Showing posts with label Michael Caine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Caine. Show all posts

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Funeral in Berlin (1966)



Ex-con turned British spy Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) is sent to Berlin on a mission. He must find Soviet intelligence officer in charge of the Berlin Wall, Colonel Stok (Oskar Homolka) and make him defect from his position. Palmer is tasked to concoct an elaborate escape out of Berlin for Stok with the help of his contact Johnny Vulkan (Paul Hubschmid) and hires criminal mastermind Otto Kreutzmann (Gunter Meisner) to help him. In the meantime Palmer becomes enamored with the beautiful Samantha Steel (Eva Renzi), an Israeli spy sent to hunt down a former Nazi. This target holds the secret documents that reveal where jewels stolen during WWII are hidden. Things get really complicated for Palmer when he's double-crossed, important figures in the mission keep dying and the true identity of the Nazi is revealed.

Directed by Guy Hamilton, Funeral in Berlin (1966) is the second of the Harry Palmer spy films starring Michael Caine. He also appeared in The Ipcress File (1965) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967) and the character was revisited with two more films in the 1990s. Funeral in Berlin was shot on location at a time when crossing the Berlin Wall was met with a lot of red tape or was highly dangerous to do illegally. Funeral in Berlin is the least interesting of the three Harry Palmer films I've seen. Mostly due to a lack of character development and the numerous double-crossings make the plot difficult to follow. However, one could watch all three Harry Palmer films back to back and enjoy them immensely. Caine is so friggin' cool as Harry Palmer with his neatly pressed suits, combed back hair and thick rimmed eyeglasses.

Funeral in Berlin is a Cold War spy thriller that is not as captivating as the other Harry Palmer films starring Michael Caine but still delivers enough intrigue to be worth a viewing. I read that Akim Tamiroff was supposed to play Colonel Stok and I can't help but think it would have been a better movie with him in it!




Funeral in Berlin (1966) is available on DVD from Paramount. You can purchase a copy at my MovieZyng store.

 Thank you to Allied Vaughn for sending me a copy of Funeral in Berlin (1966) for review.

Friday, January 4, 2019

The Black Windmill (1974)




Two young boys are kidnapped. The men hired to do the job are blown up as they drive away. Corruption runs deep as two IRA arms smugglers, Celia (Delphine Seyrig) and Mckee (John Vernon), plot against undercover MI6 agent John Tarrant (Michael Caine). Tarrant soon discovers that one of the boys kidnapped is his son David. The other boy is let go but not before he's heavily drugged with a hallucinogenic that prevents him from providing any crucial information. Tarrant finds himself in a state of limbo having to deal with his distraught wife Alex (Janet Suzman), his bosses at MI6 Harper (Donald Pleasence) and Sir Julyan (Joseph O'Conor) and the smugglers, who go by the shared name Drabble. They're the ones holding his son at ransom. And their ask is a big one. They want the £500k worth of uncut diamonds that recently came into the possession of the MI6 department. Harper and Julyan have no plans to give up the diamonds but continue to string Tarrant along. Once Tarrant discovers that the government agents won't back him up, he decides to go rouge and to use his skills as a secret agent to save his son. The corruption is more prevalent than Tarrant expected and with the help of his wife Alex, he begins to uncover the clues of where his son is hidden and how he can rescue him.

The Black Windmill (1974) is based on British author Clive Egleton's debut novel Seven Days to a Killing published in 1973. The film rights to the novel were snapped up fairly quickly. Egleton went on to write numerous spy novels but this is the only one so far that has been adapted to film. According to cinematographer Ousama Rawi, the film was originally called Drabble, a reference to the shared psuedonym used by the kidnappers. Universal Pictures didn't think the name would go over well with audiences so it was on Don Siegel, who served as both director and producer, to work on a new title that would please the studio. The title changed from Drabble to The Two Windmills, then The Twin Windmills before they finally settled on The Black Windmill.

Siegel's film was shot on location in West Sussex, Kent, London and with some scenes shot at Universal Studios. The scenes inside the windmill were actually shot inside one of The Clayton Windmills in West Sussex. Rawi says the stunt man who performed the big fall inside the windmill was seriously injured on the set.  The windmill itself is a crucial part of the film and including it in the title is in itself a spoiler.





