****SPOILERS!!!***** I really wanted to like this movie. I'd long heard it was one of the best mystery thrillers ever made, and its near unavailability on DVD made it especially tantalizing. So when I finally stumbled across a copy today, I was thrilled. I had studiously avoided reading anything about the plot, so I had no preconceptions about the movie, beyond that it was supposed to be good.
What a disappointment!! Now, I'm not saying it was a total waste of a movie (note the 6/10 rating I give it), I just can't remember the last time a movie so let me down. The plot was, at turns, ridiculous and predictable. The jewelry thief plot was absurd: how could Caine's character have been roped into that mess so easily? Wouldn't he have wondered why Olivier's character was not going to go out somewhere so he'd have an alibi during the "robbery"? Why was Caine's character so inconsistent during this scene -- one minute he's cynical and suspicious about the whole thing, an instant later he's gleefully dressing up as a circus clown and doing pratfalls off a ladder? And how about the next section of the movie -- the moment I saw Inspector Doppel, it was clear that this was a person in make-up. I was not immediately sure that it was who it turned out to be, but I thought of the possibility right off the bat. The whole movie proceeded this way. I guess people in the '70s were a bit more trusting of their movies; today, after "The Sixth Sense" and its innumerable imitators, it takes a bit more than a bad make-up job to pull the wool over an audiences' eyes.
The look and feel of the film were dated and stage-bound. Manckiewicz made some great movies, but I found little of his customary skill here. The incessant cutaways to the ugly dummies and automatons were very grating.
As for the acting, well...I'm not going to be popular for saying this (though I imagine my whole review up to this point won't be very well received), but I don't see what the big deal is with Olivier and Caine here. Well, Caine does pretty well (excepting his mugging for the camera while in the clown suit), but Olivier comes across as a bit shrill. And his horrible accents..! I've pretty much trashed the film to this point, but it does have redeeming qualities. In spite of the above, it's a mildly entertaining movie, and the dialogue is well-written: I can imagine that it's a pretty quotable movie.
Anyways, I would say it's a take-it-or-leave-it movie. Entertaining enough, but vastly overrated, and not something you should go out of your way to see.
What a disappointment!! Now, I'm not saying it was a total waste of a movie (note the 6/10 rating I give it), I just can't remember the last time a movie so let me down. The plot was, at turns, ridiculous and predictable. The jewelry thief plot was absurd: how could Caine's character have been roped into that mess so easily? Wouldn't he have wondered why Olivier's character was not going to go out somewhere so he'd have an alibi during the "robbery"? Why was Caine's character so inconsistent during this scene -- one minute he's cynical and suspicious about the whole thing, an instant later he's gleefully dressing up as a circus clown and doing pratfalls off a ladder? And how about the next section of the movie -- the moment I saw Inspector Doppel, it was clear that this was a person in make-up. I was not immediately sure that it was who it turned out to be, but I thought of the possibility right off the bat. The whole movie proceeded this way. I guess people in the '70s were a bit more trusting of their movies; today, after "The Sixth Sense" and its innumerable imitators, it takes a bit more than a bad make-up job to pull the wool over an audiences' eyes.
The look and feel of the film were dated and stage-bound. Manckiewicz made some great movies, but I found little of his customary skill here. The incessant cutaways to the ugly dummies and automatons were very grating.
As for the acting, well...I'm not going to be popular for saying this (though I imagine my whole review up to this point won't be very well received), but I don't see what the big deal is with Olivier and Caine here. Well, Caine does pretty well (excepting his mugging for the camera while in the clown suit), but Olivier comes across as a bit shrill. And his horrible accents..! I've pretty much trashed the film to this point, but it does have redeeming qualities. In spite of the above, it's a mildly entertaining movie, and the dialogue is well-written: I can imagine that it's a pretty quotable movie.
Anyways, I would say it's a take-it-or-leave-it movie. Entertaining enough, but vastly overrated, and not something you should go out of your way to see.