Dernière mission à Nicosie

I have seen this movie back in the sixties, and this is one of my favorite top ten thriller. I rated it ten. Especially the character George Chakiris played in this film is so much different from all his other movies. Did anybody know where I can get a video tape of this movie. Please e-mail me if you know.

Thanks

"The High Bright Sun" is a 1964 film about an American girl (Susan Strasberg) caught in the Cypriot fight against the British in the '50s. The stars are Dirk Bogarde, George Chakiris and Denholm Elliot. While staying at the home of a family friend, Strasberg sees someone that she's not supposed to, and the guerrillas decide that she has to die before she tells a frequent visitor to the house, Major McGuire (Bogarde) what she's seen.

Bogarde made this film for Betty Box and Ralph Thomas of the Rank "Doctor" franchise, and it was apparently an unpleasant experience. He wasn't feeling well, the location town was a little too primitive for his tastes, and he got into a huge fight with the director, Thomas, at one point. Fortunately it was a pretty fast shoot.

Beautiful location shots and lots of suspense as the Strasberg character runs for her life. The performances are good - Strasberg could have been stronger, but the script was a little sketchy in regard to her character.

I think anything with Bogarde is worth watching.

After all theses many years, the film stands out in my memory mainly for one thing:

It was the first time I ever heard a swear word -- "bastard" -- on screen. (One of the characters is referred to as a "sneaky little bastard").

In those innocent times we were so taken aback that we thought we had heard wrong.

The next notch up the scale, incidentally, came about six years later when I saw "Woodstock" and actually heard the F word....

I also remember High Bright Sun for George Chakiris -- such a charismatic young actor -- and so sad that he faded out soon after

Something of a romantic potboiler but strongly redeemed by two factors which stamp it as a thoroughly British rather than a Hollywood production. First, the gritty realism of its portrayal of the Cypriot independence struggle against British military rule in the 1950s. Second, its warts-and-all portrayal of everyday relationships and behaviour, instead of the typical Hollywood sanitized morality of the era.

All you need to know about Cyprus is that the locals ran a successful guerilla war against British rule in the 1950s. Against that background, the movie sets up a tangle of love and conflicting loyalties for a British officer and a beautiful Cypriot-American visitor, which generates plenty of action, suspense and tough moral choices. The characters are portrayed with refreshing realism - a few four and seven letter words pepper the script along with references to rape, divorce, alcoholism and extra-marital sex, which would have been fairly shocking for the era and probably even when the movie was made in the 1960s.

Despite a few improbable aspects of the plot (eg the officer lives in an unguarded apartment in town where his security is always at risk), the overall result is a convincingly bold, brassy, in-your-face portrayal of life and love in the middle of a dirty war - and a moderately good thriller into the bargain.

As Cyprus struggles for colonial independence from Britain, "Maj. Maguire" (Dirk Bogarde) is tasked with trying to track down the sabotaging freedom fighters led by "Gen. Skyros" (Grégoire Aslan). Unfortunately for visiting American archeologist "Juno" (Susan Strasberg) she manages to get herself involved as she is staying at the house of "Dr. Andros" (Joseph Fürst) who is also hosting, incognito, the general and his rather more brutally minded sidekick "Haghios" (George Chakiris). A visit from the major might just help her out though as he takes a bit of a shine to her, as does the doctor's son "Emile" (Colin Campbell) but her safety is not guaranteed, especially when "Haghios" comes to resent her developing rapport with the Briton. It's an adequate adventure story, this, but nobody really sets anything on fire; it's too wordy and what action there actually is saved up for the last fifteen minutes during which there's not a great deal of jeopardy. It's really Bogarde who must carry the burden for it's mediocrity as he puts very little effort into his role. It's not so much less is more as less is, well, less... Not that Chakiris is exactly menacing, but he is under-used in any case and Strasberg adds very little as the thing plods along without really touching on the political aspects of the plot at all. There's some nice photography (of Italy) but otherwise it's quite a long old watch that's nobody's best work.