I am a published author of books about film - over a dozen to my name, the latest being "When Women Ruled Hollywood." As the title of the blog suggests, this is a site devoted to movies of the 1960s but since I go to the movies twice a week - an old-fashioned double-bill of my own choosing - I might occasionally slip in a review of a contemporary picture.
Top-class cast and occasional stylish direction get in the way of a thriller that can’t make up its mind whether it is in reality just a spoof. On the one hand we have a killer in a white suit complete with straw boater and a secret service boss who sells Turkish Delight, on the other hand a story not so much from James Bond but from Bond imitators.
Agent Robert Ford (Christian Marquand) is on the trail of black boxes that prevent missiles launching. When wife Shanny (Jean Seberg) is framed for his murder she determines to uncover the real killer, aided by Dex (Maurice Ronet), and find the maker of the boxes.
But that’s an over-simplification of an over-complicated plot so it’s best to concentrate on the highlights. For example, when customs officials stop a magician they find white rabbits and doves in his vehicle and, despite severe interrogation, he can, magically, release himself from his bonds enough to swallow a concealed cyanide pill. Instead of the usual cute children that proliferate in these kind of films, there’s a really annoying one. Shanny, imprisoned, has to make dolls. Greek Orthodox priests play a significant role.
Throw in kinky secret service boss Sharps (Michel Bouquet) who relishes being slapped for his inappropriate overtures to Shanny, a porn film starring Madame Phiphi, the heroine dangled from a crane and later lashed down to a dumper, and a villain willing to throw up is villainy for the love of a good woman.
But mostly it’s a picture in a rush. There are chases galore and nods to Hitchcock and lush Greek scenery.
It would be easy to assume that in eye-catching outfits Jean Seberg (Moment to Moment, 1966) is mostly there to provide eye candy but she does manage to outwit her pursuers from time to time although she seems equally to have a knack for being caught. Maurice Ronet (Lost Command, 1966), Christian Marquand (The Corrupt Ones, 1967) and especially Michel Bouquet (La Femme Infidele, 1969) bring an air of quality to the proceedings.
Apart from the occasional stunning image, this is not the Claude Chabrol (Les Biches, 1968) that lovers of his thrillers would expect.
Had Sean Connery played the character of Duke Anderson as written, rather than reigniting his career it would have risked killing it off. It was already a significant ask for a star to shift from portraying good guys – even if James Bond had an immoral streak – to essaying a bad guy, though here was precedent – Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Steve McQueen in some style in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).
However, it would be difficult enough for audiences to accept a star who is two-timing his girlfriend, never mind one who in turn exhibits sadistic and masochistic streaks.
So that was the first problem for Oscar nominated screenwriter Frank Pierson (Cool Hand Luke) and not surprisingly he settles on the elimination route. The character’s sexual tendences are never mentioned. Theoretically, Pierson gets round the two-timing issue by merging the two girlfriends, Ingrid Macht and Agnes Everleigh, into one, Ingrid Everly (Dyan Cannon).
But Ingrid Everly has little connection to Agnes beyond that she lives in a luxury apartment. In the book, Agnes is a casual pickup, a woman he meets in a bar. She was separated from her husband and retained possession of the apartment, which was in his name. In order to find the legal grounds on which he could regain the apartment, her husband had bugged the apartment.
In the film, the apartment is still bugged, but by her rich jealous boyfriend Werner (Richard B Shull) so, technically, it’s Ingrid who’s doing the two-timing. Whereas in the book Agnes’s husband is perfectly happy for her to be entertaining other men as he hopes this will enhance his chances in the divorce settlement, in the film Werner is the opposite, and does not embrace the notion of what he views as his “property” being involved with anyone else. Ingrid, who was genuinely Anderson’s ex-girlfriend, in the film comes to realize a sugar daddy is a better bet than a criminal no matter how handsome. The only oddity in the picture that when Anderson is confronted and Werner explains that, via his surveillance, he knows Anderson is planning a robbery, that he doesn’t give two hoots about that.
Other changes are equally sensible. In the book, the robbery is intended to take place in the middle of the night. The ploy the thieves planned to use to get the apartment residents to open their doors was that the building was on fire. This wasn’t by triggering the fire alarm but by running from door to door, shouting “Fire! Fire!”. Pierson gets rid of that cumbersome device.
He also knocks into touch the notion that Tommy (Martin Balsam) would find supposedly legitimate reason to gain access to apartments to scout the premises in advance by pretending to be doing a survey for a civic group. In the book Tommy is a two-bit low-level hood and not involved in the actual robbery but with some knowledge of art and expensive items. In the film he transforms into a smooth-talking antiques dealer and Frank Pierson comes up with the idea that the management of the building is planning a refurbishment and wants to ensure that residents have the opportunity to align their interior décor with what is being planned.
