Friday, February 13, 2009
CASTRO CONVERTIBLE
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Alfred Hitchcock's
This is a departure from the Hitchcock formula. The film is about a semi-actual set of incidents during the Cuban missile crisis. A French agent works for the Americans to get critical information and then finds that the Russians have infiltrated the highest reaches of his own intelligence system.
Leon Uris wrote a novel about it.
It is pretty good. Longer than a normal Hitch film. But worth the time. There are the usual false clues laid down. The women all look like they just came out of the refrigerator. A lot of mirrors are used to good effect. And so on.
There are no stars! John Forsythe is in a sort of half-star role. Philip Noiret, a french actor who has gained some prominence is in it. Others look familiar. It is nice. It takes us away from the Cary or Grace or James Stewart stock characters.
I liked it. Somewhere in the beginning I realized that I had seen it before. But that did not matter as I didn't remember who did it.
There was a lot of nostalgia here for the times when the crisis was going on. Castro's visit to the UN plays a nice part in it. There are a number of places where actual film clips are skillfully used. We see the young Castro and Che.
I think that it could have been shorter but then I always think that of anything over two hours. Even two hours seems long sometimes.
I don't need to see this again. A nice time was had by all and that is enough. I will rate it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
