Targets (1968)

Roger Corman offered to produce (without credit) whatever film first time director Peter Bogdanovich wanted to make under two conditions: He had to cast Boris Karloff, who owed Corman two days work; and to keep the cost down, he had to pad the running time with footage from an earlier Karloff film. The result was TARGETS (1968), which proved to be too topical for many theaters to touch when it initially appeared. That's a shame, because it provided Karloff with an A-level role as the sun set on his life and career. Bogdanovich tells parallel stories which converge at the finale: One involves a young man who turns to bloodshed when he feels that he has nothing ahead of him; the other revolves around an aged film star who believes that everything is behind him. Timely when released because of the social climate; timely now because of the politically charged debate over gun control; and ultimately - thanks to the presence of the great Karloff - timeless.