In the book as well as eight luxury apartments, there are, on the ground floor two businesses, a doctor and a psychiatrist, but these are also thrown on the scrap heap, although in the book the doctor turns out to have $10,000 hidden away from the taxman as well as medicines that could be sold on the black market.
The pompous Capt. Delaney (Ralph Meeker) who organizes the offensive on the robbers, is drawn virtually word for word from the book. But there’s not room to incorporate all the criminal slang. I was especially intrigued to discover that what I always believed was called “a big job” was known to the criminal fraternity as “a campaign.” Nor the details of organizing such a robbery.
And there are a couple of interesting snippets in the book that Pierson had no room for in the movie. Firstly, author Lawrence Sanders includes verbatim a newspaper report dated 2nd July, 1968, to the effect that a new electronic communications office has been opened by the police to help cut down, initially, response times. The report included another fascinating fact. Prior to this date to report a crime the American public had to call a seven-digit number. That was reduced to the ”911” emergency number that operates today.
The second element is the call to unite all the different operations running criminal surveillance. Here, including Werner, there were four separate surveillance teams, none in contact with any of the others.
The book is a terrific read. I devoured it in one sitting. It is Sanders who introduces the flash forwards, interviews or somesuch with victims, while in real time the robbery is under way.
But the screenplay is an ideal example of how to trim a book to the bone without removing any of the essentials.
Sanders was also the author of The First Deadly Sin which was filmed with Frank Sinatra in 1980 and reviewed here earlier.
Director Sidney Lumet has made more critically acclaimed crime pictures – Serpico (1973) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975) earned eight Oscar nominations between them – but none have been as thrillingly entertaining as this mash-up of the heist and surveillance subgenres. Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974) has unfairly dominated the conversation regarding surveillance pictures, in large part down to Gene Hackman’s repressed performance, and because it made the ever-popular suggestion that Big Brother ruled the roost and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
These days The Anderson Tapes would hardly get out of the starting gate before everyone was whimpering about civil liberties and the fact that surveillance did the very job the public wanted it to do, which was to prevent crime and catch wrongdoers, would have been largely overlooked in the welter of lawsuits. A very clever device here prevents anyone getting trapped in that moral maze, so that what we’re left with is the inside gen on a superbly-organized and audacious robbery.
There’s a Thomas Crown Affair (1968) feel to this but where Norman Jewison employed split screen to get his various interlinked narratives across, here Lumet relies on speedy flash forwards intercutting the ongoing story.
The incipient danger of star Sean Connery was kept under wraps in the 007 outings, but here audiences get a blast of the full macho man, the take-charge kind of guy, and no bureaucratic buffoons getting in the way, and with no gadgets to rely upon it comes down to the sheer physicality of a magnetic screen personality.
Duke Anderson (Sean Connery) is no sooner out of prison after serving a ten-year stretch than he’s planning an audacious robbery, cleaning out an entire upmarket apartment block in the Manhattan Upper East Side, in which former girlfriend Ingrid (Dyan Cannon) lives in considerable luxury, over the Labor Day Holiday Weekend. After winning initial funding from the Mafia, he enrols, among others, camp antiques dealer Tommy (Martin Balsam), getaway driver Edward (Dick Williams), and “The Kid” (Christopher Walken), a young expert in alarms and electronics. As part of the deal he agrees to bump off another recruit, Rocco (Val Avery), who has fallen foul of the Mafia.
Everything that occurs is being recorded one way or another. Setting aside the building’s closed circuit television, Ingrid’s sugar daddy Werner (Richard B. Shull) has bugged her apartment and the cops have wiretaps on the Mafia and various others. This being a heist picture headed up by the world’s most popular star, as much as you want the criminals caught you want them to get away with it, Sean Connery having a self-justification scene at the outset to set liberal minds at rest.
So this is part docu-drama and part a whole bunch of cameos from the victims of the robbery as their, often heinous, personalities come into sharp perspective: siblings who rat each other out, the husband willing to allow his wife to be abused rather than give up a single dollar of his vast fortune. Even wealthy Werner couldn’t care less about a robbery as long as Ingrid knows her place, she’s his “property,” and has to choose him rather than Duke Anderson because, as feisty as she is, she relies on his dough for the good things in life.
But it’s driven by the hardnosed Anderson who’s not going to let the fact he’s never killed a man before get in the way of doing so now as the alternative would be the loss of the gig. Despite his macho demeanor and being able to run his gang efficiently, he’s aware he’s a small cog in the organized crime wheel.
