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Sadly Over-hyped

It is a performances centric movie

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Fritz Lang made this film in 1941, but the two versions are very different and compliment each other - none will spoil the other. Peter O'Toole's version is more actionlike, the dialogue is very much reduced and replaced by more credible action, while in the Fritz Lang version the dialogue is all, and there are many interesting conversations. Above all, the original film stresses the actual theme of the book, which is British sportsmanship, while this tends to get lost in the Peter O'Toole version. However, Peter is a much more suitable actor for the role than Walter Pidgeon, who is not quite convincing and certainly no hero. Peter makes a hero with terrible ordeals to go thorugh, while Walter is rather unscathed throughout. Peter is more convincing as an absolute gentleman, you can judge him for what he is just by his appearance, while Walter Pidgeon is a bit overgrown in maturity almost lijke a middle aged bore - his opponent George Sanders actually outshines him. Peter is also assisted by the incomparable Alastair Sim for his uncle, who still in his old age remains perfectly irresistible. Walter Pidgeon's uncle you forget at once.So although Fritz Lang's film has a better script, is more literary and more brilliantly composed, while Peter's suffers from bad TV quality and is action for large audiences, Peter's version is more efficient and credible, realistic and dramatic. It's a great story, who wouldn't have dreamed of assassinating Hitler in time if he had the chance, and no matter how much you depart from the original story, you can't make a bad film on it.

Through long practice, Clive Donner has mastered the art of making pictures unmistakable for anything but British television - cramped, carelessly framed shots; anachronistic hairdressing and set decoration; the cheapest possible film stock; music disinterred from a muzak burial ground; scenes every single one of which was obviously the first take; editing apparently committed with a greasy boning knife by a whimsical butcher. Yet for all its brownish greens, awkward flashbacks and 70s sideburns, the WWII thriller ROGUE MALE is that rarest of items, a badly directed good movie. It's Frederic Raphael, the most pretentiously named writer since Goldsworthy Dickinson, who bears primary responsibility for the film's success. He keeps things fairly rushing along, always ready with a clever quip for Peter O'Toole to flip from the tip of his furred tongue.Within five minutes, O'Toole at his most wan and inebriated is tortured by Michael Byrne, the same Nazi who twenty years later was hurled off a cliff by Harrison Ford. Here, he and O'Toole insult each other's public school before O'Toole is hurled off a cliff onto a shotgunned pig. Then O'Toole, probably of necessity, is allowed to abandon vertical ambulation, crawling and slithering through much of the movie. It's a good start to a really fun little spy hunter.This is the O'Toole of legend, the one who falls off stages reciting sonnets backward, the famous wastrel, the untamed actor so charming and well-equipped that even when he forgets his line, can't walk without a stagger, or drifts through entire scenes with the most bleary of stares, delivers a thoroughly entertaining and credible performance. When the Nazis stuff a dead cat into his burrow, he recites Byron to it. How many actors could pull that off, drunk or sober?Incidentally, his character's name in this film is Robert Hunter, not Thorndyke, which title IMDb curiously bestows upon him. (In the novel the character is unnamed, and in Fritz Lang's previous adaptation MAN HUNT he's Alan Thorndike with an i. Hmm.)

Peter O'Toole is perfectly cast as the Hannay-esquire Thorndyke (any relation to Thornhill? - Geddit?) in a claustrophobic, chill bitten English winterscape. It was broadcast in the mid seventies when I was a teenager - just the right age to watch this kind of hokum - so I can't actually remember much about it except it reeked of tweed, bracken and shotguns.. Alistair Sim was in it, again, perfectly cast. Seemed to mix a sense of ennui with slight disdain. O'Toole slots in there with Donat and Grant in a classic of its time.Top notch stuff, eh biffer!

This is a faithful adaptation of the book by Geoffrey Household. It was made in 1941 as Man Hunt, directed by Fritz Lang. That was also a good film, particularly the George Sanders character, but in no ways is it as good as Rogue Male. This was a TV movie, and the color has faded over the years, but it is extremely provocative of the country in south England. I give it a 9.