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Saturday, December 2, 2017

THE SPLIT (1968)

Plain spoken caper pic (with ‘60's filmmaking stylistics) has quite the cast: Jim Brown, Diahann Carroll, Ernest Borgnine & Julie Harris (in an alarming red wig) working the con; plus an impressive undercard of Donald Sutherland, Warren Oates, Jack Klugman, Gene Hackman & James Whitmore. Even a funked up Quincy Jones score. (No doubt the starry/stars-in-the-making line-up the doing of producers Robert Chartoff & Irwin Winkler.) Brown gets things rolling by anonymously ‘testing’ his pickup crew with on-field challenges before Julie Harris lays out the plan: secure a football stadium cash office for an unscheduled playoff game, then watch the cash roll in with tickets @ 10 & 7.50! But Post-Game, the loot goes missing and all hell breaks loose; enter Hackman as a just-corrupt-enough police dick. Sounds fine & dandy, but where the producers did themselves proud in casting, they failed miserably with action chopless tv director Gordon Flemyng. A lummox at calling the shots, the suspense is under nourished, fights ineptly staged and tricky set pieces unreadable, hitting bottom in a laughable sauna shootout. Talk about a con job. 

(And check out this Italian poster that hides the film's black lead.)

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: For someone who never quite figured out the acting game, Brown sure made a lot of pics. He's better served in supporting roles, like THE DIRTY DOZEN/’67 from the year before.

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