When the cops get wind of the robbery, that triggers some superb stunt work as cops abseil across buildings.
After the disappointing box office of Shalako (1968), The Red Tent (1969) and The Molly Maguires (1970), Sean Connery roared back to form here, as the likeable hood while adding more edge to his screen persona. Martin Balsam (Hombre, 1967) is otherwise the pick of the supporting cast, though Christopher Walken, on his debut, makes his mark and you can’t ignore Dyan Cannon (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, 1969).
But this is just terrific stuff from Lumet, who was apt in his more critically-acclaimed pieces to drift into the overly serious, and while he makes a point – at a very early stage, please note – of the ubiquitous power of surveillance, he lets that speak for itself while he concentrates on the more thrilling and more human aspects of the story. Screenplay by Frank Pierson (Cool Hand Luke, 1967) from the best seller by Lawrence Sanders (The First Deadly Sin, 1980). As a bonus, a first class score from Quincy Jones (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice).
The mother of all heists directed by the father of all heist pictures. Films as diverse as The Italian Job (1969), Mission Impossible (1996) and Ocean’s Eleven (1960) owe director Jules Dassin a massive debt since he pretty much invented this genre with the French-made Rififi (1955). But that involved professional criminals. Outside of masterminds Elizabeth (Melina Mercouri) and Walter (Maximilian Schell), this crew are amateurs, deliberately chosen for their lack of criminal records and with a mind to the specific tasks required. So we have acrobat Giulio (Gilles Segal), upper-class English gadget inventor Cedric (Robert Morley), strongman Hans (Jess Fisher) and driver Arthur (Peter Ustinov).
The target is the impenetrable, complete with sound-sensitive floor, Topkapi Palace in Istanbul where they plan to steal a priceless emerald-encrusted dagger. The plan is ingenious. Arthur is initially only hired to smuggle the weapons essential to the audacious heist across the border. But when he is caught and forced to cooperate with the Turkish secret police, he is enlisted as a replacement for Hans. Minus the rifles and grenades which at first appeared indispensable to the plan, the thieves come up with an even more inspired alternative involving among other things scampering across rooftops, abseiling, a parrot and slowing down the revolutions of a lighthouse.
Originally intending to betray his colleagues as soon as possible, Arthur falls under the seductive spell of Elizabeth and finds himself recruited as the replacement muscles. Elizabeth exudes such sexuality she has the entire gang in her thrall and makes the cowardly, weak acrophobic Arthur believe he can overcome all his fears. Walter engages in a cat-and-mouse game with the police, always one step ahead, with a bagful of red herrings at his disposal, eventually giving the pursuers the slip during a wrestling competition held in a massive outdoor arena.
Interestingly, too, this doesn’t have the trope of gangsters at each other’s throats, planning to double-cross one another or bearing old grudges. Nobody challenges the leader. In fact, the entire crew could not be more docile, content to sit at the feet of Elizabeth and Walter, lapping up the former’s flirtation, wondering at the latter’s skill, as if they are all honored to have been chosen.
The climactic heist, carried out with no musical soundtrack and lasting over 30 minutes, is absolutely superb, setting a very high bar for future imitators, and there is a twist ending. Dassin mixes light comedy and high tension with the sultry attractions of Elizabeth to produce an at times breathtaking picture. As well as the heist itself, the wrestling sequence is stunning and the transition of Arthur forms the acting highlight (Ustinov won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar).
But all four main stars are superb. Audiences accustomed to a more uptight Maximilian Schell (The Condemned of Altona (1962) will have been surprised by his performance. Melina Mercouri (Oscar-nominated for Never on Sunday, 1960) is the archetypal blonde bombshell, liberal with her favors but careful not to favor just one. Although Walter devises the plan, she is actually the criminal supremo, selecting the targets, and then delegating to ensure the tasks are carried out. Robert Morley is having the time of his life. Akim Tamiroff (Lord Jim, 1965) has a cameo as a chef.
A film noir star after Brute Force (1947) and The Naked City (1948) Dassin’s Hollywood career collapsed in the wake of the anti-Communist McCarthy hearings and he was blacklisted. Rififi opened few doors but even the success of Never on Sunday (1960) brought little respite. Despite returning to the mainstream with such elan through the conduit of Topkapi, albeit with a European cast, he remained on the Hollywood periphery and although Uptight (1968) – previously reviewed in the Blog – involved another heist that was primarily the wrapping for social documentary.
More at home with comedies screenwriter Monja Danischewsky (The Battle of the Sexes, 1960) draws out more humor than the source material, Light of Day by noted thriller writer Eric Ambler, would ostensibly suggest.
