Made in U.S.A (1966 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Made in U.S.A is a 1966 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Greatly inspired by the Howard Hawks film The Big Sleep and unofficially based on the novel The Jugger by Donald E. Westlake.
Because neither Godard or the producer paid the book's adaptation rights and following legal action by Westlake, the film has been more or less unavailable in the United States. Marianne Faithfull has a cameo in a cafe scene where she sings "As Tears Go By".
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Plot
Paula Nelson (Anna Karina), a female version of Humphrey Bogart's hardboiled detectives, goes to Atlantic City to meet her lover, Richard Politzer, at an unknown point in the future (maybe 1969). Once there, she learns that Richard is dead and decides to investigate his death. In her hotel room, she meets Typhus, who she ends up knocking out. His dead corpse is later found in the apartment of David Goodis (Yves Afonso), a writer. Paula is arrested to be interrogated because of the death of Typhus. From then on, she encounters many gangsters.
Cast
- Anna Karina as Paula Nelson
- Jean-Pierre Léaud as Donald Siegel
- László Szabó as Richard Widmark
- Marianne Faithfull as Herself
- Ernest Menzer as Edgar Typhus
- Kyôko Kosaka as Doris Mizoguchi
- Yves Afonso as David Goodis
- Marc Dudicourt as Barman
- Rémo Forlani as Workman in bar
- Jean-Luc Godard as Richard Politzer (voice)
- Sylvain Godet as Robert MacNamara
- Claude Bouillon as Inspector Aldrich
- Claude Bakka as Man with Marianne Faithfull
- Philippe Labro as Himself
- Jean-Pierre Biesse as Richard Nixon
Production
The movie was shot at the same time as Two or Three Things I Know About Her. Godard did it to help his friend and producer, Georges de Beauregard, in difficulties after the censure of La Religieuse, a movie by Jacques Rivette, that he produced.
This is the last full-length movie where Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard collaborated. He again directed her in a segment (called "Anticipation, ou: l'amour en l'an 2000" (Anticipation: or Love in the Year 2000)) of the movie Le plus vieux métier du monde (1967).
Background
The film was shot at the same time as Two or Three Things I Know About Her. Godard did it to help his friend and producer, Georges de Beauregard, through difficulties after the censorship of The Nun (1966), a film by Jacques Rivette, that he produced.
This is the last full-length film on which Karina and Godard collaborated. He again directed her in a segment ("Anticipation, ou: l'amour en l'an 2000" (Anticipation: or Love in the Year 2000)) of the film The Oldest Profession (1967).
Marianne Faithfull has a cameo in a cafe scene where she sings "As Tears Go By".
Characters in the film are named for such real-life personages as Don Siegel, Kenji Mizoguchi, Richard Widmark, Robert McNamara, David Goodis, and Richard Nixon. Paula Nelson is probably named for Baby Face Nelson, about whom Siegel had made a film starring Mickey Rooney.
The film is dedicated to "Nick and Sam", referring to Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller, "Hollywood mavericks who were objects of filial awe and Oedipal aggression" for Godard.
