Conference bookie::movies

656.0. "Rogue Male" by 58776::S_BURRIDGE () Wed Sep 21 1994 13:59

A 1976 BBC production.  It was broadcast on the A&E cable netwrk on the
weekend; I don't know if it has been released theatrically or on videotape.

Directed by Clive Donner, starring Peter O'Toole, with Harold Pinter in a small
role as a solicitor and Alastair Sim in another small role as the hero's uncle,
a minister in Neville Chamberlain's cabinet.  (Donner edited the classic film
of "A Christmas Carol", in which Sim played Ebeneezer Scrooge, incidentally.) 
Screenplay by Frederic Raphael.

This is based on a classic 1939 suspense novel by Geoffrey Household.  The
hero, an aristocratic British big game hunter, is caught in the act of aiming 
a hunting rifle at Adolf Hitler in pre-war Germany, and spends the rest of the 
story on the run from Nazi minions, with no help to be had from the 
Chamberlain government.  The novel combined a feel for  countryside 
reminiscent of John Buchan with a remarkable level of high-tension suspense.

For me, the film failed to provide the suspense that was so important a feature
of the book.  It gave me considerable pleasure, though, in the way that movies
made from books can if they are well cast and show some respect for the book on
which they are based.  Sim is amusing, O'Toole does the tortured English
gentleman/man of action as only he can, and the plot unfolds more or less
coherently.

-Stephen 

100% spot on....

I read the book in high school and was held in its grip.
I saw the movie years later and found much lacking in tension and motivation.

- tom]