A delight from start to finish, the crème de la crème of the heist genre, this is unmissable. Dassin can lay claim to being the John Ford of the crime picture.
Well-worked full length British thriller that goes against the grain of presenting sympathetic hoods in the vein of Ocean’s Eleven or The League of Gentlemen both out the same year in which audiences largely align with the gangsters in part because they come across as charming and in part because their aims appear thoroughly reasonable.
Unlike the shorter efforts under the Renown umbrella this has time to develop several narrative strands, with deceit the main motivation, and spends a goodly time on the mechanics of robbery, the planning, the percentage split accorded each member, and the heist itself, which is an arduous one, involving digging through a brick wall.
Dominic (Terence Morgan) isn’t exactly a petty thief not when he can dress himself up to the nines, infiltrate a society wedding and make off with an expensive piece of jewellery, which he hides in an unusually clever fashion. But working on his own account is far more lucrative than being an employee in a watch-smuggling ring run by Joe Preedy (John Crawford) who has a classy wife Christine (Mai Zetterling) and life and has so much dough lying around that he’s easy pickings for Dominic who has a side hustle bring dupes to the gambling tables of the pukka Edward (Dennis Price).
Dominic happens to be bedding Christine but that still leaves him time to romance Fina (Yoko Tani), daughter of an ambassador, who casually reveals the embassy safe contains £100,000. She’s so helplessly in love she falls for his tale of them running off together and becomes an accomplice.
With the assistance of Edward, Dominic snookers Joe into supplying the readies to pay for the robbery set-up costs, the tools, gelignite etc. The plan involves digging a hole through the tunnels of the London Underground into the basement of the embassy.
Joe’s share of the spoils will hardly cover his debts so he’s intent on making off with the full amount. As it happens, Dominic has precisely the same idea. Christine is roped in, unknown to her husband, to act as getaway driver.
There’s a hefty dose of characterization unusual in these movies, more than just information dumps about characters. Dominic could easily fund the caper with the cash he would get from selling the stolen diamond, but he holds out for a larger amount from a fence. Joe should easily be able to afford the money, but he’s in dire financial straits because he lost a packet at the gambling tables and his own astuteness in ferreting away all he owns in his wife’s name. That puts his gains well beyond the long arm of the law but leaves him illiquid (I guess is the technical term) and he has to beg Christine to pawn her mink coats.
She’s a smooth operator, an amateur artist, happily living off Joe’s nefarious activities while running around with Dominic and planning to run away with him at robbery end. Joe’s desperate to be seen as a major player, hence his attendance at the casino, and kicking off when he doesn’t get his way, and raging against all the toffs born with a silver spoon in their mouths.
Two of the subsidiary characters are interesting studies. Safecracker the Colonel (William Hartnell) has too much of an eye for the pretty lady and too great a capacity for alcohol, but he’s been careful with his loot, spreading it around in various investments, very secure in his old age, and confident enough in his own abilities that he’s able to negotiate a higher share of the loot. But the prize supporting character is Mouse (Ann Lynn), girlfriend of Dominic’s sidekick Toddy (Charles Kay), who is considered so dumb and harmless that the crooks discuss their plans within her earshot. Except, she’s not concentrating and doesn’t quite get the hang of things and feeds Toddy the wrong information at the wrong time which nearly puts a spoke in the works.
As if the robbery required any more tension. Just how much work is involved in digging a hole through a wall is pretty clear here, should anyone in the audience have ideas of their own. You know double-crossing is also on the cards, not just the Dominic vs Joe and Christine vs Joe but the lovelorn Fina is also due her come-uppance.
And there’s a very nice touch at the end which proves that amateurs are a distinct liability. Any notion Christine has harbored that she would, if only given the chance, prove an ideal getaway driver are misplaced.
Directed by Wolf Rilla (Village of the Damned, 1960) not just with occasional style notes but with a determination to allow his characters room to move from a screenplay by Leigh Vance (Crossplot, 1969). You can catch it on Talking Pictures TV.
All in all a very entertaining little picture strong on tension with a host of interesting characters.
Outside of James Bond, why is it that science fiction has generated the biggest franchises? Star Wars, of course, and all the cross-over cross-under twiddledeedee Marvel worlds, three iterations of Planet of the Apes, Alien, Avatar, Star Trek, Terminator and Predator immediately come to mind. I hadn’t thought of including Stargate until I realized that the initial movie has generated three DTV movies and five television series.
