The Disappearance

Cold blooded hitman Jay Mallory (Donald Sutherland) experiences uncharted emotions when his wife (Francine Racette, Sutherland's partner and future wife) suddenly disappears. It makes him nervous about his next job (which the hitmen call "the shy"), a high profile hit in England, but he ultimately accepts the risks. Based on the novel "Echoes of Celandine" by Derek Marlowe, this is a tiny and engaging thriller put together by David Hemmings (he also has a small role). According to the L. A. Times, Hemmings raised around $2 million to make it (Sutherland also invested his own $200,000). The team must have called in a lot of favors as also onscreen in small roles are David Warner, John Hurt, Virginia McKenna, and Christopher Plummer. Director Stuart Cooper handles it all well and makes the film extremely "cold" on screen. By that I mean you can almost feel the chilliness in the Canadian and England locations. Mallory's home is also a cool site/sight as they shot at Habitat 67, a futuristic looking apartment block built for the World's Fair in 1967. All of this is captured beautifully by cinematographer John Alcott, who had just done Barry Lyndon(1975) and would soon do The Shining (1980) for Kubrick. In the end, it had a rough go in terms of release. World Northal picked it up for the U. S. and eventually put it out in 1981. By that time, Sutherland had already made 10 more films.

Ostensibly, it should be hard to understand why certain movies slip into obscurity despite being loaded with talent, but then you come across a case like this one and the possibility suddenly becomes not just plausible but inevitable. On paper, this Anglo-Canadian "existentialist" thriller certainly had potential: an impressive cast – Donald Sutherland, David Hemmings, John Hurt, David Warner, Christopher Plummer and Virginia McKenna – was mouthing the words of screenwriter Paul Mayersberg under the guidance of director Stuart Cooper (the man behind recent Criterion DVD release, OVERLORD [1975]) and being lit by the late great cinematographer (and frequent Stanley Kubrick collaborator) John Alcott; besides, the whole thing was being overseen by producer Hemmings himself. So, where did the film go wrong?

Well, for starters, the central mystery itself is not very interesting: the neglected wife of brooding Donald Sutherland – the No. 1 hit-man for an enigmatic espionage organization – is forever threatening to leave him and does exactly that at the very start of the film; unfortunately, while Sutherland is very good in his role and literally the best thing in it, the actress playing his wife (Francine Racette) is as stiff and unappealing as one of her husband's handiwork. This fact renders the knowledge that Racette is none other than Sutherland's own wife in real life as well almost impossible to believe, since this is hardly borne by their interaction here – least of all during a fragmentary sex scene that ludicrously apes Nicolas Roeg's DON'T LOOK NOW (1973) which, of course, also starred Sutherland! Actually, I had seen Racette act previously in two notable films – Dario Argento's FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET (1971) and Joseph Losey's MR. KLEIN (1976) – but I can't really say if her efforts were any better there. For the record, THE DISAPPEARANCE proved to be Racette's penultimate film before retiring to raise her three children with Sutherland. Thankfully, although most of them are practically extended cameos, the supporting cast – of whom, I thought, John Hurt comes off best – does keep one watching…but, again, the utterly predictable double surprise ending closes the film with a whimper instead of a bang.

Equally to blame for the film's ultimate failure is Stuart Cooper whose direction is pretentious to a fault and, unsurprisingly, he too faded exclusively into TV-movie limbo soon after; for what it's worth, many years ago I did get to watch two of his TV ventures – A.D. (1985) and THE FORTUNATE PILGRIM (1988) – both of which were large-scale productions. Having said that, screenwriter Mayersberg is himself well-known for his non-linear scripts but the would-be audacious time-jumping techniques abused here merely attempt to imbue an obscure and thin plot with some elusive sense of significance; incidentally, even if the 88-minute version I watched was 12 minutes short of the original, I doubt that the missing footage would made things any clearer! Unfortunately for the viewer, Stuart Cooper is no visual stylist like Nicolas Roeg, much less a master film-maker in the league of Alain Resnais! Besides, given the structure and themes of the film, at times I couldn't help but unfavorably compare it to John Boorman's vastly superior POINT BLANK (1967)...

