Deux billets pour Mexico

Berlin in winter. The days are wet and dark, the deeds darker. Thus the scene is set for one of the genre's most enjoyable serious entries. Yes, it's a simple story; there are no madmen with visions of world domination, no fancy gadgets to distract but it's a story told with flair and the swift pace is that of the petty thief on the run, drawn into a high-stakes game of espionage.

Christian-Jaque, director of one of the segments of The Dirty Game, pulls all the elements together this time; a first rate score by Gerard Calvi, a great and varied cast, an excellent script, and appealing locations result in a minor gem. Dutch camera angles abound as we chase the European winter in Berlin, Lucerne, Paris, and Vienna. The look of the film manages to stay just this side of drab, the natural light is weak but the feeling isn't one of hopelessness, rather it's a sort of dignified gloom.

If you're looking for a well-crafted piece of espionage drama that treads the fine line between humor and bleakness, and features a stellar cast at their best, you just found it. As Georges Geret remarks halfway through the film `Spying is no job, it's a profession,' and this is a very professional look at it indeed.

The Quick Pitch: A small-time thief "accidentally" steals some top secret documents. The thief travels across Europe hoping to sell the documents while staying one step ahead of (1) the spies he stole from and (2) a CIA agent trying to recover the secrets.

Dead Run is a nice little Eurospy film that I don't think I'd ever heard of before watching it the other night. IMDb lists the film as a drama/thriller, but there's also a bit of comedy thrown in that I found appealing. The plot is interesting, but maybe a little more complicated that it needed to be. The location shots are fabulous as everyone races across Europe. I always love a film filled with 60s era European locations. The film stars Peter Lawford. While he's not what I envision when I think 60s spy movie, the light-hearted tone of Dead Run fit his style fairly well. He's joined by a rock-solid cast featuring the gorgeous (and often quite funny) Ira von Furstenberg, the even more gorgeous Maria Grazia Buccella, and a host of well-known German actors, including Werner Peters, Wolfgang Preiss, and the menacing Horst Frank. I really enjoyed the way Lawford and von Furstenberg played off each other. I felt some real chemistry. But the real star is Georges Geret as Carlos, the man with the stolen documents. He's an interesting character - fun to watching in some instances, tragic in others. Overall, it's a better cast that I would have expected.

My only complaint (and the main reason I'm not rating Dead Run any higher) is that I felt the movie ran out of steam about halfway through. After a fantastic and interesting start, the movie slowed down a bit too much for my liking.

6/10

I certainly would NOT include this,the English-language title of which is DEAD RUN, among any top list of Eurospy classics; however, its witty tone, nice locations and interesting camera work, and impressive acting from Georges Gerret (as a small-time pickpocket who steals some secret papers more important than he could imagine), Peter Lawford (using his old charm and wit once again, as a CIA agent so informal that I doubt the REAL CIA would ever employ him!), and familiar German faces such as Horst Frank (chilling!), Wolfgang Preiss, and Werner Peters make it worth watching and above average. Director Christian-Jacque had a diverse career--directing the odd but fun LEGEND OF FRENCHIE KING with Bardot and Michael J. Pollard, doing uncredited direction on the bloated but entertaining MARCO THE MAGNIFICENT with Horst Bucholz and Orson Welles (and the unnerving angular composition of so many shots in DEAD RUN shows that Mr. Jacque is a BIG Welles fan!!), directing BABETTE GOES TO WAR, the film that proved Bardot was more than just a cheesecake star, and helming one of the segments of the war anthology THE DIRTY GAME. He also made a few excellent films with Jean Marais in the mid-60s. Much of what is good about DEAD RUN comes from Jacque's interesting and stylish direction, as the story is cliche-ridden and not really memorable. Overall, though, if you like an espionage drama with the sense of class and visual style that only the French bring to a film, with a number of strong performances, you might want to find DEAD RUN.

....a man of the past in 1967.All his best works (and there are plenty of them)were behind him:"Les Disparus de Saint-Agil" "L'Assassinat du Père Noel" "Boule de Suif" "Un Revenant" "Fanfan la Tulipe" ,to name but five ...

In the sixties (and seventies) there were two commendable works "La Tulipe Noire" and "Le Repas des Fauves" ,both featuring Henri Jeanson's incomparable lines.

After 1965,he had no idea what he was doing:poor suspense films ("la Seconde Verite" ),dismal remakes ("Les Amours de Lady Hamilton" ),coarse comedies ("les Petroleuses" ) and of course spy thrillers("The Saint" well before the Val Kilmer version,"Doctor Justice " and the movie I'm writing about)

"Deux Billets Pour Mexico" (French title)has an international cast :Peter Lawford (US),Georges Guéret and Jean Tissier (France) ,Ira Furstenberg and Horst Frank (Germany),Maria Bucella (Spain)....It's pleasant at best (notably the scene with the antique dealer ),trite at worst.It's essentially a chase movie but it displays nothing of what French people liked in Christian-Jaque's best films:his pacifism,his faith in Man and in a better world .