When it first appeared I was knocked out by the chutzpah of bumping up the basic idea behind Chariots of the Gods – that the pyramids were built by aliens – into a big-budget heady adventure. I’ve not seen this in over a quarter of a century so came at it with some misgivings especially as the latest efforts of director Roland Emmerich such as Moonfall (2022) died at the box office, ditto writer-turned-director Dean Devlin (Geostorm, 2017).
The rather basic premise of Universal Soldier (1992) didn’t lead anyone to believe that Emmerich had a much more creative bent and would soon reinvent the invading alien subgenre. But Emmerich takes the greatest imaginings of the popular Egyptologist and produces everything that audience could ever desire, including the curious dog-faced snouts found on statues and of course flying pyramids and ancient gods with a side hustle into a futuristic version of shapeshifting.
Theoretically, Kurt Russell (The Thing, 1982), all brush-cut and snappy diction, is the star as Col O’Neil, heading up some kind of intergalactic task force. But in fact it’s meek Egyptologist Dr Jackson (James Spader), who does the heavy lifting – he even gets the girl – and who if he’d had a bit more pizzazz about him would have been a latter-day Indiana Jones.
The plot is, of course, preposterous, but that’s the nature of the beast. In true Indiana Jones style Jackson discovers the missing piece of an archaeological jigsaw that points to some kind of wormhole, redefined here as a stargate, that can zip people light years away in the blink of an eye, and in a speeded-up version of the phantasmagorial elements of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). And just as in the director’s Independence Day (1996), the U.S. Government is up to some shady stuff, the kind usually designated to Area 51, and has been working on its own stargate.
Quite why Col O’Neil is taking along an atomic bomb for the ride is anyone’s guess. But once we race through the titular stargate we land on a desert planet inhabited by humans building pyramids and in thrall to Ra, who turns up every now and again to terrorize them into submission and/or steal the next body he requires to continue his journey into eternity. There’s plenty mumbo-jumbo and as many plot holes, but Emmerich has such a knack for narrative that it fair zips along. Col O’Neil has signed up for the mission because, frankly, he’s in a suicidal state of mind after his son died in a gun accident. Anyway, without the involvement of Jackson, who has no great scientific standing whatsoever, the US Government has worked out that whoever controls the other end of the stargate needs a good thumping.
Emmerich has the knack of posing verbal questions, leaving them dangling, and providing visual answers, which is all you need to propel a narrative. There’s plenty to play with here, the visuals are outstanding, especially for the time and the budget, and you are soon swept into the futuristic version of Egypt, and sinuous villain Ra (Jaye Davidson), and all the humorous misunderstandings that arise from language miscommunication. There is plenty action, either the kind of advanced aerial fighters emanating from the mothership (as occurred on a larger scale in Independence Day), or the gun-blasters, or the superhuman powers exhibited by Ra’s guards or indeed by Ra himself, not one to let mistakes go unpunished. There’s a clever twist on the regenerating device, and naturally someone has to lead a rebellion, though without spouting poetry.
Despite a few snatches at stardom, James Spader (Wolf, 1994) was still in marquee terms strictly second potato. This turns on its head his usual intense screen persona, and he’s quite a delightful little nerd, and just the guy if you need saved in the nick of time. Kurt Russell is mostly taciturn and, except for being engaged on a secret mission, has too little to do, but his presence still manages to anchor the picture.
All in all the concept works magnificently. I remember being impressed when I saw it on its release (but not so taken to subsequently trawl through the later small screen iterations) and was equally impressed now.
Hollywood paranoia in the 1970s ensured that any type of electronic surveillance was treated with suspicion. Cops, too, were almost certain to be corrupt. Although he would subscribe to such paranoia and implicit corruption in Three Days of the Condor (1973), in his movie debut director Sydney Pollack turns these concepts on their head.
Crisis center volunteer Alan (Sidney Poitier) faces a battle against time to save potential suicide Inga (Anne Bancroft), using his own powers of empathy and persuasion, but helped more than a little by dedicated policemen and the system of tracking calls. On the one hand the ticking clock ensures tension remains high, on the other Alan own’s battle with his nascent abilities brings a high level of anxiety to the proceedings especially as we learn of the particular circumstances driving Inge.
Alan is studying to be a doctor and he carries within him the arrogance of his profession, namely the power to cure. But that is within the realms of the physical. When it comes to dealing with the mental side of a patient he discovers he is ill-equipped. The intimacy he strikes up with Inga ensures he cannot seek relieve by handing over the problem to anyone else, the fear being that the minute he introduces another voice the spell will be broken. His medical training means only that he knows far better than a layman the effect of the pills the woman has taken and can accurately surmise how long she has to live. In the process he experiences a wide range of emotions from caring and sympathetic to angry and frustrated.
