If you've seen films of a similar vintage like The Andromeda Strain or Colossus: The Forbin Project you'll be familiar with the scale and play of this film. High stakes declared and discussed in dialogue that quickly starts to feel like exposition as ... exposition.
What changes is the film of the warning action by the bad guys which is told as an aerial view of corpses strewn along roads and terrain in Florida. This is done like proto found footage with the cast looking on the mass murder in horror as it ticks silently from a film projector on a portable screen. When the screen fills with the images, it is to the same widescreen ratio, making them (not gory but disturbing) unavoidable. After this, the tale proper begins, the lengths the terrorists will go is clear and the suspected psycho at their centre a figure of grim darkness. Now, you want something out of the movie.
The cast is a grab bag of veteran and current television and film actors and does its job adequately. The maverick espionage hero is played by George Maharis whose tanned sexiness works better than the filled role. His female eye candy is the accomplished Twilight Zone alumna Anne Francis who provides something a little warmer and more compelling. Noir star from the '40s Dana Andrews is a kind of paternal overseer. Richard Baseheart does the most as the sneaky baddie who repeats a line about being psychotic but not stupid after Georgie boy has already done that.
Director John Sturges was a good fit as he busied himself with monster actioners (before and after) like The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, and The Eagle Has Landed. He provides an engaging Johnson era USA of Vegas suited G-men, helicopter exploits and scenery as gigantic as desert highways and L.A. baseball stadiums. This is the '60s equivalent of a Michael Bay splosion fest except there's a hell of a lot more talking. Two of the writers listed, James Clavell and Alistair MacLean were well established masters of the airport novel. The film is MacLean's adaptation of his own source.
I have wanted to see this for a very long time but that is only partly due to the movie itself. When I was a kid, my family used to go on holidays (I remember at least one Easter break) at a beautiful beach house on a cliff at Bingil Bay, North Queensland, owned by our Aunt Peggy. We'd spring out of bed and take the goat track down the side and get to the beach. During the evening we'd play whatever we could while the grown ups lost hours in canasta. There was a book case through which I could see the novel which was decorated with images from the film. The back had the shot toward the end where Anne Francis and the main cast were seen through a plexiglass map. I never opened the book but loved the title and thought the synopsis on the cover sounded great. I really wanted the movie to come to town. This would have been around 1970 to 1972 and that had already happened. Well, last night, I got my wish. All it needs is to lose most of that first hour and I'd be right as rain.
Viewing notes: I saw this free with my subscription to Prime. It's also out on Blu-Ray which looks like the source of the Prime transfer which is very rich and clear.
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