Evento

GOLDEN RENDEZVOUS

(aka NUCLEAR TERROR)
Dir. Freddie Francis / Ashley Lazarus, 1977
South African / Cayman Islands. 109 mins.

Special thanks to Thor Communicators LLC.

1977s doomed international coproduction GOLDEN RENDEZVOUS functions on a couple of unique registers. For one, its an ensemble thriller in the unabashedly problematic vein of Andrew McLagens THE WILD GEESE or FFOLKES; two, its a page-turner in the sleepytime airport paperback tradition of Clive Cussler and Robert Ludum; three, it bears the uncanny distinction of having a plurality of drunken cast members onscreen at all times. (GOLDEN RENDEZVOUS allegedly made its hellraising star Richard Harris un-insurable for future productions, even as he rewrote the screenplay between shoots.) Harris stars as Johnny Carter, Chief Officer of the S.S. CAMPARI (appropriate for the aforementioned booze-soluble ensemble), a military cargo freighter reconverted to a luxury schooner. John Vernon (ANIMAL HOUSE, POINT BLANK) leads a crew of terrorists who hijack the Campari with an elaborate ransom scheme in mind - unless Carter gets to him first. Harris then-wife Ann Turkel features as an ill-clad and coquette-ish love interest, appropriate to the macho wish-fulfillment milieu embodied in other MacLean adaptations (ICE STATION ZEBRA, WHERE EAGLES DARE).

Some movies are masterpieces, others are epic follies founded on good intentions; GOLDEN RENDEZVOUS is a cold-ass get-rich-eventually scheme, allegedly paid for in South African rand siphoned off of a government program intended to foment progressive, issue-driven cinema. It also suggests that a director credit for a legendary cinematographer - in this case, Freddie Francis, of DUNE and THE INNOCENTS - does not a beautiful or even pretty film make, although tales of behind-the-scenes sabotage (and a last-minute bailout from Ashley Lazarus) are many. Finally, alongside a stolid opportunity to watch old-school thespians drunkenly brandish machine guns with straight faces, RENDEZVOUS boasts a life-changing synthesizer score by Jeff Wayne - all the more inappropriate to the attendant movie for its taut imperative and toe-tapping melancholy.