The Black Windmill suffers from a lack of real tension and a convoluted plot. I didn't see the plot twist coming but when it did it made sense for the plot but it didn't add any real entertainment value. The film as a whole could have benefited from a better story treatment. The villains are rather flat and one dimensional and I felt they could have been a bit more interesting. Michael Caine turns in a wonderful performance as secret agent Tarrant. He's the main reason you should watch this film. I enjoyed his scenes with frequent collaborator Joss Ackland who plays Chief Superintendent Wray, Tarrant's only ally except for his wife Alex. I'm always looking for how women are portrayed in films of this era and was happy to see that Alex, played by Janet Suzman, has an active part in her husband's mission to save their son and isn't just the helpless distraught housewife.




I'm working through Don Siegel and Michael Caine's respective filmographies so while this wasn't as captivating as I'd hoped it would be, ultimately I'm glad I watched it.





The Black Windmill (1974) is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. When you use my buy links you help support this site. Thanks!

The movie looks great on Blu-ray. Kino Lorber's Blu-ray and DVD includes includes audio commentary by filmmaker Mike Siegel, a great 18 minute interview with cinematographer Ousama Rawi, radio clips, a gallery and Kino Lorber trailers.


 Thank you to Kino Lorber for sending me a copy of The Black Windmill (1974) for review.

Friday, December 28, 2018

Cinema Shame: Get Carter (1971)


I'm ending my 2018 Cinema Shame challenge with a bang! I continue my exploration of Michael Caine's filmography with a first time viewing of Get Carter (1971). While I was expecting a great thriller, what I wasn't expecting was one of the most brutal revenge stories of all time.

Directed by Mike Hodges, Get Carter stars Michael Caine as Jack Carter, a ruthless gangster working in London. When his brother dies in a car accident, he travels home to Newcastle to attend his funeral. But something is fishy about how his brother died. As Carter starts to uncover clues he finds out that not only was his brother's death a murder it was also a personal attack on Carter himself. Carter will stop at nothing to find out what happened and to destroy every one involved. 




Michael Caine's Jack Carter is one of the most cold-blooded and merciless characters I've ever encountered in a film. Several scenes sent chills up my spine. While Carter is sadistic in his actions he's not completely unsympathetic. He's clearly affected by the death of his brother and it's the motivation for everything he does in the film. And one element in his complicated revenge plot is the discovery that his niece, Doreen (Petra Markham), was involved in a pornographic film with the same people who sought out her father's death. If Carter wasn't already mad, this discovery set him on a course of no return. 

Caine's performance as Carter is brilliant. He's cool, calm and collected but there is a fury behind his eyes that lets you know every single move is a calculated one. And Carter is one sexy gangster. He's got a way with women it's no wonder why they all fall victim to his charm. He seduces several women including Britt Ekland as Anna, Geraldine Moffat as Glenda and Rosemary Dunham as Edna. The biggest victim of Carter's wrath is Dorothy White's Margaret, his brother's girlfriend and a key accomplice to the gangsters who were out to get Carter.

SPOILER STARTS HERE

 It's too bad about the ending. It makes sense for the story arc because its clear that Carter was on a path of destruction and there was no turning back. But had he survived this tale, Jack Carter films would have made a nice 1970s franchise. 

SPOILER ENDS HERE





Get Carter was remade in 2000 with Sylvester Stallone. Some of the actors from the original, including Michael Caine, appear in the remake. It would be interesting to see the 2000 version but I'm in no particular rush to do so.

While I didn't finish all of my 2018 Cinema Shame movies I tackled quite a few and will finish the rest on my own time. I'm excited to work on my challenge for 2019. Big thanks to Jay of Cinema Shame for hosting and encouraging us cinephiles to finally see those films that have been on our to-be-watchlist for way too long.


Monday, February 5, 2018

The Wilby Conspiracy (1975)



"Don't you love your country?"
"Yes, but is it the same country?"

