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Sadly Over-hyped

Instant Favorite.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

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.

Shrewd ace hit-man Harry Crown (Richard Harris in fine cool form) gets hired by top mobster Uncle Frank Kelly (the excellent Edmond O'Brien) to bump off his ruthless rival Big Eddie (a deliciously broad portrayal by Bradford Dillman). However, Big Eddie retaliates by unleashing his brutish enforcer Marvin "Claw" Zuckerman (neatly essayed with menacing relish by Chuck Connors) on Harry. Director John Frankenheimer, working from a quirky and imaginative script by Robert Dillon, relates the zany story at a snappy pace, expertly mines an amusing line in dark, yet campy and playful deadpan humor, stages the exciting car chases and shoot outs with his customary skill and flair, maintains a cheerfully twisted screwball sensibility throughout, and delivers lots of striking oddball visuals that include giant alligators in the city sewers and corpses in cement shoes littering the bottom of the sea. Moreover, the cast attack the kooky material with lip-smacking zest: Harris, O'Brien, Dillman, and Connors have a field day with their colorful parts, with sturdy support from the gorgeous Ann Turkel as Harry's loyal and sultry school teacher girlfriend Buffy, David Hall as nice and eager novice button man Tony, Katherine Baumann as the sweet and adorable Baby, and Janice Heiden as Uncle Frank's luscious two-timing moll Clara. Ralph Woolsey's sharp cinematography gives the picture a funky stylized pop art look. Henry Mancini's groovy swinging score hits the right-on jaunty spot. A very enjoyable and interesting one-of-a-kind oddity.

I suspect that Frankenheimer (who directed some of my all time favorite films) was aiming for a Bond spoof but this one blows up in OUR face ... there's no excuse for it. The movie looks great, the cast is top notch (that is, most of the male cast), the women are gorgeous in a 1970's woman-child kinda way ( ... and riotously BAA-AAD actresses). Coulda been a fun night out if you were bombed on Maui Wowee but I suspect cannabis would've been useless. This is just a Beautiful Mistake. Nothing to recommend it -- unless ---- you're needing costume and hairstyle references for the hipsters ca. 1974. A bomb ... well, more like, 99 and 44/100% DUD.

It's certainly different, but it's not very good. Richard Harris plays a hit-man hired by a mob boss to knock off a rival. Director John Frankenheimer starts things off with a bang with Roy Lichtenstein inspired titles and a pretty fun shoot out/car chase. The film itself is so slow that quirky touches like a giant balloon sculpture, a lesson on cement shoes and an incorporated brothel offer a lot of relief. Harris looks otherwise engaged and Ann Turkel, though gorgeous, isn't much of an actress...and she's certainly too classy to be convincing as a school teacher/dancer named Buffy! A very old and tired looking Edmond O'Brien plays "Uncle" Frankie, the mob boss --- he looks like a puffy Humphrey Bogart and sounds like a near dead Jason Robards. Connors " plays "Claw" and clearly has a lot of fun with his prosthetic. Bradford Dillman is awful as O'Brien's rival...he affects some sort of Brooklyn accent even though no one else does AND the film is set in L.A. Henry Mancini's jazzy score is great, but becomes increasingly intrusive as the film progresses.Flaws aside, the film is surely a high-water mark in the spotty career of Richard Harris...he went on to star in ORCA, THE CASSANDRA CROSSING, etc.

Robert Dillon's script was considered by producer Joe Wizan to be a black comedy along the lines of Dillon's earlier one for "Prime Cut" (1972: d. Michael Ritchie). Director Frankenheimer, on returning to the USA after much time in France, was faced with a situation wherein years of bad reviews of his films were taking their toll. He accepted this project, and wanted Robert Mitchum for the main role, but the producers wanted Richard Harris, fresh from the hit film "A Man Called Horse".Critically however, the released film was felt to be a total fiasco, many reviewers holding that it represented the director's career at rock bottom. The film's dark, bleak humour and use of caricature were considered testimony to a certain sadism on Frankenheimer's part, and evidence of his growing contempt. In later years, even the great director plays down this most unusual gangster satire.It concerns a hitman trapped between rival gangs, and takes place in a vaguely futuristic city, which seems spatially to constantly re-define itself. It is filmed obliquely, so one is never on sure footing as to how to react. What is most interesting about this peculiarity, are the number of bizarre, surrealistic pop-culture set-pieces in a world of futile violence and rampant egos. Only despair and nihilism at the absurdity of it all enables the characters to hold on to whatever shreds of honour they can maintain although they all succumb to personal pride at the expense of everything else.Frankenheimer directs with a stylistic over-kill at times which sits uneasily with a certain lethargic quality, although it probably guarantees the film a cult audience in the future. Perhaps the film is best seen as a failed, but intriguing attempt to reconcile the director's frequent recourse to stylization with genre-based social satire. Still, the film seems uncertain of its aims, and tends to flounder in its often considerable visual panache. The remarkable opening sequence however, is amongst the oddest ever put to film, and typifies the film's sense of comic despair. A curio.