Duffy le renard de Tanger

When "Duffy" was released, I was working in one of my father's theatres as the projectionist. As a projectionist I saw a lot of movies...over and over again. I can tell you that when you screen the same movie six to eight times a day for two, three, four weeks or more, most films soon lose their lustre. Not so with "Duffy". Of course I was just a kid then, and the sixties "counter-culture" was my adolescent fantasy. James Coburn, already extremely cool from "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Great Escape" was riding a wave of popularity from the campy "Flint" movies, but "Duffy" was a very cool and fun movie that I never tired of watching. It never took off as a hit and I've often wondered why. It was just as effective as other caper movies of the era, such as "Topkapi" or "Gambit". I think the reason it never took off was because 1968 was an eventful, tumultuous year, and "straight" America was frowning hard upon hippies and counter-culture. Too bad. I think the owner of this film would be surprised and well rewarded by releasing it to DVD.

Retired master criminal in Tangiers is recruited by a hedonistic British youth and his working-stiff brother to rip off a business tycoon of nearly three million dollars; complicating matters is the kid's kittenish girlfriend, who seems to change loyalties easily. Mod, swinging caper-comedy curiously doesn't spend a lot of time on plot-exposition (the planning of the actual heist is kept mostly off-screen), yet it does putter about lazily while introducing us to these people (who end many of their sentences with "man" and "baby"). James Coburn's decadent pad is really peculiar ("pop-porno", he calls it), and yet it has almost nothing to do with what's going on or even with Duffy's character (he does possess, however, the only fish tank-cum-slot machine I've ever seen!). Once the pieces of this location-rich adventure come into play, the picture becomes a passable piece of fluff (with a twist ending that is rather far-fetched, leaving a few questions unanswered). Still, Coburn is an intriguing presence, Susannah York is flighty and flirtatious (and beautiful with a tan), and James Mason is typically suave--and silently cunning--as their victim. ** from ****

Having lived on 4 dollars a day and not known what the next day would bring me this film is ultra-cool for people who know how to float through places of hip outside U.S. shores. I loved it then and love it now. Plus Lou Rawls!! James Coburn and Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Paul Newman, Bruce Lee, Robert Redford, Tony Curtis and many more are the people to watch. Some reviews say it is fluff but this shows the ultra cool Coburn at his best. The cast is excellent and now with the world economy crashing a taste of Duffy and Bullitt and Enter The Dragon and The Hustler in theaters might be a welcome relief from terminator 20 and all the other junk out there corporations push on the public. These guys and gal are actually acting.

Universal bring back PJ with George Peppard and Gayle Hunnicut too. We need these 60's folks on the screen again. Release Duffy on DVD!

This is another flashy caper comedy starring James Coburn which, surprisingly, emerged to be much better than the last one I’d watched only a few days previously i.e. DEAD HEAT ON A MERRY-GO-ROUND (1966). Interestingly, all three male lead actors here are called James (Coburn, Mason and Fox) – recalling the three Roberts (Young, Mitchum and Ryan) of CROSSFIRE (1947)!; for the record, Coburn and Mason would appear together again in THE LAST OF SHEILA (1973) and CROSS OF IRON (1977).

Coburn plays the titular Irish “hipster” (read: rogue/adventurer) engaged by wealthy but ne’er-do-well layabout half-brothers Fox and John Alderton (bearing dopey look and obnoxious laugh) to rob their unloving father (Mason)’s fortune, while it’s being transported by ship. Our hero lives modestly if not exactly inconspicuously – given the artistic bric-a'-brac that clutters his house – in Tangiers, and he even seems very much into the Swinging scene (with resulting slangy dialogue, not to mention a reference to The Beatles’ “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”!). Similarly, the Susannah York character – the only significant female to figure in the narrative – is liberated and carries on simultaneous affairs with both Fox and Coburn (at one point, she and Duffy debate whether such a woman is technically a “slut” or not!).

The film, therefore, promised to be a convoluted and pretentious bore (even more than the afore-mentioned DEAD HEAT in fact) but proved quite an engaging and enjoyable trifle – the belated robbery sequence itself is decently staged, with its trio of robbers donning ugly Halloween-type masks, and there’s an amusing supporting character in the porn-obsessed bank manager in Tangiers! The script (as always in similar outings from this cynical era, the denouement is twist-laden and heavily ironic) was co-written by the ill-fated Donald Cammell – who later that same year would re-team with Fox for the extraordinary PERFORMANCE which, however, didn’t go on general release until 1970; the whole, then, is slickly photographed by the distinguished Otto Heller and has a groovy soundtrack to match.

Robert Parrish – who started out as an actor, then changed track to editor, and finally graduated to director in Hollywood – was probably assigned to this following his stint on the notorious James Bond spoof CASINO ROYALE (1967); DUFFY is as yet unavailable on DVD – but I recently obtained a decent Widescreen DivX copy of it (probably sourced from VHS), which will do just fine.

This film features gorgeous photography on the Mediterranean and a plot that I never found predictable. It's very stylish and has cool music, including a great tune by soul singer Lou Rawls. James Coburn, James Fox and James Mason are all very good in it, as is the beautiful Susannah York. The plot involves the theft of money from a ship on the Mediterranean Sea. It's James Mason's sons that steal his money, and it's what follows that gives the film it's intrigue. Definitely worth watching.