Love & Money

My review was written in January 1982 after a Columbus Circle screening: "Love & Money" is an arresting romantic suspense film which, in spite of several good performances and well-crafted individual scenes, fails to ignite. On the shelf for about a year, this second pic by filmmaker James Toback emerges with no mass audience appeal, but if carefully cultivated could find a sympathetic "class" following in the footsteps of "Cutter's Way" and its on-the-rebound sell.

Ray Sharkey toplines as Byron Levin, a case of arrested development who works in an L. A. bank and lives with his senile grandpa (KIng Vidor) and librarian girlfriend Vicky (Susan Heldfond). He comes out of his robot-like shell on meeting the beautiful Catherine (Ornella Muti), young wife of multinational business magnate Stockheinz (Klaus Kinski).

Following an intense romance with Catherine, Levin becomes involved with an international plot masterminded by Stockheinz. Leaving the folks at home high and dry, he flies to the Latin American country of Costa Salva to help Stockheinz deal with dictator Lorenzo Prado (Armand Assante), not coincidentally Levin's former college roommate, With assassination attempts brewing, Levin acts honorably but is set up as the fall guy. A denouement back home provides an open ending, with Vicky having split and Levin facing an uncertain future with his grandpa and Catherine.

With stylish but generally cool and aloof direction by Toback, the film's far-fetched plotline is deflected in favor of an obsessive after the ideal beauty of Catherine. Ornella Muti, already Italy's top femme box office star, makes a strong U. S. picture debut in this role, augmenting her famous exotic beauty with some powerful thesping. Toback emphasizes long, continuous takes (with camera moving) and Muti handles her lengthy English-language speeches smoothly.

Less successful is Ray Sharkey's handling of the central role, a blank when first introduced, but gradually attaining heroic stature. Most comfortable (and endearing) in comic scenes, as he does cute impressions of movie stars or hilariously lampoons Catherine's thick accent, Sharkey never brings out the fire of a man obsessed with the ideal woman. As a result, the fairly hot (though frontal nudity is omitted) love scenes with Muti lack the intended erotic impact.

The film's thriller content, never becoming dangerous enough to fulfill the premise inherent in Toback's script, is carried out by Kinski, who makes every moment count in his authoritative "heavy" assignment. Barking orders and dominating everyone in earshot, Kinski exhibits the physical screen presence that Sharkey lacks, and steals his scenes with no contest.

Ably delivering non sequitur dialog with a natural delivery, King Vidor is affecting as Sharkey's forlorn old grandpa. In a sketchy archetypal support role, Armand Assante is an unconvincing Castro clone.

Toback makes good use of location shooting, with cameraman Fred Schuler (introing most scenes with a sweeping crane shot) adding glamor to various California settings the way he subsequently did to New York City for "Arthur". Aaron Copland's classical score is in keeping with an overall film noir mood, but tends to add a sombre tone to scenes in need of excitement. Similarly, Toback's decision to film Costa Salva on cheap Cal. Locations robs the picture of scope.

Well-crafted but lacking the oomph necessary to win over domestic crowds, pic's best prospects might be in Europe, where both Muti and Kinski are top names. Something obviously went awry here betwixt penning and exhibiting, but "Love & Money" is nevertheless an intriguing motion picture.

but very entertaining. Byron Levin (Ray Sharkey) is a middle-class man who is working in a bank somewhere in Los Angeles. He is living together with his grandfather and a girl, who's just a friend according to Byron. Frederic Stockheinz (Klaus Kinski) is a businessman and owner of a multinational company, obviously a symbol of the bad capitalistic world. Mr. Stockheinz asks Byron to travel to Central America and talk to the president of Costa Salva (Costa Salva?), because he is afraid that Costa Salva is heading politically too far left, something that could cause a problem to his mining in the region. But wait, this is not all. Byron is also banging Mr. Stockheinzs' wife, a young and absolutely gorgeous woman (something that can be bought with money).

Mr. Stockheinz: "It's not 1949, nationalization belongs to history. In the future multinational companies will own the world."

Well... Probably true. But this movie isn't actually left-wing criticism against the rules (money) and idealists aren't always what they look like in the beginning. But I'm not convinced that all movies have a message and I'm not going to search for one here. When you try really hard, you'll probably find something deeper in it, maybe even something that never crossed the mind of the ones who made the film. I guess that is quite common in film-criticism.

To me the film is simply a black comedy, maybe a sign of perverted humour? Kinski is a lift to the film, and I admit that he was the reason why I went to see this film. I believe that "Love and Money" is something for Kinski-fans, not for any objective viewer.