Philadelphia Clan

Condon wrote a magazine article about this movie production around 1980 that makes it ten times as strange as the story itself. Among other details:

The movie was financed with money from cocaine dealers.

When the production went over budget, the executive producer brought in additional "financiers", then was able to keep the crews working for two weeks - in New York - with no pay. Jeff Bridges and Tony Perkins both offered their salaries as collateral.

After the film was finished, the studio was purchased by a bigger studio which then ultimately declined to release it. At one point, at a test preview at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, passers by were being offered $1 to watch the movie.

A few months later, the executive producer was found in a New York hotel room, handcuffed to a bed, with two bullets in his head.

A rather unique conspiracy thriller / dark comedy, "Winter Kills" is based on a novel by Richard Condon of "The Manchurian Candidate" fame. It may not be nearly as well known, but it merits a look. Jeff Bridges stars as Nick Kegan, the younger half brother of an assassinated U.S. President. 19 years after the killing, Nick comes across a man who makes a dying confession that he was one of the gunmen. Nick then becomes determined to solve this old mystery, soldiering on even as his extremely rich and influential businessman father (John Huston) tries to manipulate the course of events. As Nick pursues leads, he realizes that the people he encounters cannot be taken at face value, and that not all of these leads are going to be particularly helpful.

A sincere and likable performance by Bridges helps to anchor the tale, and there's a nonstop parade of famous faces in supporting roles and cameos: Anthony Perkins, Eli Wallach, Sterling Hayden, Dorothy Malone, Tomas Milian, Ralph Meeker, Toshiro Mifune, Richard Boone, and an uncredited Elizabeth Taylor. But despite all of these heavy hitters gracing the film with their presence, it's Huston that commands a great deal of attention. He does seem to be quite enjoying himself playing this overbearing and grandiose character. The beautiful Belinda Bauer is appealing as the love of Nicks' life.

William Richert scripted, and directs the film as a commentary on the nature of politics, the real-life assassination of JFK, and the power wielded by the affluent 1% represented by Hustons' Pa Kegan. It's a rather intricate mystery, and the best part of it is that you can't be sure where it's going, and aren't two steps ahead of Nick the whole time. One particularly silly scene has an unlikely character attempting to dispose of Nick, only for the sequence to include a rather hilarious, gratuitous dose of T & A.

Absorbing entertainment, with real-life production stories that are stranger than anything in the film.

Seven out of 10.

What a mess. It starts out interesting enough but the longer it goes on the more annoying the whole thing gets. It's basically the same joke over and over. The movie sets up situations to pull you in and you take it serious for a minute only to have the rug pulled out from under you with the cinematic equivalent of the "pull my finger" gag. It gets old. John Huston is having fun and that makes all his scenes at least watchable. I was begging for it to be over before the halfway mark. I'm reviewing the directors cut by the way, in case that matters. I'm not remotely interested now in learning anything about this film's backstory.

Winter Kills is an enormously intriguing film, whose entertainment quotient depends largely upon how early on the viewer catches on that this is an extremely black comedy about politics, paranoia, and the sacred cow Kennedy family. This is what you would get if Irwin Allen produced a really wry comic version of The Parallax View -- no longer a hackneyed political thriller like its source material, William Richert has transformed it into social satire with an all-star cast. His touch was so gentle with regard to the satirical elements, that few critics recognized the film as any kind of comedy upon its initial theatrical release. Winter Kills is not a cinema classic -- ie, its not The Manchurian Candidate -- but it is an engaging, ahead-of-its-time film featuring an unforgettable performance by John Huston as the Joe Kennedy type. (The most unforgettable part -- or is it the bit hardest to get out of one's mind? -- is the sight of Mr. Huston in red jockey shorts!) Highly recommended to all fans of 1970s cinema, and especially political paranoia movies like The Parallax View, The Conversation and Capricorn One. Next time you're thinking about popping some drivel like Enemy Of The State in the old VCR, I beg you, reconsider and treat yourself to a little festival of this film and Parallax View or even Three Days Of The Condor.

Richert's film of Condon's novel is both provocative and funny, and a tribute to the remarkable creative talents of all involved when you become aware of the incredible events that complicated the completion of the production. The convoluted conspiracy premise is generally so well known to most American audiences that it can properly be relegated a back seat to the audacious set pieces and the constant flow of edgy, brilliantly mean-spirited dialogue. Bridges and Huston are flawless here, and their scenes together are amazing. A stunning satire and a bold and daring piece of filmmaking for it's time and for today, too! The special edition DVD is supplemented by a second disc enlightening the viewer on the troubled history of the production. The film received a brief and limited release, so this widescreen Panavision version is an extrememly welcome presentation.