Games (1967)

James Caan and Katherine Ross were each on the cusp of superstardom in 1967, he with a breakout performance in "The Godfather", she becoming a bonafide leading lady in "The Graduate". But before ascending into the rarified air of Hollywood Royalty, they made the clunker "Games" together. Painfully slow and stunningly devoid of chills for an alleged "thriller", this one falls firmly into the category of "paying your dues".Watching this legendary pair play Parcheesi would have been more stimulating.

****SPOILERS*** Well to do yuppie, before that word became part of the English language, couple Paul & Jennifer Montgomery,James Caan & Katharine Ross, enjoy playing games on their friends and neighbors in their upper East Side Manhattan townhouse that has given the pair a reputation as neighborhood jesters. It's when Lisa Schindler, Simone Signoret, shows up at the townhouse unexpectedly selling cosmetics that the games that both Paul and Jenny have been playing go to a much higher level.Lisa somehow gets Paul & Jenny to let her stay at their place until she, in being evicted from her apartment for being behind on her rent, finds a place to stay. Having dabbled in the occult in the past Lisa soon shows the pair what games of faith and chance really are. It's non other then the neighborhood deliver boy Norman Fields, Don Strod, who gets involved in Paul and Jenny's game of misdirection, That's when Norman is set up by the two as the "other man" in Jenny's life and ends up getting his brains blown out by an outraged Paul who caught the two in the act!Thinking that his gun was loaded with blanks Paul in just trying to show the terrified Norman, after he got two harmless shots off at him, that it's all a joke lets go with the third shot that turned out to be the real deal! A .38 slug that bores into his brain through his right eye killing him instantly! Now with a murder or at the least homicide staring them in the face both Paul& Jenny are desperate to hide Norman's body and keep the police from finding it. While all this is happening Lisa who's totally in the dark to what happened to Norman starts to get suspicious of the couple in the very strange actions they do in preventing her from going in the house in her by chance finding evidence of Norman's death!***SPOILERS*** It's later when everything seemed to be cleared up in what happened to Norman that he somehow comes back to life terrorizing Jenny while she's awake and Paul in his sleep. It's Jenny who really starts to get spooked in Norman's return from the dead that leads her to suffer from a number of paranoid episodes. They get more and more severe as Norman finally comes out of the shadows and is about to strangle Jenny. By then the poor and confused young woman loses it and in the process ends up losing her mind as well!A lot like Simone Signoret's 1955 horror flick "Diabolique" the movie "Games" has the audience guessing if what their seeing is real or imagined just like both Paul & Jenny in the movie. The shocking ending is nowhere as good as that in "Diabolique" but still packs quite a punch in how we in the audience were manipulated into not seeing it coming a lot earlier in the film.

It's obvious that the screenwriters had "Les Diaboliques"(1955) in mind when they wrote this story.Simone Signoret's presence,in a part very similar to the one she played in Clouzot's film noir extraordinaire ,can't even shine for ,halfway through, you could see what she was up to from a mile off.The first scenes are pedestrian and filler and the story doesn't take off before Signoret's entrance.And even when she 's in,even with talented actors such as James Caan -who was really scary in "Lady in a cage" playing opposite Olivia De Havilland- or Katherine Ross,the suspense is totally absent.Maybe someone who does not know "Les Diaboliques" can be interested .

This film reminds me of "Sleuth", the movie based on a play by Anthony Shaffer released in 1972. Like in "Sleuth", people play games on each other and do not reveal their alliances, their true intentions or their true self. The story is acted like in a theatre play. The sets, representing a New York town house in a prosperous neighbourhood, are nicely done and give a vivid impression of the middle sixties' trends in fashion design and interior decorating - again you can compare it with the lavish set and the different costumes used by the protagonists in "Sleuth". For once, James Caan plays a slick urbanite, and he does it quite well. Don Stroud has a small part, a good actor whose screen presence and performance are always memorable. And then there is Simone Signoret ... as always she is absolutely riveting, and she puts a lot of charm in her rather pityful character. She uses her French accent very much to her advantage! "Games" is an elegant, suspenseful thriller for people who like to see a play now and then. Only right at the end you will know who has won!