Back to those ingénues – or whatever-happened-to-Tippi Hedren. Christopher George’s villainous turn in El Dorado (1967) brought him as much immediate attention as James Caan and though he quickly achieved leading man status he never parlayed it beyond the likes of low-budget numbers such as The Thousand Plane Raid (1969).
But there was a more interesting ingénue on show here. Tippi Hedren had made the instant stardom type splash as Alfred Hitchcock’s go-to leading lady in The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964). She reckoned she could do better without Hitchcock’s patronage, the director reckoned she was more trouble than she was worth, so there was a relatively amicable parting of the way.
Hedren didn’t find other directors queuing up for her services. Two small screen appearances and a supporting role in A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) were all she had to show for her stand of independence or hubris. Whereas in other circumstances signing up for this picture would have been seen as slumming it, this turned into more of an audition for a steady place in the B-movie division.
In the end she isn’t the stand-out any more than Christopher George is. The movie is too humdrum for that. But it’s the kind of narrative with murder, revenge, robbery, double-dealing and a sadistic villain that in the hands of bigger names with established screen charisma – say George Peppard and Jill St John – might have sparked more substantial interest.
There are three villainous schemes afoot. Vietnam war hero Steve (Christopher George) returns to his home town where his brother runs a race track. No sooner has Steve checked in than the brother is murdered during a million-dollar robbery. The murderers are then bumped off in an airplane explosion by heist mastermind Polk (Dean Jagger), the inside man.
Following on from that, the other four stockholders of the race course plan to ease out Steve, who’s inherited the majority stake from his brother, and buy the racetrack on the cheap, circumstances and the company’s own rules tilting the odds heavily in their favor. Sheriff Jones (John Dehner) also figures Steve for the murder of his brother, so he’s first of all got to prove his own innocence before going after the guilty.
He does a fair bit of running around, aided by barmaid-cum-singer Carlita (Charo) trying to put the jigsaw in place. He’s got some cute ideas how to winkle out the potential bad guys, one of which fingers stockholder Ware (Lloyd Bochner) who gets taken out before he can spill the beans.
Former girlfriend Rita (Tippi Hedren), one of the stockholders, runs hot and cold. Initially discouraging, she eventually warms to her old flame, then turns down the heat when she realizes he considers her a suspect in the robbery. Steve takes a good thrashing every now and then, but proves assiduous and occasionally spot-on in his deductions, though most of his investigation relies on fishing expeditions. Some of the finger-pointing is obvious but the denouement is not.
There was another ingénue here. Commonwealth United intended going down the “mini-major” or “instant major” route as exemplified by United Artists and Avco Embassy, where a new production outfit set up a hefty portfolio of movies, aiming for a release strategy of 6-12 a year, sufficient to be recognized by cinema owners desperate for product as a potential player. Established by real estate supremo Milton T. Raynor, it kicked off in 1968 with Tiger by the Tail and A Black Veil for Lisa starring John Mills and Luciana Paluzzi, followed by a heftier slate of seven pictures the following year.
Big-budget items packed with marquee names such as Battle of Neretva with Yul Brynner and Sylva Koscina, The Magic Christian headlined by Peter Sellers and Raquel Welch, and Oscar-winner Sandy Dennis in Robert Altman’s That Cold Day in the Park were mixed in with low-budget thrillers Paranoia starring Carroll Baker, Tippi Hedren comeback The Girl Who Knew Too Much and It Takes All Kinds with Vera Miles plus a pair of Jess Franco exploitationers, 99 Women and Venus in Furs. The project foundered almost immediately and by 1971 was $80 million in debt.
Whether Tippi Hedren ever acknowledged her debt to Hitchcock, it’s pretty clear here that she owed a ton to the way he presented her, not just the glossy façade, but bringing out the best of her acting. Her trademark fragility is little in evidence here without anything notable taking its place. Away from center stage, she doesn’t light up the movie.
Final picture of R.G. Springsteen (Operation Eichmann, 1961) from a screenplay by Charles A. Wallace (The Money Jungle, 1965).
Run-of-the-mill crime picture or whatever-happened-to Tippi Hedren.
The Magnificent 60s 