Deadfall (1968)

This movie has been described as a heist movie. May you be warned, dear reader, there is very little heisting here. The one real sequence, which comes after about forty minutes of turgid and unnecessary build-up, is intended to be tense and exciting, as the director cross-cuts repeatedly between the heist action and a concert hall (where house-owner is) with a performance of an absolutely horrendous Barry-composed piece for orchestra and guitar, in which the guitar is mostly drowned out by the loud and bombastic noises of the orchestra. The guitar music itself is very insipid, featuring mostly plain chords, with none of the fluid runs or flamenco riffs that one expects, especially in Spain, from the classical guitar. Nevertheless the performance receives thunderous applause and a standing ovation. Why?!As for the heist itself, we are expected to swallow a lot here. Firstly, the supposedly expert cat burglar (Caine) when shown a picture of his proposed entry window, opts for a torturous route whereby he has to use a grappling hook to climb up to the balcony of a higher floor and get himself over to the roof above said window, hang from the edge of this roof and then let himself fall and catch hold of the windowsill a floor and a half below - a marble windowsill mind which is not square but is ribbed and rounded at the edge! Caine then has to pull himself up from this position – and remember, he's a very big man – and onto the windowsill. When you're watching this you go WTF! All they needed to do was have a small extending ladder with them and he could have got to the windowsill in a fraction of the time, without having to risk his life to do it.Once inside he lets the old man in, whose job it is to open the safe, but he complains that the old safe has been replaced with a new one. Time ticks by, the concert is finishing (signalling return of house owner). Safe cracker admits defeat but not Caine, who proceeds to noisily smash the surrounding brickwork with a hammer and chisel. We now have to swallow that the three servants in the house hear nothing of this because they are eating and listening to the concert on the radio!Caine lugs the safe out to the car and they avoid in the nick of time the previously drugged but now awake guard dogs along with the returning house-owner.After this 'heist' Caine and the old man's wife start to get friendly, Caine gets a snazzy E-type and the film descends into a series of conversational set-pieces which totally fail in their desired intention of instilling fascinating and thought-provoking dramatic content into the movie. To give an example: Caine in one scene is lying motionless on his back on the bed and listening to the lead actress, who with mask-like expression (perhaps adopted to evoke high drama but more probably an expression of the actress's complete lack of personality) is droning on and on and on about some old personal history that is meant to be hugely significant but which is so boring that you (I did anyway) just turn off and stop listening and you see Caine lying there and you see that he's done the same and is presumably daydreaming about getting his final scene wrapped so he can collect his cheque and get out of there.The film stretches on in similar manner until the 'sad' and 'dramatic' ending where you don't feel sad but happy because it finally finished and you can leave the cinema/switch off the TV! Would have given this film two points but have to give three because of the beauty of the E-type Jag!

One of countless heist films that came out in the 60's, this one throws in the added kink of a homosexual mastermind (Portman) who's married to a much younger woman (Ralli) as they recruit Caine to pilfer diamonds from a millionaire's mansion. Portman sends Ralli to Caine as his emissary, knowing that her charms will be more likely to win him over to their cause than if he did the task himself. Before they will even attempt to steal the diamonds from millionaire Buck, they make Caine do a trial run on another wealthy victim. In an elaborately presented (and a bit over-long) sequence, a guitar concerto rages on, inter-cut with scenes of Caine breaking into an estate and dismantling a wall safe. (Hilariously, the rich couple gets all dolled up and is escorted to a concert hall where, after ONE NUMBER, the audience filters back out and the couple returns home! No dinner. no drinks. No dancing. Nothing!) Various implausibilities crop up during this sequence which are covered up in some cases by cutting to the concerto at key moments. Legendary film composer John Barry appears as himself as the maestro at the concert hall. Keen eyes will note that he steps on the guitarist's dress as they come out to bow. After this admittedly interesting scene, the film devolves into a lot of mishmash and sketchy ruminations as Caine starts to fall for Ralli and Ralli begins to discover that there's far more to her husband than the fact that he's older than her and gay. Some of this is veiled and some of it is spelled out. All of it is pretty tedious. The film suffers from lack of focus and overly generous editing. Inexplicably thrown into the mix, though she does have a couple of entertaining moments (perhaps some for the wrong reasons!) is Newman as a flirty woman who happens to worm her way into Buck's mansion the night of the big steal. The film is full of "arty" directorial touches, one being the increasingly annoying habit of putting inanimate objects in the foreground or otherwise obscuring the participants of the scene through rails or grates. Caine does what he can with a mediocre script. Ralli has a striking look, not that dissimilar from Natalie Wood at times, but without Wood's charisma. Portman speaks with such a garbled accent that not too many of his lines come out intelligibly. Apart from some nice settings and a few arresting sequences, this has to count as a misfire. It does, however, have a hooty "faux" James Bond theme performed by Shirley Bassey and composed by John Barry, who collaborated on three real Bond themes over the years.

It's a shame this movie was such a failure, because subsequently one of the greatest 60's film scores I've ever heard has been buried along with it. John Barry has never done finer work, and even appears on-camera to conduct one of the brilliant pieces he composed. If you ever get a chance to see this film on TV, and you get bored by it, just leave the sound on. You'll get quite a treat.

This may not be Michael Caines worst film,but it is almost certainly his worst performance.It has to be said the writing does not help him ,he comes across as a charmless cad with little to no humanity in evidence.Eric Portman as the sexually challenged partner in crime tries hard,but can find nothing in the script to help make a rounded character.Although caine was only in his 30s when he made this some of the physical abilities required in this crime movie would be beyond the efforts of a professional athlete.All in all a really bad movie with a dreadful if not deserved ending.Most movies have something going for them in this case it is the music.