Maurice Jarre – The Magnificent 60s

Reminder of just how good an actor Charles Bronson was before he went all monosyllabic in The Valachi Papers (1972) and Death Wish (1974) and growled and grimaced his way to superstardom. Realistic western filled with anti-heroes except for the least likely hero in the shape of a Japanese swordsman.

In the early days of the multi-national co-production, the idea was to headline the picture with stars who could sell the picture in their domestic country, although Bronson did double duty, a Yank who was a far bigger star in France than in his home land. Frenchman Alain Delon (Texas Across the River, 1966) also doubled up, a reliable performer in U.S. markets as well as in his home patch. Toshiro Mifune (Hell in the Pacific, 1968), huge commercially in Japan, also appeal to the global arthouse mob. Ursula Andress (She, 1965), though technically Swiss, held sway over male hormones in wide swathes of Europe. And if that wasn’t enough, for good measure, there was another French beauty in Capucine (The 7^th Dawn, 1964).

Interspersed with bouts of action of one kind or another, the story is mostly of the immoral kind, double-crossing to the fore, seduction merely a tool, but arriving at a surprisingly moral conclusion. Usually, pictures that focus on adversarial characters forced to work together pivot on a gender clash, romance going to find a way. But here, the outlaw and the swordsman are mostly at odds and, to top it all, outlaws, swordsman and seducer have to band together to save the day at the end.

Story is slightly complicated in that Link (Charles Bronson) begins as a bad guy, in league with Gauche (Alain Delon), to rob a train and doesn’t really stop being a bad guy, and is very self-aware about the consequences of his chosen profession, even when, double-crossed and left for dead, he seeks revenge on his partner. The opening section has a heist-like quality, you know the kind, where clever machination is required. Here, it’s how to empty the train of the soldiers helping escort a Japanese ambassador. But once that’s accomplished and the small matter of $400,000 swiped, only greed cues the complication, in that Gauche also nabs a Japanese ceremonial sword, and Kuroda (Toshiro Mifune) is honor-bound to recover it.

Gauche is also the kind of outlaw who doesn’t appreciate his team’s efforts, not only attempting to murder Link but finding occasion to bump off other members of the gang. Link becomes Kuroda’s prisoner and spends a good chunk of time trying to escape and even when they supposedly come to an agreement can’t resist the odd double-cross. The quarrel is mainly over who gets to kill Gauche.

Anyway, eventually, they end up in a small western town big enough to contain a whorehouse run by Pepita (Capucine), sometime lover of Link, where lies potential bait in the shape of Christina (Ursula Andress), Gauche’s girlfriend. When Gauche doesn’t take the lure, they have to saddle up and seek him out, hoping to trade the girl for at least some of the loot and the sword. Christina is as untrustworthy a prisoner as Link and gets them into trouble with the local Commanche, thus setting up a finale in a blazing cornfield.

The tasty exchanges between the Yank and the Japanese, more than the culture clash, drive the picture, though the eastern obsession with cleanliness is a new one for the western. You wouldn’t say the pair end up buddies but they certainly hold each other in healthy respect.

Charles Bronson isn’t easy-going but he’s much more natural, with a welcome grin, plenty dialog, and ready for most eventualities (except the first one, obviously). Mifune brings in the wider audience that gave Hell in the Pacific the thumbs-down. This could have been a swashbuckler had he been more cavalier in character, and perhaps the most telling difference between east and west is his venerating approach to a sex worker. Mifune is a fine match for Bronson.

Delon and Bronson go way back to Farewell, Friend / Adieu L’Ami (1968), the movie that turned Bronson into a giant star in France and in which they were the adversarial buddies. Delon here plays both sides of his screen person, the charming gallant and the ruthless gangster, and it’s a rare sight indeed to have three actors at the top of their game appearing in scenes together. Ursula Andress also plays against type, as a conniving seductress, with a complete lack of the self-awareness that typifies Bronson. Mostly, she’s just nasty.

On the face of it, the eastern western should be nothing more than a marketing gimmick but in the capable hands of Terence Young (Mayerling, 1968) it works a treat. More talky than audiences might have expected but that adds meat to the raw bones of a revenge picture. Took three screenwriters to pull it off – William Roberts (The Magnificent Seven, 1960), Denne Bart Petitclerc (Islands in the Stream, 1977) and Laird Koenig (Bloodline, 1979). Great score by Maurice Jarre (El Condor, 1970).

A surprise.

Impressive vastly underrated whodunit that breaks all the rules. Take the length for a start – just stopping short of two-and-a-half hours. The investigation covers multiple time periods – 1942, 1944 and 1965. The killer outwits the detective. Most important of all, the murder is clearly a MacGuffin to examine politics among the German officer class.

A Polish woman who turns out to be a German agent is viciously stabbed to death in Warsaw in 1942 during a period of staunch resistance by the inhabitants. General Tanz (Peter O’Toole), sent in to quell a potential uprising, is one of three generals on the suspect list compiled by Major Grau (Omar Sharif), the others being the alcoholic General Khalenberge (Donald Pleasance) and the philandering General von Seidlitz-Gabler (Charles Gray).

