Le chat croque les diamants

Watched this film tonight on the BBC for the first time. What an unusual film! Written and Directed by Bryan Forbes it certainly added some new twists to the usual thriller plotline. Some odd mixing of plotlines, particularly mixing up sexuality with perversion, which maybe didn't come off too well, but with some brilliant music by John Barry and a belting Shirley Bassey opening titles song this does deliver great entertainment with good direction from Bryan Forbes.

Henry Stuart Clarke (Michael Caine) is a cat burglar who has his work down to a fine art. While under cover in a retreat for recovering alcoholics, he is approached by an alluring woman Fé Moreau who has a proposition for him, he's suspicious but agrees to meet her aging husband, Richard,(Eric Portman)himself a professional burglar who is now struggling to pull off the big jobs due to his age. Together they agree to pull off a seemingly impossible heist. Derided on its initial release, Forbes' film is nonetheless an interesting if slow film, especially if you like films of its ilk, its also beautifully filmed and makes wonderful use of the stunning Spanish setting, it also has a memorable score by the great John

I first came across this film in Ankara, Turkey in the 1970's and have been looking for it since. It's a "heist" film on the surface, a cat burglar after jewels. But it's far more than this, with troubling, dark sexual overtones. It features the actual "deadfall" against the background of Aranjuez' guitar concerto, and the suspense is terrific, especially the acting, with Caine at his underplaying best, and Eric Portman stealing the show with a subtle, great performance. Why this film is not a cult classic I don't know, unless its dark side is too much for viewers. It's really unforgetable, as proven by its 25 year hold on my imagination.

Bryan Forbes wrote and directed 'Deadfall' quite late into his acting/directing career, and managed to make a strange yet compelling film, with an interesting cast and two fabulous pieces of music, a guitar concerto and a moody song for Shirley Bassey to sing over the opening credits.

I'm not saying that this film doesn't have its faults. It does. The whole sexuality angle is handled clumsily and could have been much better. Forbes has the tendency to overdo the extreme close-up, and clearly is more at home with odd angles, photographing at strange perspective, and so on, then he is with moving this jewel heist film plot along.

Michael Caine doesn't really make that much of an impression, more or less sulking his way through the picture. Much better is Eric Portman as the ageing jewel thief with a murky past, although I'm not 100% sure he was the best person for the role. However, there are three scenes which are particularly impressive - the break-in and the orchestral concert, shots of both interlinked, and a long time to have a film going with just music and no dialogue; the interlinking between the love scene between Henry and Fe, and Richard reading up on Henry, alone in his lonely house; and the final scene between Richard and Fe, which is very well done on the part of both actors. There's other good photography, notably the end sequences and any sequence Nanette Newman sidles her way through.

I liked it. A bit on the pretentious side, maybe, but I wouldn't dismiss it entirely.

After spending most of the sixties specialising in low-keyed black & white slices of life this marked Bryan Forbes' chance to provide a slice of cake. The package of Michael Caine (sans glasses) playing a dashing jewel thief against a backdrop of glamorous Spanish locations with a score by John Barry obviously made it easy to get backing. Just so you get the message it also has a credit sequence complete with a song by Shirley Bassey.

Although the heist itself delivers the goods, the principals spend far too much time languidly talking (and talking) about their emotions. Vladek Sheybal (also a Bond veteran) offers an unsettling cameo as a psychiatrist (who manages to give hitherto unsuspected menace to the single word "ma-ssage"); while in addition to the inevitable Nanette Newman - at one point briefly seen snogging David Buck to Barry's theme from 'Beat Girl' - Giovanni Ralli and Eric Portman (in his last film) are memorably poisonous as Caine's partners in crime.