Country: US
Technical: col/scope 118m
Director: Stanley Donen
Cast: Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Alan Badel, John Merivale, Kieron Moore
Synopsis:
An Oxford don is hired to decipher an ancient manuscript, and finds himself embroiled with various interested parties pertaining to an Arab state, and a beautiful woman he ought not to trust.
Review:
Donen's second attempt (after Charade), and Peck's (after Mirage), to outdo Hitchcock's North by Northwest is an abject failure, with a lame story amounting to a paper chase across London, misfiring Bond-style throwaways and a romance that is just embarrassing. The point about Roger Thornhill is that he was not an action hero; instead we are to suppose a professor of hieroglyphics would have the first idea how to disarm a heavy whom we have just seen put his fist through a door. Meanwhile, the director has clearly been running The Ipcress File in his private cinema, and contrives more shots through glasses and into mirrors than a John Lewis home interiors department. Merrily running about unarmed, our doughty couple face an assassin in an aquarium at London Zoo (after hours? I hear you ask), a wrecking ball on a building site and a helicopter with two shooters on board; no matter, our resourceful American can dodge bullets and wrecking balls with the best of them, and jeopardy is lost in contrivance. The production, in particular Miss Loren's Dior outfits, stands out, but even Donen cannot resist red phone boxes and letter boxes, and an episode with two guardsmen, for American audiences. Peck outdoes Grant by taking a shower fully clothed with his co-star naked, and although ten years younger is looking decidedly careworn; he would return to this sort of thing at the decade's end, with The Most Dangerous Man in the World.
Country: US
Technical: col/scope 118m
Director: Stanley Donen
Cast: Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Alan Badel, John Merivale, Kieron Moore
Synopsis:
An Oxford don is hired to decipher an ancient manuscript, and finds himself embroiled with various interested parties pertaining to an Arab state, and a beautiful woman he ought not to trust.
Review:
Donen's second attempt (after Charade), and Peck's (after Mirage), to outdo Hitchcock's North by Northwest is an abject failure, with a lame story amounting to a paper chase across London, misfiring Bond-style throwaways and a romance that is just embarrassing. The point about Roger Thornhill is that he was not an action hero; instead we are to suppose a professor of hieroglyphics would have the first idea how to disarm a heavy whom we have just seen put his fist through a door. Meanwhile, the director has clearly been running The Ipcress File in his private cinema, and contrives more shots through glasses and into mirrors than a John Lewis home interiors department. Merrily running about unarmed, our doughty couple face an assassin in an aquarium at London Zoo (after hours? I hear you ask), a wrecking ball on a building site and a helicopter with two shooters on board; no matter, our resourceful American can dodge bullets and wrecking balls with the best of them, and jeopardy is lost in contrivance. The production, in particular Miss Loren's Dior outfits, stands out, but even Donen cannot resist red phone boxes and letter boxes, and an episode with two guardsmen, for American audiences. Peck outdoes Grant by taking a shower fully clothed with his co-star naked, and although ten years younger is looking decidedly careworn; he would return to this sort of thing at the decade's end, with The Most Dangerous Man in the World.