By sheer accident Inga’s otherwise loving husband, Mark (Steven Hill), skipper of a fishing vessel, has discovered that their son is not his. On being rejected, she has nothing to live for.
The simple plotline is incredibly effective. The two main characters never meet but we discover something of Inga’s life through flashbacks as her life gradually unravels and elements of insanity creep in. Alan, meanwhile, is shut in a room, relying on feedback from colleagues such as psychiatrist Dr Coburn (Telly Savalas) and others monitoring the police investigation attempting to discover where she is.
The fact that there actually was a suicide crisis center operating in Seattle (where the film is set) will have come as news to the bulk of the audience for whom suicide was a taboo subject and virtually never discussed in public or in the media. The fact that the telephone network could be used so effectively to trace calls would not have been such a surprise since it was an ingredient of previous cop movies, but it had never been so realistically portrayed as here, results never instant but the consequence of dogged work.
Initially, the movie treats Seattle as an interesting location with aerial shots over the credits and other scenes on the shore or seafront, but gradually the picture withdraws into itself, the city masked in darkness and the principals locked in their respective rooms.
Sidney Poitier is superb, having to contain his emotions as he tries to deal with a confused woman, at various times thinking he is over the worst only to discover that he is making little headway and if the movie had gone on for another fifteen minutes might have reflected how impotent he had actually been. Anne Bancroft (The Pumpkin Eater, 1964) matches him in excellence, in a role that charts her disintegration.
The fact that their character never met and that their conversations were conducted entirely by telephone says a lot about their skills as actors in conveying emotion without being in the same room as the person with whom they are trying to communicate. Telly Savalas (The Dirty Dozen, 1967) delivers a quieter performance than you might expect were you accustomed to his screen tics and flourishes. Ed Asner (The Venetian Affair, 1966) and Steven Hill, in his last film for 15 years, are effective.
The bold decision to film in black-and-white pays off, ensuring there is no color to divert the eye, and that dialog, rather than costumes or scenery, dominates. Pollack allows two consummate actors to do their stuff while toning down all other performances, so that background does not detract from foreground.
Winning the Oscar for Lilies of the Field (1963) had not turned Sidney Poitier into a leading man and in fact he took second billing, each time to Richard Widmark, in his next two pictures. Anne Bancroft was in similar situation after being named Best Actress for The Miracle Worker (1962) and although she took top billing in The Pumpkin Eater (1964) it was her first film after her triumph and, besides, had been made in Britain. And for both 1967 would be when they were both elevated to proper box office stardom. Written by Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night, 1967) based on a newspaper article by Shana Alexander.
Given the greater awareness of suicide today, this will strike a contemporary chord.
As the High Noon of the psychological thriller this more than delivers. Gripping stuff. And it’s worth considering the courage required to undertake such subject matter for your first movie.
Bunch of incompetent crooks kidnap an impoverished Mafia boss who pays his ransom by setting up a major heist. By a stroke of casting alchemy this brings together Cesare (Vittorio De Sica), the epitome of old world Italian charm, knock-out gangster’s moll and scene-stealer-in-chief Juliana (Raquel Welch) replete with scanty knock-out outfits and criminal mastermind Professor Samuels (Edward G. Robinson). In order to acquire the funds necessary to steal $5 million of platinum ingots from a train – the plan involving a tank and an WW2 bomber – the crew, initially headed by American Harry (Robert Wagner), need to carry out smaller jobs.
Problem is, none of them are any good, not even Cesare, who has lost his flair and botches an attempt to rob an old flame of her jewels. They can’t even carry out a simple theft from a restaurant. The heist itself is pretty spectacular and innovative. And the movie is quirky, with a darker edge. While there are few belly laughs, the light tone is enough to carry the gentle humor, mostly inspired by the misplaced team, amateurs for various reasons, not necessarily outright lawbreaking, on the run. These include London Cockney mechanic Davey (Davy Kaye), chef Antonio (Francesco Mule) distracted by hunger at every turn, cowardly violinist Benny (Godfrey Cambridge) and Joe (Mickey Knox) with a helluva brood to feed.
The story does a good bit of meandering, as does the camera, much of its focus on the voluptuous charms of Juliana, but the hurt pride of Cesare and the grandiose machinations of the professor keep it on course. The Italian settings, incorporating grand villas and ruins, do no harm either. The heist is terrific and there is a final twist you may or may not see coming. The interplay of characters works best when it involves Juliana, who attempts to twist Cesare around her little finger, that tactic mutual it has to be said, who keeps the professor on his toes by dancing with him in a disco, and it soon becomes apparent that she has the upper hand over loverboy Harry.
