- Also Known As:
- Unknown
- Year:
- 1978
- Country/ies:
- UK
- Predominant Genre:
- Crime
- Author(s)/Director(s):
- Michael WINNER
- Outstanding Performance(s):
- Robert MITCHUM
- James STEWART
- Premiss:
- A detective is asked by an elderly general to investigate an attempt at blackmail on one of his daughters.
- Theme(s):
- Alienation
- Compassion
- Destiny
- Empathy
- Friendship
- Humanity
- Identity
- Loneliness
- Loyalty
- Mercy
- Narcissism
- Pornography
- Solipsism
- White culture
- White guilt
- Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:
- The Big Sleep (1946)
- Review Format:
- DVD
Surprisingly effective and efficiently transposed retelling of a deliciously complex Raymond Chandler plot to Merrie Olde England. (Strangely apt given that Chandler was partly raised in England and the detective here is named after murdered English playwright Christopher Marlowe.)
Amid the bobbies on the beat, red telephone boxes, uniformed nannies and village greens to satisfy the American audience’s touristic yearnings, this fine old-school entertainment captures Chandler’s mean streets very well.
This version of the story is greatly helped by a not a little bemused performance from a great Hollywood star: Robert MITCHUM. At least two decades too old to play the part yet few other stars could play it so brilliantly; easily dominating every scene – even when threatened with a gun. (When an actor appears in every scene and does not bore the audience, you can be sure it is because he possesses true star quality and can carry the film on his broad and charismatic shoulders.)
The one obvious problem this film never overcomes concerns the stellar cast of cameos distracting from the otherwise smooth plotting except the two all-too-brief appearances by another Hollywood legend: James STEWART. This slightly diffuses the focus of what is, in fact, a very tight script. (There are also far too many people carrying guns for a British setting, but the weapons are only little, so it is not all bad.)
Having said all that, this movie proves that so long as you are reasonably faithful to the Chandler original, it is possible for an often journeyman film director like Michael WINNER to make a silk purse from a potential sow’s ear.
Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute this posting in any format; provided mention of the author’s Weblog (Esthetics) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
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