The first giveaway is Inger Stevens. Why is she made up as Eva Marie Saint? Then, all those familiar story beats: innocent man on the run for a murder he didn’t commit; picture on the front page; taking a train to escape; blonde in tow/mysterious international conspirators in pursuit; chases, chases, chases; ending with a shootout at a world-famous tourist site. With half its story beats lifted straight from NORTH BY NORTHWEST/’59, Universal Pictures must have been hoping to repeat their luck with CHARADE, a superior Hitchcock wannabe of five years back. But from the opening shot (a dead man’s POV floating down the Seine), director John Guillerman bludgeons rather than finesses the form.* So too our players, especially George Peppard, annoyingly conflating ironic with supercilious as a fading prize-fighter hired by ultra-rich Stevens as tutor (and manly role model) to her lonely, fatherless boy. If only her family weren’t part of a Right Wing French-Algerian paramilitary splinter group working to usurp the government. Say, what? (No wonder married scripters Harriet Frank & Irving Ravetch pseudonym’d up as James P. Bonner.) Thankfully, Orson Welles is around to amuse himself with an untraceable accent as their leader, but really making a pit stop to raise some fast cash for his own projects. And pay off debts from CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT? (That masterpiece of world cinema, made for less than a tenth the budget of this loser.) Orson even thought to bring along Keith Michell (Price Hal to his Falstaff) for a brief gig and a fat paycheck. Ah, the things we do for art!
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Guillerman & Peppard are far more suited to the straightforward historical dramatics of THE BLUE MAX/’68. OR: For faux Hitch, CHARADE/’63.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Based on a novel by Stanley Ellin, no surprise to find he had eight previous story credits on tv’s ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS.
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