The Last Detail (with film critic Christina Newland)

In our penultimate episode of the season Dario is joined by film Scholar, writer and podcaster Alex Fitch to present a classic of the American new wave: The Last Detail (1973) directed by the under appreciated Hal Ashby and starring Jack Nicholson. Two hard-boiled petty officers, Buddusky and Mulhall, are detailed to take a young sailor, Meadows, to a Naval Prison to serve an eight-year sentence for a trivial offense, and they decide to show him a good time on the way. They narrowly escape a bar fight, tangle with some Marines, and visit a brothel for Meadows’ first sexual experience. After reluctantly turning him in, Buddusky and Mulhall realize they are as much prisoners of their own world as Meadows now is of his.

ario also interviews freelance film critic and journalist Christina Newland. They discuss studying film at university, writing process, feminist politics, and boxing movies along with this weeks overarching theme: the American new wave.

Christina Newland's article on Creed and the Legacy of the boxing film.

Molly Haskell (1987) From Reference to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies

Cinephilia and Beyond: ‘The Last Detail: Hal Ashby and Robert Town's Slice of the 70s America'