The Cape Town Affair

A waste of time. Not worth watching. No wonder the film played as a support on its original theatrical release. Filmed in murky color (but cleaned up for DVD) and directed in a thoroughly routine, flat-footed style — long shots bisected with endless pedestrian close-ups — Cape Town Affair is worse than routine. It's amazing how little tension, and how piffling the suspense, the present writers, director and players manage to extract from a scenario that was originally tautly exciting. How slowly paced, how tediously drawn out, how downright wearisome each scene now appears! How sparse the dramatic impact Webb is able to furnish from his real Cape Town (South Africa) locations! True, he is hampered by a script that even in its 82-minute version is unmercifully padded out, over-extended and over-weighted with extraneous dialogue. The players are no help whatever. Claire Trevor has a grand time chewing up the scenery in the Thelma Ritter role, but her performance is an utter bore. The same goes for Jacqueline Bisset (who is not very flatteringly photographed or costumed to boot) and James Brolin (who exhibits very little in the way of charisma).

An inconsequential, almost scene-for-scene remake of Sam Fuller's great Pickup On South Street, The Cape Town Affair suffers from weak casting--James Brolin is no Richard Widmark, and Claire Trevor attempts but fails in her Thelma Ritter impersonation. Shot on location in South Africa, the film barely recognises the existence of non-white characters, and when it does--in the person of Muhammad, a sleazy fence--a white South African, Gabriel Bayman, assays the role. Whilst the film maintains the original's Free World vs. Red Peril dichotomy, it's impossible to ignore the political realities of South Africa in 1967. With Nelson Mandela still in the early stages of his time in prison, 'communist' in South Africa was virtually synonymous with 'anti-Apartheid activist'. The prominently featured pictures of Hendrick Verwoerd in almost every shot in the police department confirm that this film was just as intent on being state-sanctioned propaganda as on being a work of art.

Choppy, poorly directed remake of Pickup on South Street. James Brolin while attractive is bland in the lead never approaching the lowdown grit that Richard Widmark effortlessly gave the character in the original. This was one of Jacqueline Bisset's first roles and her inexperience is evident although at least part of the blame belongs with the director since her next few films, with stronger directors, show a marked improvement over her work here. Unsurprisingly the best performance in the film comes from Claire Trevor as the frowsy Sam but even she doesn't match the peerless performance of Thelma Ritter, considered by many her best work, in the first film. This was Claire's last film for 15 years until she made a delightful return as Sally Field's mother in Kiss Me Goodbye, a much better film than this, and then permanently retired. As for the rest of the film, everybody else gives terrible performances, scenes either just stop or start with a good deal of narrative flow missing and the photography is washed out and overly bright. Not an estimable credit on anybody's resume.

People who are fans of Samuel Fuller (who was one of the writers) or wanting to see early appearances by actors James Brolin and Jacqueline Bisset might find the prospect of watching "The Cape Town Affair" promising. But it won't take them very long upon watching the movie to start regretting their decision. The big problem with this movie is that it is incredibly boring. It's talk, talk, talk, with pretty much NOTHING of consequence or importance happening in the first two- thirds of the movie. A few things happen in the last third of the movie, but not much, and it ends up being almost as boring as the first two-thirds. Another problem with the movie is that the central character (played by Brolin) is not very likable - you'll be wondering why you are bothering to follow this selfish and cold individual. By the way, if you are wondering about the Cape Town setting, while it does occasionally add a little color in the backdrop, it's otherwise wasted - with almost no rewriting, the events of the movie could be taking place in Los Angeles. This is one movie that's pretty much a complete waste of time.

Great for pre-integration scenes of Cape Town (look for one black person and you won't find them!), this remake of Pick Up on South Street (1953) is missing several things, notably Richard Widmark as the film noir villain that makes the whole thing work. This film is the exact opposite of film noir. It's too clean and crisp to be suspenseful. The colors reek of a British comedy ala the Pink Panther or something with Alec Guiness. The whole thing plays like a poor man's "Man From U.N.C.L.E." without the savoir faire of Robert Vaughn. James Brolin, a few years shy of Marcus Welby, M.D., has yet to learn how to act and Jacqueline Bisset is not worth the trip. See the original.