But Grau is no ordinary detective or, put another way, this not an ordinary investigation.

Grau lacks any of the powers we associate with an investigator. Yes, we expect obstruction, perhaps collusion, as the murderer tries to avoid detection. But Grau might well have been a sergeant for the disdainful treatment and lack of cooperation he receives. And there’s a fair chance he’s going to be shot at as he prowls the streets, and resistance fighters in tenement exchange fire with the invaders. None of the generals can account for their whereabouts on the night in question.

While Tanz is benign to children, ordering a hungry bunch fed from his own supplies, he is ruthless with adults, willing to employ flamethrowers (Phase Two of his plan) to drive snipers out of buildings and if that fails move onto Phase Three which simply uses tanks to obliterate everything. Like some knight of old, Tanz stands upright in his jeep directing operations in full view of the enemy, almost taunting them to kill him.

The most powerful image in the film – the one used in the posters – has Tanz standing (on the right of the screen) upright in his jeep with the world on fire behind him. What’s edited out of the poster is that Grau occupies the left side of the screen, standing like a servant awaiting his master’s orders.

That Grau makes no progress at all is down to the power of his superiors. Since he commits the cardinal sin of getting in the way, he is just shuttled out of Warsaw, promoted to Colonel and given other duties in Paris. So the scene shifts to the Parisian capital in 1944 after D-Day. The same three generals are on duty in the French capital, not supervising, as you might expect, the defence of the city against the encroaching Allies, but planning an attempt on the Fuhrer’s life (Operation Valkyrie). This time it’s Tanz, returning from the Russian front where his regiment has been decimated, who is shuttled to one side, ordered to take two days leave so he doesn’t get in the way of the saboteurs.

At this point, the movie boldly switches perspective, in part to encompass the assassination subplot, in part to focus more closely on Army politics, in part to follow Tanz, not just an alcoholic but a poster boy for OCD, as he tries to enjoy some downtime. He is accompanied on his tourist trip through the city and jaunts to visit museums by his chauffer/butler Corporal Hartmann (Tom Courtenay) whose other duties include spying on the general on behalf of the plotters. Grau, meanwhile, recruits French Inspector Morand (Phillippe Noiret) to assist in his investigation, which is otherwise being obstructed on all sides.

I won’t reveal the shocking ending which shows just how clever the murderer is because that’s not actually the ending and the story shifts to 1965 when the generals have been rehabilitated after the war, the case still open because a third woman has been killed in the same fashion.

I may have seen this back in the day and certainly remember it vaguely from a pan-and-scan version edited for television, but I had generally avoided it because of the poor reviews. I wonder how many critics just found it in poor taste, to be spending big Hollywood bucks on a story that treated German generals as pretty well ordinary human beings, the war itself so much in the background you would think it non-existent. Plenty critics sniped at the performance of the principles, perhaps because Peter O’Toole (Becket, 1964) and Omar Sharif (Genghis Khan, 1965) played so much against type. The image I mentioned of O’Toole with the world ablaze is an ironic one, not charged with the glory of David Lean’s vision of the actor in Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Similarly, not once does director Anatole Litvak (Five Miles to Midnight, 1962) rely on Omar Sharif’s soulful brown eyes the way Lean did in Doctor Zhivago (1965), in fact there is no such shot here at all. Sharif looks weary and jaded, kept going in the face of obstruction by his own convictions about justice. O’Toole is so wound up he likes like he’s about to explode and at times certainly teeters off-balance.

Critics seemed so intent on dishing out barbs that they missed two excellent performances, Sharif , in particular, unable to call on his romantic side, delivering very fine work. Donald Pleasance (Soldier Blue, 1970), devoid of his usual physical tics, is also memorable. And there is so much to enjoy from the direction. Litvak, in particular, makes superb use of the tracking shot. Often a scene begins with a close-up, tracks back to reveals others, allows them to deliver their lines, then tracks back into the original character, usually the one with most to lose at this moment. He allows time to develop the other characters. Without ever appearing drunk in the way of Tanz, Khalenberg is always pouring or drinking a shot of alcohol. Seidlitz-Graber is inhibited by family politics as his wife (Coral Browne) attempts to ease their daughter Ulrike (Joanna Pettet) into high society.

I must also mention the brilliant score and the pithy lines that shoot out from cynical mouths. “Making up one’s mind is one thing,” observes Seidlitz-Graber acidly, “speaking it is another.” On hearing of the assassination plot, Grau points out, “when things were going well, the generals enjoyed the war as much as Hitler.” Music came courtesy of Maurice Jarre (Doctor Zhivago) and the screenplay was a joint effort between Joseph Kessel (Army of Shadows, 1969) and Paul Dehn (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1965) who hacked away at the H.H. Kirst novel, retaining only the opening.

Well worth watching.

Tag: Maurice Jarre

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