The File of the Golden Goose (1969)

The movie itself is a pedestrian crime movie that takes a tiny premise and extends it over the length of a movie. Not a good thing.So the movie basically stinks. But if you want a hoot, watch it to see Yul Brynner's horrifying attempt to sound like a New York "wiseguy" while swimming through his natural Russian accent. It's not so much the accent being silly, as the dialog being something from the "Dead End Kids".If people paid to see this in the theater, maybe it was a good escape since cable TV and the internet hadn't been invented yet. Or maybe they asked for their money back.Really dreadful.

While File of the Golden Goose is not a particularly well made film, it does have it's charms.This is one of those films one reaches for when you don't really want to watch a movie.Yul Brynner plays Secret Service Agent Peter Novak, who, after his girlfriend is caught and killed in the crossfire of bullets meant him, vows revenge on the counterfeiting ring responsible for the hit. In London, Novak and married policeman Arthur Thompson go undercover as surviving members of the infamous Golden Goose gang in order to infiltrate the counterfeiting ring.I've always enjoyed this movie because Yul Brynner appears to be having such fun as he digs deeper and deeper within the gang, intent on getting to the unknown Head Man.Charles Gray is suitably over the top in his performance as 'The Owl.' The homosexual distribution manager for the gang's counterfeit money.All in all, it's pretty entertaining. Brynner's terse dialog and intimidation factor work very well.Production quality is very good, from the opening of a boy and his dog at play on the beach to the finale at the mansion home of the gang's mastermindMy only complaints is the over the top sleaze in some places and the need for perhaps more fluid camera work during action scenes. It's almost like no one knew how to choreograph a film fight. Finally, the resolution of the identity of the 'Head Man' still falls flat, even after 40 years.Still, this is a fondly remembered film still enjoyed.But...if the gang had tried to kill Novak at the beginning of the movie, how could he expect to infiltrate them?

U.S. secret service agent YUL BRYNNER is enlisted by Scotland Yard to infiltrate a forgery ring distributing phony U.S. currency in London. He joins a Scotland Yard man EDWARD WOODWARD in this story that appears to be a remake of T-MEN, a thriller from the '40s that starred Dennis O'Keefe in the Brynner role. This version starts in the same terse documentary style as the American film.It's Brynner who decides the best way to capture the mob is to infiltrate them, with Woodward as his back-up, a man with a wife and two children. Brynner is motivated by revenge. His sweetheart was killed in America by men who meant to kill him. Brynner has his misgivings about Woodward. "A married man should be sitting behind a desk shoving papers." He's afraid Woodward won't be a good back-up for him since he refuses to carry a gun.The London backgrounds add flavor to the story, but the script is a cumbersome one, lacking the tension of T-MEN. Dull stretches toward the middle of the story take away from interest for the overall story to have the desired effect. Sam Wanamaker's direction is much too sluggish for this kind of yarn. CHARLES GRAY does a nice job as "The Owl".The storyline is so similar in detail to T-MEN that it's an example of how a 1940s film noir filmed in shadowy B&W can be so superior to this Technicolor remake shifted to London locales but otherwise much the same story, except for some minor changes toward the conclusion.Summing up: Should have generated more suspense. A better editing job would have helped the sluggish pace of a film that is not without a certain amount of intrigue and danger.

Yul Brynner (yes, Yul Brynner, believe it or not) plays a U.S. Secret Service agent assigned by Washington to investigate an international gang counterfeiting $100 bills in Europe. He teams up with a Scotland Yard detective played by Edward Woodward ("The Equalizer" in a future life).The movie opens with the gang attempting to assassinate Brynner near the United Nations building in New York, because he has developed too much evidence. The gang misses, of course, but his girl friend is killed. Brynner travels to London, works undercover, and gets in good with the gang.I gave this movie a 7 out of 10, if only because they got the right American law enforcement agency (Secret Service) investigating counterfeit.