The Executioner's Song (1982)

Simply Perfect

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

"The Executioner's Song" from 1982 was a TV movie, and on Netflix, I believe they send out the director's cut. It has lots of Roseanna Arquette's breasts and other body parts.Based on the book by Norman Mailer (who also wrote the screenplay), this is the story of Gary Gilmore, who became famous by demanding that the state of Utah go ahead with his execution. It was the first execution in the US since the 1960s and the first since 1972 when the Supreme Court ruled that death sentences prior to that date were unconstitutional, which is why the Manson group was not executed.Gilmore, who requested to face a firing squad, became kind of a cause celebre. As a hero of some sort, I suppose he fits in well with today's idea of a celebrity. He was basically a loser who always chose the easy way out. When he was released on parole for robbery, he had the help and support of his cousin (Christine Lahti) and his uncle (Eli Wallach), but he was unable to hold down a job and became obsessed with a 19-year-old (Arquette) with two children.He then returned to the robbery business and for no good reason shot and killed two people after he robbed them.I believe this was a TV movie in two parts, so what I saw was shortened. As a result, to make way for Arquette's body, there was quite a bit cut, making it jerky.My main problem was getting any sympathy going for Gilmore or Arquette. Tommy Lee Jones did a terrific job, but even though Gary's family loved him and just hated the things he did, I as an audience member didn't share their feelings. As far as I'm concerned, he wanted to die because he didn't want to stay in prison. He robbed so he could pay for a truck and didn't have to work. Same old story - the easy way out.This story was described as "tragic." The tragedy is that the Arquette character had two children. She was a whack job who tried to commit suicide so that she and Gary could continue their affair in heaven. It said at the end of the movie that she moved and started over. I hope for the sake of her kids that she made it. I have no doubt with her figure she met somebody. Let's hope it wasn't another loser.

i have seen this movie and it is a must have for any movie collection i would love to be able to find it i don't think it has been released on DVD yet. please if anyone knows where i can get this movie please let me know if you catch it on TV you will enjoy it tommy lee jone is exciting and rosanna arquette the girl friend is a knockout if you know what i mean the story is based on a true story which makes it that much more appealing to see i really don't know what else to say but they say you have to fill out ten lines to submit a comment so please excuse my babbling on i am just trying to fill in the ten lines that they ask for so please be patient with me but please see the movie if you get the chance you won't regret it have a great day

Larry Schiller, who is credited with directing this movie, comes off in Mailer's book as a no-nonsense, grasping, egomaniacal self promoter -- a Horace Babbitt for our times. So it comes as a big surprise to find that this movie is professionally done and even tasteful. Schiller was one of the first, well, journalists (I guess), on the scene and sewed up a lot of exclusive contracts with informants. He sold the rights to Mailer. As Schiller's character puts it in this movie, "I'm all suited up and ready to play." And even in enterprises subsequent to Gilmore's story, Schiller is generally described as such a crumb that it's surprising to find this movie has no great directorial displays -- no razzle dazzle pyrotechnics, just clean, functional direction and editing.Of course, Mailer's book was too long to be condensed into even a miniseries in all its complexity, so certain incidents needed to be deleted or compressed. The snitch planted in Gary's cell, for instance. Or the fact that the murders were preceded not by one break up with Nicole Baker but two. Or the fact that there was no one "going away party" for Gary before his execution, but two, the first one having been premature (and anticlimactic).Mailer's book by the way is probably his last very good work, filled with a casual irony that is sometimes amusing. After the first killing, Gary takes the teen aged April to a motel room where, Mailer observes, a paper ribbon has been placed across the closed and antiseptic toilet to prove that nobody has lifted the toilet seat since the paper was placed there.There's no humor in the movie. It's a straightforward, plain-vanilla telling of Gilmore's brief period between his release from prison and his death by firing squad. Tommy Lee Jones is very good as Gary Gilmore. His energy is barely contained. He paces back and forth at moments of tension and gestures in unfamiliar, almost bizarre ways as he tries, for instance, to flag down cars on a highway. He twists his lines in equally idiosyncratic ways, the way Lee Marvin often did, so that one never knows exactly what's coming next.The only other performer of real importance is Rosanne Arquette as Gilmore's girl friend, Nicole. She looks -- ummm -- very nice. Her acting is okay as well, although she doesn't come across nearly as seedy as Jones does. She sounds as if she'd spent time in college, whereas Jones (who was in Harvard) sounds like he's spent half his life in prison. She is, however, so succulent that one hardly notices her performance.The movie has no superscore. The music is country and western, and unusually apt. It adds to the shabby atmosphere established. Nobody seems to be really having a good time. And I never suspected Salt Lake City had such a debauched underworld -- people guzzling beer as they drive, smoking, shacking up impulsively, strung out on dope and New Age insanity. Yet they are for the most part respectable and law abiding, even the tattooed bikers and other lowlifes that Gary cultivates as friends.There are only two murders and we don't see the victims' heads explode. In fact there is hardly any blood. (That's what I meant when I said the movie was relatively tasteful.) What motivated Gilmore? I mean, two senseless killings for a few dollars to pay off a pickup truck. Who knows? Not even Gilmore knows. Ditto for Nicole Baker. She and Gary agreed to commit joint suicide while he was in prison. The first attempt failed and they tried a second time. (One of the attempts is again omitted as anticlimactic, which is okay.) She smuggled the depressants into the prison by putting them in a balloon in her vagina. This may or may not sound realistic, but it is. I was surprised to find couples in the visiting room at California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo engaged in almost everything short of what might be a definition of "sexual relations" broader than that of President Clinton. Neat. The inmates were doing a lot better than I had at their age.This is an above average miniseries, well worth watching. Not full of pungent insights into human nature or anything -- just a gripping story of a doomed and careless man. Get the unrated version.

I first saw The Executioner's Song on a premium cable channel sometime in the mid-80s, and I loved the story which is close to what I remembered from less than a decade earlier when news of Gary Gilmore's pending execution and his fight for his sentence to go through, and I watch this movie every time I have a chance. Also I love Tommy Lee Jones in ever role he has ever played, as he is an excellent actor.I have one peeve, however. The real Gary Gilmore (at least according to the photographs and the footage I ever saw of him), had medium brown hair and very bright blue eyes. I think that a different actor should have played him at least to be true to how he really looked like. I could think of actors, such as Robert Redford, Harrison Ford, Jeff or Beau Bridges or (right at the top of my head) could have been actors that could have done just as much of a superb job as Tommy Lee Jones did, as they also did have the brown hair and the blue eyes, while Tommy Lee Jones had dark hair and brown eyes.Other than that, the movie was great that I seldom miss a chance when it airs on TV.