richardchatten

Czechoslovakia contributed several substantial talents both to the British and the American cinemas; not least cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek, one of the two cameramen on this Chekovian chamber piece.

Ivan Passer may have failed to achieve the heights managed by his compatriot Milos Forman upon his later arrival in Hollywood, but he managed a couple of creditable productions.

The Czech cinema of the sixties was always marked by a rather low-keyed whimsical tone, well exemplified by this, Passer's first full-length feature detailing a small gathering of musicians who gather one weekend. Developed at a leisurely pace, not a lot really happens but the experience manages to be quite agreeable.

Hitchcock once said the idea of an enormous close-up of blood dripping on to a daisy had long appealed to him; an ambition later put into practice with the truly horrible shot of blood landing on a scone at a school picnic.

Although the default setting of continental art cinema of the late fifties was usually black & white, due to their admiration for Hollywood cinema most of the nouvelle vague warmly embraced colour.

Based on story by Stanley Ellen, 'A Double Tour' - like 'Plein Soleil' - capitalised on the sheer incongruity of setting a dark tale of murder, madness and passion in brilliant sunlight.

For much of the time in this early attempt by Danny Kaye to burnish his credentials as a serious actor with this black & while adaptation made in France of the play by Franz Werfel, which begins in Paris following the fall of France in 1940 and then follows a similar narrative arc to 'The Yellow Rolls Royce' as the very odd couple of Kaye and Curt Jurgens travel across France in a vintage car.

Looking very distinguished with greying hair, a moustache, a homburg hat and an overcoat, and spared his 'hilarious' patter songs, Kaye does a creditable job; especially as Sancho Panza to Jurgens' Don Quixote Akim Tamiroff makes the two leads look restrained by comparison.