Micitype Pretty Good

Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Edgar Soberon Torchia If one draws a map of Bryan Forbes' directorial career it is obvious that it went through a winning streak that ended in less than ten years. Once an actor, Forbes declared in an interview that an actor had to have "arrogance, conceit… I would never have made it as an actor, but I still have conceit." Unfortunately this conceit was probably the cause that led him from solid dramas to concoctions as «Deadfall», a crime melodrama with a touch of James Bond's gymnastics among the rich in Mallorca, set to John Barry's ponderous score. The effort turned out to be a hard fall. Forbes was also a fine screenwriter, and he signed scripts for others, as Guy Green's «The Angry Silence», Seth Holt's «Station Six-Sahara», and 1964's «Of Human Bondage» (a troubled production with three directors, including Forbes for a week), as well as his own, all resulting in good movies: «The L-Shaped Room», «Séance on a Wet Afternoon», «King Rat», «The Wrong Box» and «The Whisperers». But then came this international project based of a novel by Desmond Cory and produced by American Paul Monash, and Forbes gave his wife Nanette Newman (a good actress) a small role with top credit, and led her through embarrassing scenes (as dancing proto-disco in a millionaire's villa), he gave composer Barry carte blanche (including a quite visible role as orchestra conductor), and --inspired by the James Bond craze and by Cory's flair for secret agents' tales-- he entered the territory of male chauvinistic fantasies, with a leading character Henry Clarke (Michael Caine) who is a bland, homophobic fool endowed with abilities beyond any human being's (except Bond, Dracula, or Cory's own Johnny Fedora, of course). Forbes had used incredibility in realistic plots since his first movie, «Whistle Down the Wind», a fable among children (almost ruined by Malcolm Arnold's score), which worked for its good performances and the sincere portrayal of children's innocence. This time, taken or not from Cory's novel, the script contains no innocence at all, and has instead a parade of peculiar characters with secret agendas, all in a single plot: a romantic thief, an adulterous wife, a homosexual husband, an alcoholic millionaire, an ill-mannered gay hustler, a British informer lost in Mallorca, an aspiring actress or whatever she wants to do in films… not to mention a Polish actor passing for a Spanish doctor. Of all the actors portraying these people, Eric Portman is the best thing in the movie, because Caine and Giovanna Ralli are unconvincing as lovers, with no evident chemistry between the two. Newman, David Buck and Carlos Pierre all look pretty, while Barry overflows the proceedings with sickly sweet violins and guitars. They were all now in the international spotlight and that was good for them, because in spite of its shortcomings and excessive running time, «Deadfall» somehow worked, thanks to Forbes I guess, who followed this with another balloon filled with stars, «The Madwoman of Chaillot»… which was not an improvement at all. He had to wait until 1975 for the fine «The Stepford Wives» which was undeservedly besieged by confused feminists and William Goldman.

MartinHafer Sure, the late 1960s were a rather permissive time. Nudity and highly realistic violence had crept into films and once taboo topics were becoming more and more commonplace. Still, I think some of the plot elements in "Deadfall" must have shocked a few folks back then. That's because the plot involves more than just burglaries, as one of the main characters is gay---a novel idea for its time.The film begins with Henry Clark (Michael Caine) in rehab for alcoholism. A pretty lady (Giovanna Ralli) shows up with a business proposition--she knows he's a top burglar and wants him for a job with her husband (Eric Portman). The trio join forces and their goal eventually is to go for a seemingly impossible job--but they do an easier one first. This job does not go smoothly, but seeing this portion of the film is the highlight of the movie.By the way, although the plot left me a bit cold, the music by John Barry was great and the director's use of intercutting scenes during the first burglary are quite good. Along the line, Caine falls for his new partner's wife. This isn't a major problem, as her husband is gay. But, oddly, she is very loyal to him and won't leave him. However, there is an odd secret--something much stranger afoot that no one except the husband yet knows. What it is turns out to be kind of weird--and leads to a very anticlimactic and depressing ending. All in all, a creative caper film but one that is, at times, very talky and many won't like the downbeat ending. I think it's worth a look--a decent film but certainly not a must-see.

Neil Doyle DEADFALL is a lushly photographed suspense story with a cat burglar theme, wallowing in a full bodied John Barry score--especially during the major heist involving MICHAEL CAINE's high climbing bit where he's breaking into a playboy's mansion. Clever editing permits cross-cutting between a concert hall suite and the burglary in progress. GIOVANNA RALLI is the pretty Italian woman married to the mastermind of the burglary--ERIC PORTMAN--an aged homosexual.After the main burglary, the story sags from mid-point onward with talky scenes between Caine and Ralli where she talks about her failed marriage and revelations of a sordid kind. All of this leads toward a downbeat ending with explanations made that are supposed to be shocking but don't have the desired impact because by then the pace of the film has become too lethargic.ERIC PORTMAN gets the best lines but the dialog is hardly up to the caliber of Tennessee Williams and that's what is needed here, considering the sort of material the story deals with.Summing up: Handsomely photographed on locations in England and Spain, it's a so-so crime caper after a solidly suspenseful burglary. The John Williams score is its biggest asset.

thehumanduvet Michael Caine plays a typically taciturn cat-burglar hooking up with a shady couple to pull off some posh country-house robberies in this atmospheric thriller set amongst Europe's aristocrats. Some nice scenery and a few tense robbery scenes fill in between a complex relationship story at the centre of things, as Caine has an affair with his gay employer/partner's wife. Interesting, a bit weird but not enough for cult interest, no classic but a good little movie.