Le chat croque les diamants

It's a shame this movie was such a failure, because subsequently one of the greatest 60's film scores I've ever heard has been buried along with it. John Barry has never done finer work, and even appears on-camera to conduct one of the brilliant pieces he composed. If you ever get a chance to see this film on TV, and you get bored by it, just leave the sound on. You'll get quite a treat.

DEADFALL is a lushly photographed suspense story with a cat burglar theme, wallowing in a full bodied John Barry score--especially during the major heist involving MICHAEL CAINE's high climbing bit where he's breaking into a playboy's mansion. Clever editing permits cross-cutting between a concert hall suite and the burglary in progress. GIOVANNA RALLI is the pretty Italian woman married to the mastermind of the burglary--ERIC PORTMAN--an aged homosexual.

After the main burglary, the story sags from mid-point onward with talky scenes between Caine and Ralli where she talks about her failed marriage and revelations of a sordid kind. All of this leads toward a downbeat ending with explanations made that are supposed to be shocking but don't have the desired impact because by then the pace of the film has become too lethargic.

ERIC PORTMAN gets the best lines but the dialog is hardly up to the caliber of Tennessee Williams and that's what is needed here, considering the sort of material the story deals with.

Summing up: Handsomely photographed on locations in England and Spain, it's a so-so crime caper after a solidly suspenseful burglary. The John Williams score is its biggest asset.

After spending most of the sixties specialising in low-keyed black & white slices of life this marked Bryan Forbes' chance to provide a slice of cake. The package of Michael Caine (sans glasses) playing a dashing jewel thief against a backdrop of glamorous Spanish locations with a score by John Barry obviously made it easy to get backing. Just so you get the message it also has a credit sequence complete with a song by Shirley Bassey.

Although the heist itself delivers the goods, the principals spend far too much time languidly talking (and talking) about their emotions. Vladek Sheybal (also a Bond veteran) offers an unsettling cameo as a psychiatrist (who manages to give hitherto unsuspected menace to the single word "ma-ssage"); while in addition to the inevitable Nanette Newman - at one point briefly seen snogging David Buck to Barry's theme from 'Beat Girl' - Giovanni Ralli and Eric Portman (in his last film) are memorably poisonous as Caine's partners in crime.

I first came across this film in Ankara, Turkey in the 1970's and have been looking for it since. It's a "heist" film on the surface, a cat burglar after jewels. But it's far more than this, with troubling, dark sexual overtones. It features the actual "deadfall" against the background of Aranjuez' guitar concerto, and the suspense is terrific, especially the acting, with Caine at his underplaying best, and Eric Portman stealing the show with a subtle, great performance. Why this film is not a cult classic I don't know, unless its dark side is too much for viewers. It's really unforgetable, as proven by its 25 year hold on my imagination.

Watched this film tonight on the BBC for the first time. What an unusual film! Written and Directed by Bryan Forbes it certainly added some new twists to the usual thriller plotline. Some odd mixing of plotlines, particularly mixing up sexuality with perversion, which maybe didn't come off too well, but with some brilliant music by John Barry and a belting Shirley Bassey opening titles song this does deliver great entertainment with good direction from Bryan Forbes.