★★★★★
Everybody’s Talkin’ by Harry Nilsson drifts in and out of this iconic buddy movie for the first 15 minutes. The tone is deceptively playful. As is star Jon Voight’s “gee shucks” turn as novice prostitute Joe Buck, arriving in New York City with naive dreams of wealthy, grateful clientele.
It goes wrong from the start (a dalliance with a terrifying Sylvia Miles), the money never flows, and there is violence and (implied) murder. But the beauty is the slowly evolving friendship of Buck and Dustin Hoffman’s eccentric Ratso Rizzo.
The direction, from John Schlesinger, is radical by today’s standards (especially the speedy non-chronological editing), while the lines, from screenwriter Waldo Salt, are to die for. “Frankly, you’re beginning to smell,” Rizzo says to Buck.