Peter Viney's Blog

Deadfall (1968)

Based on the novel by Desmond Cory
Screenplay by Bryan Forbes 

Directed by Bryan Forbes
Music by John Barry

CAST:
Michael Caine – Henry Clark
Eric Portman – Moreau
Giovanna Ralli – Fé
David Buck – Salinas
Nanette Newman – The Girl
John Barry – Conductor
Renato Tarrago – as herself, guitar soloist
Leonard Rossiter- Fillmore

The 60s films revisited series continues…

So why did we unearth this one? We found a blu-ray copy too. Good transfer.

When I was reviewing The Magus, a film Michael Caine loathed, I found glowing references to Deadfall as the far better Michael Caine film from the same year. I was intrigued, and neither of us had seen it. Not surprisingly, as it happens. It didn’t do well at the box office, and checking reviews now, they’re largely negative.

Deadfall was released in October 1968. The Magus was released in December 1968. Deadfall was filmed first.

The connections don’t stop there. Both show Michael Caine as a young man, drawn into the web of an older manipulative man. In both cases, the older man’s partner / wife / girlfriend is used as bait to lure him in. In both cases, he then starts an affair with the girl.

In both cases, it turns out that the older man has Nazi links in World War II, though there is a suggestion of being a double agent. In both cases the Nazi story ended up with a young man / men being shot against a wall. We see it in The Magus as flashback, though we only hear a report in Deadfall.

Then both were filmed mainly in Majorca. The Magus was set in Greece, but most filming was in Majorca. Deadfall was mainly in Majorca, with interiors at Pinewood, England and some scenes in Madrid.

Michael Caine could pretty much swap from one film to the other without revealing any great difference, but that is an A-list star marker. Producers envisage Michael Caine in the part because they want Michael Caine to be like Michael Caine.

Both pictures were part of the same two picture deal with Twentieth Century Fox, and he made three films in Spain within a year, the third being Play Dirty.

The film opens with Shirley Bassey, as a nod to John Barry’s James Bond scores, and she’s singing My Love Has Two Faces.

Michael Caine as Henry Clark, Eric Portman as Moreau

The plot: Henry Clark (Michael Caine) is a cat burglar. We meet him in a psychiatric hospital for alcoholics. He has signed himself in to research Salinas, an unpleasant millionaire. Robbing Salinas is the ultimate professional challenge. Clark is sought out by the beautiful Fé (Giovanna Ralli) who wants him to meet her husband, Moreau (Eric Portman). Moreau is a safe-cracker but is too old for cat burglary. They propose a practice run before burgling Salinas, robbing a house belonging to a wealthy couple. Clarke asks Fé if Moreau is “a bender.” The discussion then calls him a more PC (at  least in 1968) word “queer.” Which indeed he refers to himself as. We should say “gay” but no one did in 1968. She says they share a bedroom but have separate beds.

Don’t look down! Lobby card

The burglary itself is an almost wordless fifteen minute sequence. Some online reviews criticize it badly, but we thought it brilliant. Worth watching the film for. The victim couple leave to go to a classical concert. Then for fifteen minutes the burglary is intercut with the full classical piece – switching from concert hall to the target house frequently.

John Barry, Renato Tarrago & The London Philharmonic

The music is Romance for Guitar and Orchestra written by John Barry for the purpose, and performed by The London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by John Barry. The guitar soloist is Renata Tarrago. They all appear in the concert as themselves. The cuts and rise and fall of the music all fall perfectly to complement the burglary. Critics complain that the cat burglar climb is too obviously “stunt man” and I guess a modern director would have the wherewithal to get a few close ups of Michael Caine in there. The burglary goes wrong – the safe is a new one, not the 12 year old one they expected. Moreau goes back to the car. Clark single-handedly hacks it out of the brick wall and carries it to the car. It is incredibly heavy. They just get away.

While recovering from the hernia (well, he does have to recover) he gets closer to Fé. There is even more in the safe than they’d hoped, and they know that as the victim was a politician, he won’t be reporting it. Fé presents Clark with a bronze E-Type Jaguar and off they go to the coastal villa for a bit of a romp. Caine is not good at sex scenes, we noted. Perhaps it was the hernia. Meanwhile, Moreau picks up a young French man, even though they’re in Spain.

Caine is still obsessed with burgling Salinas and has worked out an elaborate single-handed burglary. As we’ve had homosexuality as an unusual explicit theme for 1968, we then get incest. Clark now learns about the Nazi years and the young man who was shot. He was a collaborator with Moreau, who failed to save him. Then we learn that Fé is Moreau’s daughter as well as his wife. He sired her with the deceased young man’s wife.

Clark (Michael Caine) meets The Girl (Nanette Newman) at a party

Off Clark goes to burgle Salinas. Clark has met “The Girl” (Nanette Newman) at a party. She is incredibly beautiful but dumb and wants to be a film star. Salinas has picked her up. She gets her name on the main posters, even though she doesn’t get a name in the film script. Being married to the director helps. She does a very good comic cameo as The Girl though.

The burglary is most elaborate involving Clark hiding in the bathroom, fusing the lights by connecting the razor socket to water, then nipping over to switch off the burglar alarm only inches from the rutting couple (Salinas + The Girl)  who fail to see him. Meanwhile, Fé, having learned the awful truth, is racing to meet him in the Moreau’s iconic Citroen DS saloon.

He finds the loot, not in the safe at all, but as part of a chandelier and …  plot spoiler? Well, it was spoiled in the film title; he is shot or shot at by a guard and falls to his death. Deadfall. Ah! They even made it explicit on the film posters and also made it clear it was Caine who had the deadfall.

Moreau, having confessed all,  has shot himself while waiting. We see the joint funeral. Fé is led away to a police car. The young gay man drives off in the E-type Jag. The end.

The nationalities of the Moreaus is a condundrum. The name is French, they drive a gorgeous classic Citroen, and Moreau collaborated with the German occupying forces in World War II, which makes me think they’re supposed to be French – Fé it turns out is related so presumably French too. However, Eric Portman does an impeccable RP upper class English accent.

Giovanna Ralli as Fé

I’ve spent much time teaching French people and Italians, as well as touring both countries doing teacher training. Giovanna Ralli is Italian, but in this film has an undefinable accent. I’ve worked with totally fluent in English, and highly articulate Italians and they virtually all retain at least a trace of Italian intonation and added semi-vowels after final consonants. Not a sign of it. But she’s not doing a French accent either. Odd. It sounds more Central European, but then I know Polish, Czech and Hungarian accents too, and it’s not one of those. It’s a weird one, “indefinably foreign” is all I can say.

The critics mainly dislike it:

An uneasy subsidiary plot involving incest, lust, homosexuality and the like added little to a turgid script, directed unimaginatively by Bryan Forbes.
“Sir Michael Caine – The Biography” by William Hall

It’s not that bad at all. The word turgid appears in four reviews I read, which means they’re feeding off each other. That’s harsh. We enjoyed it. It falls off a touch after that brilliant fifteen minute concert / burglary sequence, but that concert piece is up there with John Barry’s finest work, as is the incidental music throughout. I thought the men had too much glistening lipstick (a minus for the makeup department).

Soundtrack album is rare: I’d love to find one

I’ll rewatch that fifteen minute sequence.

MICHAEL CAINE
The Ipcress File (1965)
Alfie (1966)
The Magus (1968)
Deadfall (1968)

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)
Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Performance (1970)