Half-brothers Stefane and Antony despise their biological father, callous millionaire Charles Calvert. Because Charles refuses to share his wealth with his sons, Stefane and Antony ask hip American thrill-seeker Duffy to help steal the money they believe is their birthright. When Charles decides to move a large portion of his savings from Morocco to France, Duffy has an opportunity to stage a daring burglary attempt at sea.
Duffy il re del doppio gioco, Der Fuchs von Tanger, Duffy, le renard de Tanger, دافی, 江湖客巧破美人计
USA
USA
Preposterous, silly sixties caper nonsense involving stealing money from a ship. James Mason wisely limits his participation to the opening and closing 10 minutes leaving the bulk of the film to the gang of James Fox, James Coburn, Susannah York and, bizarrely, John Alderton. The convoluted, twisty plot involves 2 half brothers trying to steal their rich father's fortune with the help of a girlfriend and an American all-action criminal.
This hasn't dated well - but it's groovy, baby. Dig?
This has that studio sixties feel. The sort of film that gets Columbia execs excited about filming in Spain as they hope to pander to the kids by presenting a vision of idyllic Tangiers fantasy houses replete with good hash and a director who doesn't really understand the material, which is mediocre at best.
The screenplay keeps the details of the heist to the margins and instead places Anderton, York, Fox and Coburn front and centre, to be admired and envied as rich frustrated pioneering young people, not just robbing a symbol of the past but taking the ultimate rebellious stance as rich layabouts rarely do.
Fox and York are determined to get involved with the robbery. They want guns…
Stefane (James Fox) and Antony (John Alderton) hire Duffy (James Coburn) to boat heist a million quid from their father (James Mason), to prove some sort of hippie-centric point or other. Susannah York gets sluttier as the movie progresses. Coburn plays the Bohemian Supreme, with an apartment full of scrap iron art, hookah pipes around his neck like groovy snakes, and Jesus joggers on his feet. "Just do your thing, baby.", he says, counting out five hundred and thirty-four thousand bucks he was paid for the effort. I would have much preferred James Mason as the hippie, shotgunning bong hits to petite bits of Euro-flesh dancing topless around him. Oh well.
Robert Parrish's duff crime caper is a horribly dated artefact of late '60s 'groovy' filmmaking and further proof that James Coburn - a screen actor I'm immensely fond of - was the worst chooser of scripts in Hollywood history. I'm pretty sure the talented cast of Coburn, fellow Jameses Mason and Fox plus Susannah York and John Alderton enjoyed topping up their suntans (and bank balances) in the sun-kissed locations but if truth be told, they are saddled with a lifeless script and limp dialogue, and the shipboard heist - which should have been the exciting centrepiece of the whole enterprise - was so dull I found myself multi-tasking by tidying my living room at the same time as watching…
This is objectively a bad movie but I had a lot of fun watching it, some of it I was supposed to have and some of it was the opposite of the movie's intentions. This UK/USA coproduction is one of the biggest panders to the late 1960s youth market I have ever seen in a film marketed to a mass adult audience.
Bad things:
- Duffy looks GREAT but is not directed well as a comedy or as a heist thriller.
- Crazy panders to hippy fads which reaches its apex when Coburn and James Fox meaningfully trade Beatles lyrics to "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds." This is meant as a really cool moment of connection between them! I…
'James Mason's large adult sons disappoint him, try to steal his millions in a groovy heist' is such a great concept, before you even mention one of them is dandy hippie James Fox in a bi/poly arrangement with Susannah York, and the other is functionally Cousin Greg.
Very fun and of its era; I'm obsessed with everything Fox wears, but mostly his ruffled silk domino print tux.
Eis que chega a santíssima trindade dos James: Fox, Mason e Coburn. Melhor: acompanhados por John Alderton e Susannah York. De novo Mason chega com seu pequeno papel e domina tudo, o diferencial aqui é que ninguém coloca Mason e Coburn em cena numa comédia de roubo sabendo quem realmente vai se dar bem no final, a questão que permeia todo o fiilme é qual dos dois vai ser o filho da puta maior até que tudo termine? Típico caper dos anos 60, com muita ironia e cinismo, misturando a aristocracia endinheirada inglesa com o clima de contracultura, especialmente pelo personagem título encarnado por James Coburn, um americano meio beatnik.
"This whole thing is totally absurd, man."
Two failsons want to rip off their rich father in this would-be groovy caper comedy.
It’s a Hollywood studio picture that really, really tried to appeal to the youth audience of the time – it’s from that awkward late-60s transitional period in which the studios were flailing around desperately – so it’s made with all the with-it countercultural grooviness that a 50-plus-year-old journeyman director wearing a "Music⚡Band" shirt could bring to the job. Not very groovy, I’m sorry to say, and it’s no surprise that it didn’t find its audience.
But it has dated in fun ways – it's all very Austin Powers. Especially ‘cos the failsons want to steal … one million pounds.…
This is a good companion piece to Michael Winner's The Jokers, only this time the mismatched brothers (hippie James Fox and straightlaced John Alderton) plot to steal from their capitalist and wealthy dad (James Mason), with the help of Fox's pretty gal (Susannah York).
There's a lot of hip and groovy talk, and once professional thief Duffy (James Coburn) joins the team to rob the boat Osiris of its precious cargo, there's fun a-plenty. The three Jameses are marvellous, Susannah looks stunning, and I was surprised how well John Alderton did in a movie role.
Definitely dated, with old scenes of a sixties London and an Almeria pre-tourist hit, this has a great period soundtrack and even if director Robert…
It is absurd how easily entertained I can get with a movie. There's something about James Coburn playing a hippie that is just so funny to me. Maybe I'm so used to his roles in Peckinpah flicks but like, yeah he's so fucking chill in any role but every time there's a shot of him in hippie-ass clothing and whenever he ends his sentences in "man" I just crack up, man. And this film is like so pointless with the ending but I kinda dig it when films just end so lamely. And his home is just like a goddamn weird-ass porn museum like avant-garde tits and ass fucking everywhere like I can't not find that set design absolutely unique and hilarious. Rated PG.
This is likeable enough, well shot and colourful with some super groovy dialogue, thanks to Donald Cammell but I didn't feel this was wholly successful. James' Fox and Mason are great, not so sure about Coburn and Alderton tries just a little too hard and ends up helping to make some of the scenes more silly than I would have liked. Susannah York looks as lovely as she ever has but she doesn't convince me that she is as interested in the guys as she makes out and I feel there are dozens of girls, who in 1968, would have made a better job of the role. Apparently filmed in and around Almeria with the 'Tangiers' scenes actually the old…
A heist movie with James Fox planning to rip off his own father (James Mason) with help from brother John Alderton, girlfriend Susannah York and acquaintance James Coburn, set in the Mediterranean with a dash of Swinging Sixties London. What could be more fun?
Sadly the film can't quite live up to it's promise or that cast.
It's weighed down by a rather lengthy setup the purpose of which you might think is to clue us in on how this group are going to the great big pile of crisp fivers which Mason is planning to move from Tangier to Switzerland via his private yacht.
However you are told little about the details of how the robbery will be carried…
