Narcotic Bureau

On paper, this movie had potboiler written all over it. A fledgling director, forced to share the task, an almost unknown cast, low budget and a presumed ho-hum adaptation of yet another Alistair McLean adventure story. But don't be misled, this is actually an entertaining, even exciting thriller, with a credible story, well acted with good location work in Amsterdam and featuring as its highlight an action-packed motor-boat chase through the city's tight maze of canals.

It starts arrestingly with a callous triple murder with the killer casually and noiselessly walking into a house and silently executing his three defenceless victims and follows it up with another surprise murder at Amsterdam airport, this time of an Interpol agent meeting up with a colleague. Said colleague is the film's principal man-hunter, played with Scandinavian stoicism (although he's supposed to be American), by Sven-Bertl Taube, who accompanied by his English, female contact in the city, former lover (as we learn) Barbara Parkins, tracks his quarry to a ruthless drug-smuggling ring, whose base appears to be of all things a monastery, which sidelines in manufacturing and dispensing toy dolls and bibles for the tourist trade, but which secretly contain packages of heroin. This gang thinks nothing of executing suspected informants or suspicious investigators and signifies their deaths with a symbolic "puppet on a chain", one of the toy dolls hung by a chain.

Being Alistair McLean, there's a major plot twist at the end when the gang-leaders are revealed which I admit I didn't see coming for once, itself following on from the aforementioned hair-raising pursuit through the waterways as Taube a chases the baddie more for personal revenge than for the ends of justice.

Like I said, there was a lot to like about this movie. The direction, although shared, I found to be pacy and engrossing, the acting above average, besides Taube and Parkins, I enjoyed seeing Mr "Voice of a thousand adverts", Patrick Allen in a cinema role for once and who ironically for a man famous for extolling the benefits of newly-built houses in the U.K. from a helicopter, finds himself in a life or death situation outside a building where a chopper might have been of benefit to him.

Sure the fashions, a cheesy disco sequence and an intrusive Euro-electric soundtrack date it somewhat but this on the whole was a gritty, low-key thriller which I really enjoyed. And trust me, I'm not yanking your chain when I say that.

Back in the early 1970's the name "Alistair MacLean" meant "bums on seats ~ ticket sales" and the cinematic release of one of his most recent novels "Puppet on a Chain" was no exception.

It is wrong to compare this action movie (as with many, many others) with the on-going JB007 franchise: this was a formulaic movie in its own field. The action scenes are great, the storyline was then bang up-to-date and the general production (if marred a little by lack of budget) of a high standard.

Contrary to other views, in my opinion, the leading actor Sven Bertil-Taube was excellent in the role (a shame the script required him to be an American agent) and he was well supported by several character (if rather stock) actors. Pehaps Barbara Perkins was not the best choice as leading lady and her character lacked realism but then this was never meant to be anything other than entertainment.

Contains a superb score by the Maestro: Piero Piccioni.

Far from perfect but still very good and worthy of a decent DVD release.

Don't you just love it when you stumble across an unknown movie and discover it to be an instant favourite? That's the case with PUPPET ON A CHAIN, a virtually forgotten Alistair MacLean drug smuggling thriller that turns out to be one of the most entertaining of '70s thrillers. With shades of Bond and a wonderful setting in the atmospheric city of Amsterdam, this is up there with the best of genre a la the two FRENCH CONNECTION movies.

Sven-Bertil Taube is the solid lead, playing an American agent dispatched to the Netherlands to break up a drug-smuggling ring. Once there he finds himself pursued by an assassin while investigating some shady business ventures that may well be the front for heroin smuggling on a grand scale. The story is fine, but it's the action that makes this a class act: there's a speedboat chase to rival the ones in LIVE AND LET DIE and AMSTERDAMNED alongside plenty of other great suspense and action sequences.

Director Don Sharp, famous from his work for Hammer Studios, contributes to the action and stunts, in particular helping shoot the aforementioned speedboat chase which is the definite highlight and might be the best thing Sharp ever did. Elsewhere, a decent cast of character actors has been assembled, with unique-looking faces filling the cast list. The only thing this film needs now is a decent Blu-ray release...

Soulless, silly international co-production boasts picture postcard cinematography in Amsterdam and other locales but is too generic and clichéd otherwise to drum up much excitement. The nominal hero is as stiff and expressionless as a Ken doll, and the vaunted boat chase -- staple of the trailer and TV commercials of the time -- is technically well-executed but out of place in what was supposed to be an adaptation of MacLean's dark, complex tale of drug smuggling, murder and espionage.

This is one of those many cases where producers obtained rights to a valuable property and then jettisoned 90% of what made it memorable or effective; particularly inexplicable in this case, as MacLean is listed as one of the screenwriters! A good (or bad) example of those infamous multi-national 'tax shelter' film productions of the 60's/early 70's.

For better MacLean, look to THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, BREAKHEART PASS or WHERE EAGLES DARE.

Wow Paul Sherman is one badass secret agent . Look what he does to that man in the hotel bedroom , he`s someone who takes no prisoners and makes James Bond look like a total wimp . But that`s the problem with PUPPET ON A CHAIN , Sven Bertil Taube is no Sean Connery and lacks the presence needed to convincingly play a ruthless secret agent . I also found it strange that if the story is set in Holland that nearly everyone speaks with either an American or British accent except for Paul Sherman who`s supposed to be American but has a noticable European accent . Still this is a fairly good , though slightly dumb thriller which does feature go go dancers . How many Bond films can claim that ?