Every head has its price

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Movie
German title Every head has its price
Original title The Hunter
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1980
length 93 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Buzz Kulik
script Christopher Keane
Ralph Thorson
production Mort Engelberg
music Michel Legrand
camera Fred J. Koenekamp
cut Robert L. Wolfe
occupation

Every head has its price (Original title: The Hunter) is an American action film by Buzz Kulik from 1980 with Steve McQueen in his final role. The film was shot from September 10, 1979 to November 28, 1979 and opened on August 1, 1980 with Paramount Pictures distribution in US cinemas. Rastar Pictures was responsible for the production . The film was released in the Federal Republic of Germany on December 19, 1980 by Paramount Pictures.

action

The film tells the true story of Ralph "Papa" Thorson, a modern day bounty hunter . Thorson is around 50 and earns a living based on an old 19th century law that allows him to recapture fugitive criminals and collect the premium for their apprehension. "Papa" is out and about in a 1951 Chevrolet in the southwest of the USA and tracks down the young black bail fugitive Tommy Price in a bar, whom he wants to bring back to Los Angeles . Although he tries to escape, Thorson can arrest the boy without any problems. On the way back to LA, the bounty hunter intends to capture Billy Joe Face in Houston and also to take him to Los Angeles. Sheriff Joe Strong, uncle of Billy Joe Face, however unmistakably refers Papa to town after a brief interview. However, this does not prevent the "Hunter" from arresting Strong's relatives as well. However, he can only overpower the colossus, who is having fun with a minor, with great difficulty and with the help of a stunning cartridge. Thorson brings Price and Face to LA. He wants to help young Price and gives him his address. At home, Papa's much younger, heavily pregnant friend, the teacher Dotty, is waiting for him. Thorson is not thrilled that he is going to be a father. The nostalgic - his hobby is collecting old tin toys - is of the opinion that everything was better in the past. One should no longer put children into today's broken world, into which he can look every day at work. As hard and relentless as he is at work, Thorson has a heart for outsiders. His house is the meeting point of a group of underdogs, and so after a short time the young Tommy Price also comes to his place. He got around the prison and now sets about repairing various electrical appliances in Papa Thorson's house - but without much success. Meanwhile, Rocco Mason - a pill-addicted ex-convict from San Quentin - watches Thorson's house from a VW bus. While Thorson is having dinner with his business partner Blumenthal in a diner, Mason vows revenge on him over the phone. Ralph takes the threat seriously because he once arrested Mason. So he gives Dotty a gun and ammunition to be on the safe side.

A little later, Papa flies to Nebraska on Ritchie Blumenthal's assignment to catch the "Dynamite Brothers" Luke and Matthew Branch. In the meantime, Dotty is sitting alone at work in her classroom. Suddenly Rocco appears. After threatening Dotty and announcing that he would kill Ralph, he cries out terribly and disappears again. The disturbed Dotty calls the police, a colleague offers her help. Meanwhile, Thorson arrives in a fast new rental car on the squalid property of the Branch brothers on the prairie and finds everything calm. However, the brothers have now seized his car and are trying to run over him. Ralph can avoid the car and the first stick of dynamite thrown at him. He takes up the chase of the two with a combine harvester in an adjacent corn field. After the field was completely destroyed, the two weird birds in Thorson's rental car accidentally run over a stick of dynamite they had laid themselves. After the detonation, Ralph brings the injured anti-social men and his completely destroyed rental car to the airport on a flatbed truck. At home, Dotty breaks up with Dad because she's fed up with his job and Ralph's lack of interest in her pregnancy. These are hard times for Ralph, because when he visits a police officer friend he finds out that he is totally drunk. The policeman is completely frustrated because his neighbor is a drug dealer who he cannot harm. Ralph's friend faces jail because he'd sold a dose of drugs himself. He asks Ralph to have one last bottle of whiskey with him after he has hardly misunderstood the announcement that he wants to commit suicide. That night Thorson finally learns about the suicide of the policeman in a bar, which gives him cause to get seriously drunk himself.

The next day, Thorson lies in bed alone at home, hungover and depressed. Old Blumenthal appears and tries to cheer Ralph up: he'll be a father and everything will be wonderful. Dotty loves him and a man would be nothing without a family, besides he could use the money now. So he finally persuades him to take Dotty and the money on the next (albeit dangerous) job.

The location is Chicago . There Papa is supposed to "pick up" the young violent criminal Bernardo for Ritchie. In a slum he tracks down the armed psychopath who immediately opens fire with a shotgun. After a breakneck chase in the suburban train, in which Bernardo shoots a passenger and takes a child hostage, Thorson rushes him further into a parking garage. Bernardo steals a vehicle, Thorson follows him with a hijacked tow truck - after a driving error, Bernardo falls from a great height out of the parking garage into the water and is killed in the process. When Papa's return, his house is devastated, the dog is dead. Tommy Price is badly battered and can still tell him that Dotty has been kidnapped by Rocco. Thorson races to school where he finds Dotty tied up and gagged. There is a showdown. Rocco first shoots a policeman, then Thorson can lure him into the chemistry room, where he can kill the madman with an explosion. Dotty went into labor at school, whereupon Thorson drives her to the hospital and is overwhelmed at the sight of the newborn.

background

  • Ralph "Papa" Thorson has caught more than 5,000 criminals in 30 years.
  • Every head has its price was Steve McQueen's last film.
  • The profession of bounty hunter has not really existed since the times of the Wild West. A ruling by the Supreme Court in 1872 allowed Ralph Thorson to operate legally.
  • Ralph Thorson makes a cameo as a bartender.
  • On a budget of approximately $ 8,000,000, the film grossed approximately $ 16,274,150.

Locations

  • Alexander Hamilton High School - 2955 S. Robertson Blvd., Palms District, Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Bonfield, Illinois, USA
  • Chicago, Illinois, USA
  • East Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Herscher, Illinois, USA
  • Kankakee, Illinois, USA
  • Lemont, Illinois, USA
  • Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Mant-eno, Illinois, USA
  • Marina City - 300 N. State Street, Near North Side, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Reviews

  • Süddeutsche Zeitung of December 22nd, 1980: "Steve McQueen would have had a better last film".

DVD release

  • Every head has its price, May 29, 2002

literature

  • Dirk Manthey: Stuntman - The business with death, Second cinema publishing house, Hamburg 1982, ISBN 3-88724-007-3 .
  • Robert J. Kirberg: Steve McQueen - his films - his life, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-453-86081-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Robert J. Kirberg : Steve McQueen. His films - his life. Heyne Munich 1985, ISBN 3-453-86081-0 ( Heyne Film Library 81)