THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE gave Robert Mitchum his meatiest role since 1962’s Cape Fear. In the eleven years between that thriller and this 1973 crime & punishment drama he’d mixed agreeably solid turns in the WW2 epic The Longest Day and the overlooked adventure Mister Moses with a slew of detached, saunter-thru check collectors ranging from fun to fatiguing. As in Cape Fear, here he’s a criminal, but unlike Fear‘s monstrous sadist ‘Max Cady’, energized by revenge and venom in his veins, the weary, middle-aged two-time loser Eddie Coyle, a low-level independent (he thinks) gun runner in Boston, has a code of honor, professional standards, family he loves and a genuine desire to move on and make sure his past hasn’t locked the door on his future.

“This life’s hard, man, but it’s harder if you’re stupid.

Two stretches in stir was enough for Eddie Coyle: to avoid a third he hopes to get a break from ambitious ATF agent ‘Dave Foley’ (Richard Jordan) by supplying info on a higher-notch gunrunner whose stolen weapons are being used in bank robberies and are also being sought by some young radicals. Eddie has dealings with or knows something about a number of legality-averse individuals, but only really trusts ‘Dillon’ (Peter Boyle) a bar owner who ‘hears things’. Is he on the square? Are those hippie rebels as dim as they seem? Will Foley honor a deal? With friends like Eddie’s…?

Badass Bob at 55. It’s not his most famous character (The Night Of The Hunter), most likable (Heaven Knows Mr. Allison, The Sundowners) or most recognizably ‘Mitchum’ (Out Of The Past, Thunder Road) but is his most convincingly natural and subtle—you feel like you’re not watching cool movie star Robert Mitchum but tired and cornered Eddie Coyle.

Screenwriter-producer Paul Monash was best known for numerous top quality TV movies; this was one of his few feature films and his skillset was pre-positioned for success since he was adapting the highly regarded debut novel by George V. Higgins (1970,192 pages) and direction was entrusted to Peter Yates, who’d proven his bona fides with Robbery, Bullitt and The Hot Rock.

The fully convincing slice of the underside was lost in the crowd at 93rd place with a getaway haul of just $3,000,000. True grittiness, featuring Steven Keats, Alex Rocco, Joe Santos, Mitchell Ryan, Helena Carroll, Jack Kehoe, Margaret Ladd and James Tolkan. Scored by Dave Grusin. 102 minutes.

* Among the year’s array of superior crime-oriented films, 1973 offered a gang of lawbreakers to root for or at least sympathize with via The Sting, Papillon, The Thief Who Came To Dinner, The Outfit and Charley Varrick, the last giving Walter Matthau his best dramatic role as an affective kinsman to Eddie Coyle.