The Last Detail
![The Last Detail](https://prod-images.tcm.com/v5cache/TCM/Images/Dynamic/i190/lastdetail1973_1024x767_01092013013549.jpg)
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Hal Ashby
Jack Nicholson
Otis Young
Randy Quaid
Gilda Radner
Clifton James
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Returning back to the U.S. with a criminal in tow, navy lifers turn their prison escort of a kleptomaniac into a profane and raucous government paid vacation.
Director
![](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/HalAshby.6212.1.jpg?imwidth=188&height=141)
Hal Ashby
Cast
![](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/JackNicholson.jpg?imwidth=188&height=141)
Jack Nicholson
Otis Young
Randy Quaid
![](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/GildaRadner.156949.jpg?imwidth=188&height=141)
Gilda Radner
Clifton James
Michael Moriarty
![](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/CarolKane.98252.jpg?imwidth=188&height=141)
Carol Kane
![](https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/LuanaAnders.jpg?imwidth=188&height=141)
Luana Anders
Nancy Allen
Kathleen Miller
Gerry Salsberg
Don Mcgovern
Pat Hamilton
Michael Chapman
Jim Henshaw
Derek Mcgrath
Jim Horn
John Castellano
Crew
Gerald Ayres
Michael Chapman
Michael Haller
Robert C. Jones
Johnny Mandel
Wes Mcafee
Tommy Overton
Lester Persky
Darryl Ponicsan
Richard Portman
Robert Towne
Videos
Movie Clip
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Trailer
Hosted Intro
Promo
Film Details
Technical Specs
Award Nominations
Best Actor
Best Supporting Actor
Best Writing, Screenplay
Articles
The Last Detail
Nicholson plays "Bad Ass" Buddusky, a hell-raising lifetime Navy man who's been around long enough to know that he doesn't always have to play by military rules...so long as he doesn't get caught. When the film begins, Buddusky and a fellow lifer named Mulhall (Otis Young) are ordered to transport a naïve midshipman named Meadows (Randy Quaid) to a military prison in a distant state. It seems Meadows was caught lifting $40 from a charity box on the base, but had the misfortune of choosing the admiral's wife's pet charity. So poor Meadows gets the book thrown at him, receiving eight years in jail and a dishonorable discharge for his petty theft.
At first, the sailors are shocked by the sentence, but they roll with the absurdity of Navy existence and proceed to lug their handcuffed ward, via bus and train, to the looming prison. However, both Buddusky and Mulhall slowly befriend Meadows, who's as sweet and optimistic as they are grizzled. Before long, Buddusky takes pity on the kid and decides to force-feed him the life that he'll miss while rotting away in a prison cell, a decision that doesn't always sit well with Mulhall. This leads to a string of often hilarious, sometimes tender, testosterone-charged activities. It also causes a seismic shift in Buddusky's consciousness, as he comes to recognize that he's lived most of his life in a prison of his own making. Buddusky and Mulhall must also wrestle with the knowledge that, eventually, they must deliver Meadows to the brig.
Outside of Nicholson, the real star of The Last Detail is Towne's profane, heartbreaking screenplay. Until this point, Towne was mainly known as a virtuoso script doctor, a hired gun who could put an un-credited polish on somebody else's work until it shined like a newly-cut diamond. His re-tooling of both Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and The Godfather (1972) were poorly-kept secrets in movie circles, and most people felt that he would one day deliver a stunning screenplay of his own. Nicholson, who had known Towne for years, already had him lined up to pen a re-make of the John Garfield melodrama, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). But when that film fell through, both Nicholson and Towne elected to do The Last Detail (Nicholson would later make The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) for director Bob Rafelson with David Mamet writing the screenplay). Nicholson, it should be noted, also passed on the role that Robert Redford eventually played in The Sting (1973) in order to do The Last Detail.
Given the iconoclastic nature of the script's main character, Nicholson and Towne couldn't have asked for a better collaborator than director Hal Ashby. Ashby was, by anyone's standards, about two steps away from being a straight-up hippie, a shaggy-haired, bearded man whose previous film, Harold and Maude (1971), was too eccentric and bizarre for mainstream audiences and was written off as a failure at the time. Nicholson, Towne, and Ashby knew that Darryl Ponicsan's source novel was a richly metaphorical piece that would allow them to comment on the rift in American society between the innocents and the good ol' boys who were beginning to fear the rumblings of the youth movement. It would be an understatement to say that they made the most of what they were given.
The film they delivered to Columbia Pictures is a marvel of small details, colorful language, and utterly believable character development, which cumulatively pack a real emotional wallop. The dour atmosphere is also helped immensely by the washed-out look of the film, courtesy of Michael Chapman, who would go on to shoot both Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980). (Chapman briefly appears in The Last Detail as a friendly cabbie.)
There's a sad note about the casting of The Last Detail. From the moment he read the book, Nicholson wanted his dear friend, Rupert Crosse, to play Mulhall, and looked forward to verbally jousting with him on the big screen. But Crosse became ill with cancer, and died of the disease in March of 1973. As it stands, Nicholson's Buddusky tends to overshadow Mulhall, even though Young is nothing short of solid. However, the film may have played as more of an overt buddy picture had Crosse been able to fill the role.
Director: Hal Ashby
Producer: Gerald Ayres
Screenplay: Robert Towne (based on the novel by Darryl Ponicsan)
Cinematography: Michael Chapman
Music: Johnny Mandel
Editing: Robert C. Jones
Production Design: Michael Haller
Costume Design: Ted Parvin
Cast: Jack Nicholson (Buddusky), Otis Young (Mulhall), Randy Quaid (Meadows), Clifton James (Chief Master-at-Arms), Michael Moriarty (Marine Duty Officer), Carol Kane (Young Whore), Luana Anders (Donna), Kathleen Miller (Annette), Nancy Allen (Nancy), Gerry Salsberg (Henry), Don McGovern (Bartender).
C-106 min.
by Paul Tatara
![The Last Detail](https://prod-images.tcm.com/img/film-participant-detail/Featured-Artilce_Placeholder.png)
The Last Detail
Quotes
I hate this detail. I hate this mother-fucking, chicken-shit detail!- Mulhall
If you're Catholic, do you think it's a sin to chant?- Meadows
Did it get you laid?- Budduskey
No.- Meadows
Then Meadows, what the fuck do you want to go on chanting for?- Budduskey
Drop your socks and grab your cocks, we're going to a party.- Meadows
If this kid gets pussy out of this I'll eat my fucking flat hat, man.- Budduskey
I am the motherfucking shore patrol, motherfucker! I am the motherfucking shore patrol! Give this man a beer.- Budduskey
I don't want a beer.- Meadows
You're gonna have a fuckin' beer!- Budduskey
You wanna try it again kid?- Budduskey
Yeah.- Seaman Meadows
OK honey.- Budduskey
Don't worry about it kid, plenty more where that came from.- Mulhall
We got all night kid.- Budduskey
Trivia
The script was completed in 1970, but contained too much profanity to be shot as written. Columbia Pictures waited for two years trying to get writer Robert Towne to tone down the language. Instead, by 1972, the standards for foul language relaxed so much that all the profanity was left in.
John Travolta was strongly in the running to play Meadows, only losing to Randy Quaid at the last minute.
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States 1996
Released in United States Winter December 1973
Released in USA on video.
Released in United States 1996 (Shown in New York City (Film Forum) as part of program "Out of the Seventies: Hollywood's New Wave 1969-1975" May 31 - July 25, 1996.)
Released in United States Winter December 1973