Prisoner #34, Shack Twala (Sidney Poitier) stands trial. It's Capetown, South Africa in the midst of apartheid. Thanks to the remarkable defense work by his lawyer Rina Van Niekirk (Prunella Gee), Twala is now free. Rina's boyfriend Jim Keogh (Michael Caine) wants to celebrate her victory and Rina invites Twala to join them. On their way to her apartment they encounter the Capetown police who are a little too eager to arrest another black person. Twala, Keogh and Rina get into an ugly fight with the police officers and escape. Rina helps Twala and Keogh flee to Johannesburg. Things begin to escale when two members of the secret police, Major Horn (Nichol Williamson) and Van Heerden (Rijk de Gooyer), are sent out to hunt down the fugitive duo. Twala knows of an Indian dentist Mukerjee (Saeed Jaffrey) who will help them, if his assistant Persis (Persis Khambatta) doesn't get in the way. But Twala is hiding something. Keogh soon learns about the Wilby conspiracy. Mukerjee, Twala and Wilby have a treasure trove of diamonds hidden in a sinkhole. This loot will help finance the Black Congress' revolution, something the secret police are hell bent on stopping. All Twala and Keogh need to do is get the diamonds, find Wilby and escape South Africa before it's too late. But that's easier said than done.

The Blu-Ray is a million times better quality than this image!

Directed by Ralph NelsonThe Wilby Conspiracy (1975) is a political thriller set in the oppressive era of apartheid. Based on the novel by Peter Driscoll, it explores the racial dynamics of the era while also serving as a thrilling chase movie. Some of the politics from Driscoll's original novel were stripped away from the movie but the final product still demonstrates the dangerous political climate of South Africa in the 1970s. The movie was filmed in Keny and at the MGM Pinewood Studios in England. It was far too risky to actually film on location in South Africa.

Actor Sidney Poitier hadn't been in Kenya since filming Something of Value (1957) and found a much different country on his return. He was warmly embraced by the locals and the government as a major movie star. Much had changed politically in Kenya over the past decades. The film has some amazing aerial footage and there is extensive use of small aircraft and helicopters. Chase scenes in the air and on the ground are thrilling to watch.

Independently produced in conjunction with United Artists, producer Martin Baum used to be Poitier's agent and he cast both Poitier and Caine for the film. Director Ralph Nelson had worked with Poitier on Lilies of the Field (1963) and Duel at Diablo (1966). For Caine this was his first "message film." In his memoir he wrote, "my experiences on the set of Zulu had made me an implacable opponent of the apartheid system and I was pleased to be able to make a contribution to highlighting its cruelty." Caine and Poitier were good friends and bonded even further during the making of the film. They both had a near death experience when a 50 pound camera broke loose, almost killing them both. If anything it drew them closer together and they've been friends ever since.

Even without some of the politics of Driscoll's original novel, The Wilby Conspiracy holds a powerful punch as it delivers the painful message of oppression. The film suffers at one point when the story begins lose its purpose and relies too much on the extended chase. Perhaps what was taken away from Driscoll's story should have been left in. The movie is part political thriller and part action drama and I found it wholly engrossing. Caine and Poitier's characters have a contentious relationship and it was intriguing to see what they both had to bring to two very different roles.

On a side note, in one of the scenes actor Nichol Williamson utters the Dutch curse word "godverdomme". My father, who lived in the Netherlands for a brief time, used this curse word, which translates into g-d dammit, whenever he was angry. I have never heard anyone else use it until I watched this film. My father passed away a couple of years ago (you can read my tribute to him here) and it briefly reminded me of him. It made me smile because even though he said it when it was mad, it was one of those quirks that was unique to my dad.

While watching The Wilby Conspiracy I couldn't help but make the connection to The Defiant Ones (1958). Caine and Poitier as two fugitives on the run reminded me of Poitier and Tony Curtis as two chain-gang fugitives who escaped prison. I would recommend pairing those two films together. You could also pair The Wilby Conspiracy with another Poitier film set in South Africa: Cry, the Beloved Country (1951).




The Wilby Conspiracy (1975) is available from Kino Lorber on DVD and Blu-Ray tomorrow! When you purchase through my buy links you help support this site. Thanks!

Thank you to Kino Lorber for sending me a copy of the Blu-Ray for review.

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