Directed in Michael Winner’s reliably coarse style (DEATH WISH/’74 just around the corner), this Spy vs Spy nonsense reasonably good fun till it misses its Triple Salchow twist landing. Burt Lancaster’s a C.I.A. troubleshooter tidying up an Orly Airport assassination with expert sniper Alain Delon, unaware he’s meant to be Delon’s final target. Suddenly on the run and trying to figure out why the CIA is coming for him, Lancaster leaves D.C. after putting his wife in the picture (and killing a few low-level goons), before heading off to Vienna where top Soviet agent Paul Scofield may help. Frenemies going back to the Spanish Civil War, this non-political friendship makes Lancaster look like he’s planning to defect. Soon, they’re all gunning for him: CIA, KGB, even Delon. TV scripter David Rintels, in his only feature credit, shades characters & politics with de rigueur ‘70s paranoid moral equivalency, but giving the CIA primus inter pares bad guy status. (In dreadful perfs from John Colicos & J.D. Cannon.) But nice to be able to follow the plot in a spy yarn and still occasionally be surprised. Listen up for a bit of pseudo-Prokofiev (a wink at Piano Concerto #3) from composer Jerry Fielding whenever Scofield’s Ruskie shows up and look out for a touch of near-BlackFace (more Caribbean island makeover) on Lancaster which a Black pal gives him as a disguise.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: This and THE CONCORDE . . . AIRPORT ‘79 were Delon’s two tries at Hollywood stardom. What was his agent thinking?
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Quite a comedown from Lancaster & Delon in Visconti’s THE LEOPARD/’63 or with Scofield on THE TRAIN/’65. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2009/02/train-1965.html
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