La danza de los diamantes

Just wanted to let anyone who might stumble upon this movie to know that it's certainly worth your time viewing. Melina Mercouri is great as the widow of a shadowy underworld figure who entangles James Garner in her search for missing booty. The booty being a small fortune in loose diamonds. The movie has lots of sixties style going for it and is set in beautiful Mediterranean locales. With a great supporting cast of sixties superstars like Sandra Dee and Tony Franciosa the movie entertains with tons of tounge in cheek, cloak and dagger sexy verve. It's a fun in the sun movie with all the stars putting in great performances. One final note, as the credits roll at the end of the movie, Frank Sinatra's rendition of Strangers in the Night provides a fitting and satisfying end.

I was shocked when the Academy Award Show mentioned that both Tony Franciosa and Sandra Dee died during the year. They co-starred in one of my favorite movies, A Man Could Get Killed.

How the hell could they be dead? They seemed like kids to me. I guess you live long enough most people start to seem like kids. But these were special to me. They gave me pleasure with their performances in an excellent movie.

Franciosa especially. I became a fan of his for life. He played a native street hustler/smuggler in Lisbon. His accent sounded believable to me. But then Sandra Dee came along.

Wait a minute.

Let's start at the beginning.

James Garner and Melina Mercouri starred in this comedy/action-adventure. (According to an English website Robert Coote starred. Tell them to take their cooties and go home.) Garner plays an American businessman who is mistaken by everybody for a super-secret British agent on the trail of smuggled diamonds. When Coote, supposedly his liaison at the British Embassy meets him at the Lisbon airport, the car intended for him is blown up. No matter how much Garner protests, all of which are accepted as cover for his actual mission, he is then transported into a world of scheming, dangerous, underworld characters.

First among these is the fabulous Melina Mercouri playing the amorous, amoral, ungrieving widow of a recently killed gangster. It is great fun for us to see how much fun she has in this role. She flirts with Garner at the funeral of her husband.

Tony Franciosa, totally charming in his guise as a Portuguese hustler, attaches himself to Garner. Sandra Dee, the archetypical Southern California beach girl appears and exposes Franciosa. They had been connected in America. But Franciosa's exposition is that he is an American hustler, not Portuguese. Not much change there.

The four of them are then off on a life or death quest to find the smuggled diamonds. It is a fun trip. Garner, straight and proper, is continuously agitated by Mercouri's delightful lack of morals.

In one memorable scene, the bad guys tell the two of them to strip so they can be searched. While Garner tries to defend her honor, Mercouri eagerly begins to comply. She begins by removing her false eyelashes.

This is a fun romp with charismatic stars and great chemistry between them. Much of the fine background music throughout became the ballad, "Strangers in the Night." See it if you get a chance.

And say goodbye to Sandra Dee and Tony Franciosa.

James Garner arrives in Lisbon. He's on assignment from his bank to conduct a survey on a proposed bond issue for hydro-electric power generation. As soon as he arrives, he is mistaken for a British spy sent to investigate a diamond smuggling ring. Every spy in town, down at the heels since the end of the War thinks he's the man to follow around, including Melina Mercouri. Tony Franciosa is not a spy. He's a simple smuggler, who hopes to get a 5% finder's fee, lumbered with Sandra Dee, who's on the prowl for him.

It's a somewhat cumbersome comedy, lumbered with an unfortunate score by Bert Kaempfert; one of the themes would become the hit song "Strangers in the Night." To hear it swell up, played on the mandolin made me hear Sinatra singing it, and distracted me from what was going on. Garner's irritation at being thought a spy and his unconsummated romance with Miss Mercouri began to pall until the plot began to speed up. Franciosa and Dee, on the other hand, with their blithe nonchalance, were delightful through the end.

I didn't really wanted to add much to the other reviews. If you've watched and just kicked back to many sixties films of this type, and find joy simply soaking the unique sights and sounds of the time that showcases some of the performers of that era, here's another offering to entertain you similarly. You can add it to the many rollicking Tony Curtis, Dean Martin, Rock Hudson, Peter Sellers, Carry on... flavor of comedies that were quite popular then, a time that weren't real for many of us born after.

The remarkable thing is, some people get the impression the actors and crew involved were having as much of a good time off camera as they were having on camera or enjoying themselves as much as the audience that enjoyed it. Not so, according to many involved who spoke about their experience making the film years after. Sandra Dee has expressed that she never wanted to make it in the first place and regrets having spent four miserable months on the picture. The first director was dismissed for having 'trouble' with the actors. James Garner was reportedly disappointed with the result. He and Tony Franciosa didn't get along well during filming either. Their fight scene in the movie was said to be quite non fictional.

In fact, Garner admitted he punched Franciosa because the guy abused and never pulled his punches against stuntmen, or tried at all to feign it as necessary. It's almost like implying Franciosa was displaying a misplaced sense of machismo and bravado on the set. Franciosa was known at the time for not being able to control his hair trigger temper.

Regardless, the fact that they were able to convince so many people they weregenuinely having great fun, getting famously along, and convey a light hearted comical movie lay testament to an actor's ability to act if nothing else.

Just a few additional information about the film that isn't mentioned on this site for those interested.

1965s 'A Man Could Get Killed' is a great slice of 60s movie hokum. It has James Garner at his "Basically, I'm just passing through on my way to Australia" best. Added to that, the cream of England's 'old duffer' character actors, Coote, Culver, Parker and Grey. An interesting cameo from the great Irish doctor/actor Niall MacGinnis, as the ships captain. Sandra Dee is as loud as any American tourist in Europe should be allowed to get, but still gorgeous. Tony Franciosa as the pretend Portuguese smuggler is fun and of course the wonderful, and criminally underrated, Melina Mercouri stealing the show. Throw in some diamonds and it all adds up to a not bad 97 minutes of escapism. And with a nice romantic ending to the strains of, probably Bert Kaempfert's greatest tune 'Strangers in the Night'. What's not to like! I saw this film as a young boy, when first released, loved it and have never forgotten it. How this film is not available on DVD is beyond me! It's about time we had a box set of James Garner 60s films with, obviously, this film included.