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everything you have heard about this movie is true.

A Masterpiece!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Michael Caine plays a slim and trim--but not athletic--cat burglar who has to get inside a mansion by climbing the exterior in order to provide access to his accomplice, an aging safe-cracker. During Caine's climbing, balancing and close calls, he gets to one spot where he does a 'dead-fall' drop: as he faces the sheer side of the mansion, he takes a step back and drops to a narrow cement ledge a story below. We next see him clinging for dear life by his fingers, his face in anguish, then pulling his fully stretched out body up to the ledge. Burt Lancaster, maybe. Daniel Caine, maybe. Michael Caine, no. If director Forbes had only worked the stunt as an accidental slip, maybe one could reason that adrenalin lent some strength, not that it was part of the plan. I can't imagine a veteran cat burglar planning such a stunt with the assumption his dead-fall would not be his last fall. I guess despite the film's positive points, if I can't accept this burglar's logic, then the caper becomes fantasy at best.

Sure, the late 1960s were a rather permissive time. Nudity and highly realistic violence had crept into films and once taboo topics were becoming more and more commonplace. Still, I think some of the plot elements in "Deadfall" must have shocked a few folks back then. That's because the plot involves more than just burglaries, as one of the main characters is gay---a novel idea for its time.The film begins with Henry Clark (Michael Caine) in rehab for alcoholism. A pretty lady (Giovanna Ralli) shows up with a business proposition--she knows he's a top burglar and wants him for a job with her husband (Eric Portman). The trio join forces and their goal eventually is to go for a seemingly impossible job--but they do an easier one first. This job does not go smoothly, but seeing this portion of the film is the highlight of the movie.By the way, although the plot left me a bit cold, the music by John Barry was great and the director's use of intercutting scenes during the first burglary are quite good. Along the line, Caine falls for his new partner's wife. This isn't a major problem, as her husband is gay. But, oddly, she is very loyal to him and won't leave him. However, there is an odd secret--something much stranger afoot that no one except the husband yet knows. What it is turns out to be kind of weird--and leads to a very anticlimactic and depressing ending. All in all, a creative caper film but one that is, at times, very talky and many won't like the downbeat ending. I think it's worth a look--a decent film but certainly not a must-see.

DEADFALL is a lushly photographed suspense story with a cat burglar theme, wallowing in a full bodied John Barry score--especially during the major heist involving MICHAEL CAINE's high climbing bit where he's breaking into a playboy's mansion. Clever editing permits cross-cutting between a concert hall suite and the burglary in progress. GIOVANNA RALLI is the pretty Italian woman married to the mastermind of the burglary--ERIC PORTMAN--an aged homosexual.After the main burglary, the story sags from mid-point onward with talky scenes between Caine and Ralli where she talks about her failed marriage and revelations of a sordid kind. All of this leads toward a downbeat ending with explanations made that are supposed to be shocking but don't have the desired impact because by then the pace of the film has become too lethargic.ERIC PORTMAN gets the best lines but the dialog is hardly up to the caliber of Tennessee Williams and that's what is needed here, considering the sort of material the story deals with.Summing up: Handsomely photographed on locations in England and Spain, it's a so-so crime caper after a solidly suspenseful burglary. The John Williams score is its biggest asset.

Watched this film tonight on the BBC for the first time. What an unusual film! Written and Directed by Bryan Forbes it certainly added some new twists to the usual thriller plotline. Some odd mixing of plotlines, particularly mixing up sexuality with perversion, which maybe didn't come off too well, but with some brilliant music by John Barry and a belting Shirley Bassey opening titles song this does deliver great entertainment with good direction from Bryan Forbes.