Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted December 02, 2005 11:34 AM
Well, here I go with another review of a rare, mostly unknown film title on Super 8 optical sound. This film also goes under the title of "Target of an Assasin" (or is that "Portrait of an Assasin" ) in Leanard Maltin's movie review book.
This film stars Anthony Quinn, as an aging con man who knows he's dying of cancer, and doesn't have long. An african president is the target of an assasin, (the actors name escapes me at the moment, will be corrected in future edits of this post), and he does get hit in the arm. While in the hospital, Anthony Quinn's character, who is referred to as "Sailor" kidnaps the president and plans to get a ransom for him. This is all so that he can provide for his daughter after he's dead, as he knows he doesn't have long. He is very close to the end, ending up doubled over a number of times in searing pain because of the escalating cancer. Quinn does an excellent protrayal of this, you can really feel his pain.
This film is mostly about the growing relationship between Sailor and the african president, who begins to truly feel for Sailors condition. As Sailor confesses to his daughter, his whole life has been one long lie, and he just wants to end his life with one good "score", at least one thing will go right.
Well, it doesn't.
Soon he is on the run with the president, with the police after him, as well as the hitman, who we learn was actually hired by the African President's aids. They end up in a ski-lift, the target of the assasin as well as the hovering helicopters, and the ski-lift has come loose, teetering dangerously close to plummeting to the ground! The last reel and a half of this film is quite exceiting with scalating drama.
If this sounds exciting, it actually really is! I have learned one thing about Leanard Maltins review book. He can sometimes be really off in his reviews. After a while, you really begin to feel for Quinn's "Sailor". He's a condemned man trying to redeem himself in some small way, and finding the world, and death, closing in on him.
All the characters do a pretty good job, except the nurse that Sailor works with in the hospital, which feels only tacked on.
It's interesting in this late portion of Peter Collinson's career as director, (this is one of his last films), that he deals constantly with encroaching death and the attempts at redemption, (see my other review of "The Earthling" another Peter Collinson film, also super 8 optical sound), as Peter Collinson was dying of cancer for the last five years of his life, slowly going downhill. All of his later main characters are dying loners who are strong men, who hate the thought of approaching death, and yet are trying to make something in thier life mean something.
This film was printed on the higher grade Eastman stock of the early to mid seventies, and so the color has held up VERY well. The sound is your average decent mono optical, and the clarity is that which you've come to expect from your super 8 optical sound prints.
I highly recommend this film for people who want decent drama, an adult storyline with no flinching in looking for true life scenarios. Since this isn't a highly prized film in super 8 circles, you may be able to get this at a fairly cheap price. Hell, I got my copy for only 25.00 dollars american!!
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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