With their marriage falling apart and a New Year’s Eve revolution in the air, sugar plantation exec David Niven & wife Leslie Caron, part of a small, heavy-drinking British colony in some fictional South American country, become unlikely actors in helping a freshly deposed despot get over the border. You know the drill: Oblivious/Entitled Brits meet Third World politics with cultural blinders of misperception & prejudice revealing unexpected depths of moral & physical courage. In theory, a potent dramatic mix, but tricky to pull off without seeming obvious or naive. Even Graham Greene had trouble working it out in THE COMEDIANS (both as novel and the starry film made from it). Here, director Anthony Asquith & writer John Mortimer feel as miscast as some of the actors (David Opatoshu as benevolent, but tough-minded South American head-of-state?), aiming for mordant/ironic distance before turning all serious. Scene by scene, many effective moments (Niven, in particular, growing into his role), but the sum is less than the parts. Though not for lenser Robert Krasker (famous for Greene’s THE THIRD MAN & fresh off EL CID). Stuck with some unfortunate soundstage exteriors, he comes thrillingly alive given a chance in real town squares, palace interiors and a sinking bog that might have given the cast of WAGES OF FEAR pause.
DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, THE COMEDIANS/’67, faults and all. (see below)
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