickenhaus, Yusan Parsi, Bill L. Norton, Larysa Kondracki, Mel Stuart, Nanette Burstein, George Armitage, Mary Lambert, James Foley, Louis John Carlino, Debra Granik, Taylor Sheridan, Laurie Collier, Jay Roach, Barbara Kopple, John D. Hancock, Sarah Colangelo, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Joyce Chopra, Mike Newell, Gina Prince-Bythewood, John Lee Hancock, Alison. Anders, Daniel Petrie Sr., Kat Hsieh, Frank Perry, Amy Holden Jones, Stuart Rosenberg, Penelope Spheeris, Charles B. Pierce, Tamra Davis, Norman Taurog, Jennifer Lee, Paul Wendkos, Marisa Silver, John Mackenzie, Ida Lupino, John V. Soto, Martha Coolidge, Peter Hyams, Tim Hunter, Stephanie Rothman, Betty Thomas, John Flynn, Lizzie Borden, Lionel -Jeffries, Lexi Alexander, Alkinos Tsirimidos, Stewart Raffill, Lamont Johnson, Maggie Greenwald, Tamara Jenkins.