You could be forgiven for thinking the title refers to Raquel Welch – a cinematic infant at this stage with only One Million Years B.C (1966) in her locker – especially when her cleavage and looks receive such prominence, but the caper is classy and different. As well as being obvious she is both sinuous and seductive and clearly has a mind of her own, possibly the most criminally intent of the entire outfit, with weapons the others lack. By this point, she had invented the pop-out bikini, pictures of which had flooded Europe, making her the pin-up par excellence, but those who came to simply gawp quickly realised there was talent behind the body.
De Sica (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968) constantly plays around with the idea of being a defunct godfather and Robinson (Grand Slam, 1967) is the antithesis of the gangster roles on which his fame relied. Robert Wagner (Banning, 1967) is less effective, miscast and out of place in such august acting company and losing out to welch in every scene.
This was a considerable change of pace for British director Ken Annakin after Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and Battle of the Bulge (1965) and he brings to this the comedy of the former coupled with the narrative complications of the latter, wrapping everything up in an easy inviting style that makes the most of his stars and the locations. Screenwriter Sy Salkowitz was a television veteran (Perry Mason, The Untouchables et al) , this marking his first venture into the big screen.
France has been particularly successful in attracting a global movie audience for its literary and real-life legends. There have been over 20 big screen versions of The Three Musketeers, six of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, over a dozen of Les Miserables, and Napoleon Bonaparte has been the object of stars like Marlon Brando and directors such as Ridley Scott. But one legendary French figure has failed to connect. Underworld thief-taker Vidocq has attracted little interest outside his homeland. Even Douglas Sirk’s Hollywood version A Scandal in Paris (1948) starring George Sanders failed to crack the international market.
The Emperor of Paris is the latest iteration. I came across it while scrolling through Amazon Prime’s small catalog and since it starred Vincent Cassel (Mesrine, 2008), inheritor of the Jean-Paul Belmondo mantle, I gave it a go.
Set in Napoleonic times, Vidocq’s fame as a criminal relied on his ability to escape from the toughest prisons. After his last escape in 1805, when everyone believed him dead, he turns legit, building up a business as a fabric retailer. But later he turns into a highly successful thief-taker, hired by the police as an unpaid detective to clean up the streets of Paris on the basis that he will be granted amnesty. The officials dangle him on a string of promise for a heck of a long time.
While the legend of Vidocq rests on him becoming known as the father of modern criminology, the founder of Surete Nationale and setting up the first detective agency, this tale focuses more on action than detection – and presumably the boring bureaucracy that entails. Much of the information about criminals comes from Vidocq’s own experience, those of his accomplices and from informants, willing or otherwise.
There’s nothing sophisticated about the French cops, little more than night watchmen or official thugs who prefer interrogation to detection, and this is filthy twisty-street Paris before Haussman got his hands on it and recreated it with boulevards and broad expanse.
Vidocq knows more than the police where the bad guys hide out though some of them, like the celebrated American mobsters of the Prohibition era, are more likely to vaunt their notoriety, as with sadistic gang leader Maillard (Denis Lavant). And as ever when a hero ventures too close, the bad guys are apt to take extreme measures to gain revenge.
The harsh tale is leavened by the introduction of petty thief and prostitute Annette (Freya Mayor) who never manages to get Vidocq, who trusts nobody, to commit to a relationship, and social climber and arch seducer Baroness Roxane (Olga Kurylenko).
Vidocq himself is something of an enigma, soft spoken, dour, a loner, penned in by all his suspicions and led a merry dance, it has to be said, by high-ranking officials determined to deny him just reward. Betrayal, unexpected alliances and cold-blooded killings keep the narrative on a constant simmer. In one of the standard tropes, Vidocq assembles his own team, of criminals. The sets are excellent and the action pretty much non-stop
The role is tailor-made for Vincent Cassel, the best of the bad boy good boys, who mostly has to look surly and dispense his own version of justice. Denis Lavant (Holy Motors, 2012) is a memorable villain and August Diehl (Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin, 2024) makes meaty work of best friend turned enemy. Freya Mavor (Marie Antoinette TV series, 2025) is both crafty and romantic while Olga Kurylenko (Thunderbolts, 2025) is mainly the former.
This has the feel of a two-parter, with the more interesting part of the tale in criminology terms still to come, but so far there’s been no sign of a sequel.
Directed by Jean-Francois Richet (Mesrine) who collaborated on the screenplay with Eric Besnard (Wrath of Man, 2021).
While nowhere near as compelling as Mesrine, it’s still a fascinating tale and Cassel is always good to watch.
