Last Embrace (1979)

*****

This is another one I can now take off my #missedmoviesofthe70s list.

After seeing Roy Scheider in Sorcerer a while back I told myself that i'd pretty much like to see everything the guy had ever made, Last Embrace being quite high up on that list of films.

The story is quite complex but told so brilliantly that it unfolds like a great novel, which isn't surprising considering this was based on the book The 13th Man. It starts with Scheider and his wife having dinner at a restaurant, some guys walk in whom Scheider seems to recognise straight away, there is a slight pause and then gunfire opens up between the men killing Scheider's wife in the process. Then the story moves forward a few months and Scheider is being released from care after taking his wife's death quite badly. He arrives back home to find a young woman living in his apartment, she hands him a note that had been left with her, a threat of some sort written in Hebrew. This is when the story really unfolds as Scheider believes he is to be killed next, but must find out by who and why, everyone is now a suspect.

Shaber's dialogue is absolutely fantastic, you couldn't fault it, almost Warriors-esque in some parts... "Ya get me?". The film also moves forward at an unbelievably fast rate and you don't want to miss a second.

I loved this film, it reminded me a lot of The Long Goodbye, another 70's movie which I hold close to my heart as a personal favourite.
This movie is a masterpiece and one which needs to be seen and appreciated by more people. I've only seen a handful of Demme's over films like Philadelphia, Silence of the Lambs and the amazingly underrated Something Wild.