The Disappearance, to me, is a Hitchcock wannabe that simply isn't. It's a slowly paced, talky thriller that just doesn't cut it. Donald Sutherland and the cast are great, but there are so many British actors in the cast that the term "Canadian-Made" sounds like a cheat. If this is a Canadian movie, wouldn't it have been better if they had put all Canadian actors in the cast? Also, if the movie takes place in Montreal (a mostly French-speaking city), wouldn't it have made more sense to have Sutherland's character do his foreign assignment in somewhere like Paris, France, instead of in England? After all, this is not a British movie, it's Canadian.

It surprised me that Sutherland and Francine Racette were married and had 3 children.

I recommend this only for fans of deep psychological thrillers. As for me, I think I will be putting a "Previously Viewed" label on this one and dropping it in the drop-off slot at my local video store.

Rating: **

Director Stuart Cooper, about whom I know nothing, gets his cinematography and editing teams to produce a sweeping visual job of Canadian snow-laden landscapes, Montreal buildings and river, lush English forests, and luscious Francine Racette, Sutherland's real life wife, that keeps you watching in earnest. Very good support cast includes John Hurt, David Hemmings, Peter Bowles, the ever beautiful and classy Virginia McKenna and, of course, Sutherland's fellow Canadian-born actor, Christopher Plummer.

Sutherland's tall, slender figure, is emphasized throughout in stylish photography and lit background shots, and his chemistry with gorgeous Racette is palpable, adding believability to his situation as the husband missing his beloved wife, who has disappeared. Has she left him out of boredom? Has she found another love interest - after all, she leaves then hubby Hemmings at the party for sex with Sutherland? Or are there darker forces involved and she has been abducted? Or worse?

Flashbacks explain it. For a tad patient viewer it can make for rewarding cinema and storytelling, even if why Sutherland became a hitman in the first place is not disclosed (I did get the impression, though, that he needed Francine in his life to keep the right mental attitude to killing, as signs of burnout and wanting to leave the profession begin to emerge).

Such questionable moral and professional values aside, THE DISAPPEARANCE deserves attentive watching. 8/10.

This film, done as a joint effort from the stellar cast and crew (script, cinematography, costumes, set design), is one of the best mystery, thriller-dramas, of the seventies. Ranking right along Arthur Penn's "Night Moves", "The Disappearance", in it's 91 minute, or better yet 101 minute director's cut, version is stylish neo-noir that glides perfectly through the story of alienation and betrayal, love and loss, mistaken emotions and gloomy memories, spanning between almost futuristic backdrop of Montreal, and rustic mansions and countrysides of Suffolk. Director's cut adds only a few nice linchpins to the story, explaining minor details, that are somewhat important to the plot, and without which, few things are left to our imagination.

Never really seen in it's real glory, as intended by the director Stuart Cooper, until the 2013 blu-ray release, that comprises both director's cut and 91 minute "third version" of the film,released in the UK, assembled by unknown author, as close to original as possible, retaining the feel, flashbacks essential to the film's structure and original score, director's cut and a "hatchet job" US version, "The Disappearance" is the best example of how a really good film can be mutilated beyond recognition, by an inept studio hacks. Making a linear plot out of non-linear story which is essential to the depth of the plot, is a true crime, and the rating that this movie holds on IMDb is the rating of the so called "US theatrical cut" which made this gem bomb at the box office after a single showing, and jettisoned into obscurity for over 30 years. The example of this, is also contained on the blue-ray in a horrid 15 minute long excerpt from the re-edited and re-scored U.S. release version of the film.

Now available as envisioned, (plus a non Hollywood ending) "The Disappearance" deserves it's place among the "must see" films. More than recommended, a true classic.