Despite a heady concept and some excellent acting, Martin Ritt’s Five Branded Women (1960) – reviewed yesterday – was a flop on initial release. So television studios were not exactly lining up to provide it with its small screen premiere. In fact, the length between big screen release and small screen showing had been so truncated by that point (The Magnificent Seven, for example, out the same year was seen on television within two years of release) that it could have been shown on television any time from 1962 to 1966, and probably would have been had initial performance suggested there was a big audience awaiting its small screen premiere.
The other possibility for a flop was that between cinema release and television screening, the stars had gone on to better things so a small screen showing could be promoted off the back of a current big screen success or, better still, series of successes. But that wasn’t the case with Five Branded Women. Star Silvana Mangano had meant little to US moviegoers since Bitter Rice (1949). Jeanne Moreau’s sizzle at the arthouse box office had diminished and the limited success of Viva Maria (1965) was put down to the presence of her compatriot Brigitte Bardot. Vera Miles hadn’t appeared in a movie since The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Barbara Bel Geddes was a long way from career revival in Dallas and all she had to show for the intervening years was a small part in By Love Possessed (1961) and a single episode in television. Italian Carla Gravina had no U.S. imprint at all. As a leading actor, Van Heflin was a busted flush.
So there was some consternation when Five Branded Women took ninth place in the television rankings for movies receiving their television premiere between 1966 and 1968. There was just no accounting for it. The same could be said for Your Cheatin’ Heart (1964) which was one place ahead of Five Branded Women. Star George Hamilton had not made it big, the film was an indifferent performer at the box office and its subject, Hank Williams, was long dead.
But television had a knack of providing unlikely redemption for movies that generally ended up on the wrong side of the box office. Cliff Robertson who headed the cast of PT 109 (1963) was still in the category of rising star with no breakout hits to suggest he was capable of rising to greater things. While 633 Squadron (1964) had done reasonable business, thriller Masquerade (1965) and war picture Up from the Beach (1965) had done so badly he was demoted to second billing in The Honey Pot (1967), incidentally another flop. He did achieve a breakthrough with Charly in 1968 but PT 109 was shown on television the year before. So how did that happen? You could maybe point to the continuing popularity of dead President John F. Kennedy, whose wartime heroism this movie recalled, but he had been dead when the movie first came out and that didn’t send it shooting to the top of the box office charts. On the television charts this came in one place behind Five Branded Women, although 633 Squadron could only manage a distant 92nd.
There were other surprises. Second Time Around (1961) placed 15th. But star Debbie Reynolds was still a genuine box office attraction after The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) and the unexpected success of The Singing Nun (1966).
Otherwise, the biggest hitters on television were Alfred Hitchcock, Elvis Presley and Doris Day. Hitchcock topped this particular chart with The Birds (1963), though presumably somewhat censored. His North by Northwest (1959) took 14th spot, Marnie (1964) placed 26th and Rear Window (1958) 39th.
Elvis Presley placed 11th with Roustabout (1964), 21st with Blue Hawaii (1961), 25th with Tickle Me (1965) and 41st with Fun in Acapulco (1963). Doris Day clocked in at 12th with That Touch of Mink (1962), 19th with Send Me No Flowers (1964), 23rd with The Thrill of It All (1963) and 35th with Move Over, Darling (1963).
Television had paid record sums to acquire the likes of Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and The Robe (1963), taking second and sixth positions, respectively, and undoubtedly helped by the ongoing success of director David Lean (Doctor Zhivago, 1965) and Richard Burton (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, 1966).
Others in the top then were Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), which had been successfully reissued in cinemas in a double bill with Butterfield 8 (1960), both headlining Elizabeth Taylor, to capitalize on her Oscar-winning turn in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. This came in third followed by The Great Escape (1964) and John Wayne as McLintock (1963) with Maureen O’Hara. Lilies of the Field (1963) was seventh.
The Made-for-TV films were beginning to make an impact. The Doomsday Flight (1966), released theatrically overseas, was 17th, one spot ahead of The Longest Hundred Miles (1967) with rising stars Doug McClure and Katharine Ross and seven ahead of Fame Is the Name of the Game (1967) with Tony Franciosa (Fathom, 1967) and Jill St John (Tony Rome, 1967).
Other notable small screen results were registered by Natalie Wood-Warren Beatty starrer Splendor in the Grass (1961) which took 12th spot, Shirley MacLaine and an all-star cast in What A Way To Go (1964) in 16th, Susan Hayward Oscar-winning weepie I Want To Live (1958) in 21st, and Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara in Spencer’s Mountain (1963) in 23rd.
SOURCE: “All Network Prime Time Features” (Seasons 1966-1967 and 1967-1968),” Variety, September 11, 1968, p47.
The Magnificent 60s 