Watch The Cape Town Affair For Free

People are voting emotionally.

As Good As It Gets

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The Cape Town Affair is a remake of the classic Pickup on South Street. In this one, without realizing what he's doing, a pickpocket named Skip (James Brolin) steals some microfilm from a woman named Candy (Jacqueline Bisset). Candy didn't really know what she had - she was just working as a go-between. Pretty soon, Skip and Candy have secret agents from both sides trying to get the microfilm. And at least one of them doesn't play nice.My advice - skip The Cape Town Affair and look for the original. The problem with the remake is that much of it is just plain old dull. I blame a lot of that on Brolin. Richard Widmark was a big part of making the original as entertaining as it was. Brolin is no Widmark. And if Brolin's not to blame, then surely director Robert D. Webb is. The direction is uninspired leading to a lifeless film. Webb is no Samuel Fuller.Because I didn't rate it lower than a 4/10, there's obviously something here I did enjoy. First, if nothing else, watching The Cape Town Affair is like opening a time capsule. I've seen thousands of movies in my life, but I've never seen one that did a better job of documenting what Cape Town actually looked like in the 60s. Very interesting. Second, Jacqueline Bisset is worth at least a point in the rating. I think that all I need to say is that I was 14 years old when I saw The Deep in the theater. If you've seen the movie, you'll understand my fascination with Ms. Bisset.

Silly byplay between a few characters. A master pickpocket. A burned out police detective. A bunch of Commies. A piece of film. Some less than memorable acting. James Brolin, running the gamut of emotions from A to B. A confusing, endless story which continues to beg questions all along the way. There are some relationships that are left for us to figure out. The film is just so dull. I think all this cold war stuff has to at least have a little bit of causality. You can't have a suspense (or spy) movie without knowing what, exactly, the bad guys get out of the key piece of evidence. As usual, lots of people go through lots of wasted motion. Jacqueline Bisset is somewhat interesting, but even her role isn't very clealr.

I just bought this film for 4 dollars, and let me tell you, it wasn't worth it.No budget, badly scripted, dull, boring, listless, "Cold War" stinker. Hard to believe that Samuel Fuller was involved in this "movie". There were lines like, "You want to help us fight the commies don't you?"James Brolin looked handsome here, but the poor guy just wasn't an actor at this stage of his career. All he basically does is look angry and yell and scream the whole movie; gave me a headache. He is living in a run-down shack near a smelly river, with no electric, yet he wears 500 dollar suits. He's a thief who only robs twice the whole movie.Horrible piece of worthless junk.

The best part of this film is the opportunity to visit Cape Town, South Africa during the height of Apartheid. As a low-budget, spy thriller, it is shot in as many unmodified local settings as possible. Street shots are right in the heart of the downtown and there are harbor shots and scenes from within the Police Headquarters. The photos on the wall give away the time frame as well.Claire Trevor is the only actor credited in some Film Compendia and I wonder if both Brolin and Bisset paid not to be listed!Brolin plays a hard-boiled petty thief and "Jacky" Bisset plays a runner for the spy ring. Claire Trevor plays Sam, the connecting character to the world of petty crime and espionage.