Die Totenliste

Shortly after Huston's engaging oddity was released in the U.K in 1963 a Sunday Newspaper article 'exposed' the stars-in-disguise as a hoax. I'd just seen the film the previous week and though I'd half-suspected something of the sort I still felt cheated - mainly through the smug 'last bows' of the 'guests' who hadn't even come to the party. Mitchum was obviously an honourable exception, you couldn't mistake him and he had given us an excellent dialect-cameo. Douglas' villain gradually assumed command of the piece and could be excused, I suppose, for sub-letting a disguise or two. His creepy Mr.Phythian was certainly all his own. Mr.Lancaster, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found on the hunting-field. His role was played by Marie Conmee (the surname is peculiarly appropriate under the circumstances) an Irish actress reportedly sworn to secrecy. Sinatra's gypsy was filled-in, it transpires, by Hollywood look-alike Dave Willock. It was an additional marketing-ploy, of course, to bring in the punters and we fell for it. I enjoy the film certainly as an old-fashioned Holmes vs Moriarty intriguer which could have stood alone without the gimmicks.

I wanted to say something in praise of the masked star gimmick - something I haven't seen anyone else mention.

Rather than viewing the various "heavily made-up" characters as a spot the star contest, look at it from the other side and, suddenly, the gimmick becomes an ingenious way of covering up the killer - hiding him from the audience. Since the filmmakers knew they couldn't find a way to make a full head latex "invisible" to the audience, (and presumably didn't want to go with a completely other actor) they went the Purloined Letter route and threw in a bunch of such "spottable" characters to keep the audience from guessing which one was the killer.

Much like the movie The Spanish Prisoner - where every person seems somehow fakey UNTIL you watch from the viewpoint of "spot the scam" and realize the EVERYONE sounds fake (i.e., like they're scamming someone) so you CAN'T spot the con artists.

Brilliant, really. In both cases.

John Huston displays an indiscreet lack of subtlety, taxing our tolerance with a somewhat modern English whodunit with an extra publicity stunt: Numerous major Hollywood actors are announced to appear in the film, but are all thickly concealed in John Chambers' make-up design: Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Tony Curtis as an organ-grinder, Burt Lancaster as an old woman, Frank Sinatra as a gypsy horse-trader. Their identities are exposed to the audience at the very end of the film, when each star strips off his masquerade. Actually, only Douglas (by far the most interesting performance) and Mitchum do any real acting beneath their heaps of collodion and crepe hair. The others just walk on to shoot their brief, tacked-on unveilings at a salary of $75,000 each, while being doubled in the film itself. The film even further cheats by often dubbing their voices with that of voice-over actor Paul Frees!

The vehicle for this cash-in is a plot wherein the eponymous writer believes a succession of ostensibly isolated "accidental" deaths are really related murders. He asks his friend George C. Scott, just retired from MI5, to help resolve the obscurity, but Messenger's plane is sabotaged while he's on the way to gather data to corroborate his fears and, with his last lungful of air, he struggles to impart to a fellow passenger a crucial clue. What do you know, the passenger just so happens to be the sole survivor and…just so happens to be Scott's old WWII Resistance comrade. They collaborate to probe Messenger's inventory of names, and decipher his puzzling last gasps. Aside from the ones that insult us, more than a few story aspects in the film are akin to The Hound of the Baskervilles, like hounds, the intentions of the killer, the allusions to Canada, and the exposure of the killer using a hoax.

While we discover rather soon who the killer is, the obscurity of his intentions and the anticipation of his capture are enough to keep going, even if not gripped by genuine tension or suspense. Burdened with a rasping, implausible plot, maybe this lockstep adventure should've been set in Victorian times to oblige its villain with an infatuation with costumes, its Edwardian-style consulting sleuth in a bowler hat, and its foul play in a misty Thames Path.

There is something I quite liked, maybe because it took the edge off, made me relax and enjoy the kitsch. Before the haunting trumpet solos of Chinatown, the strange and threatening cues of Alien or the atmospheric strings of Basic Instinct, a comparatively green-horned Jerry Goldsmith shaped an evocative, and purely '60s-kitsch, ambiance out of an instrumental jumble incorporating saxophone, electric guitar, tuba, harp and the definitive eerie UFO-suggestive electronic whistle that creates nostalgic vibes as when we hear it in The Lost Weekend, Spellbound and BBC's Midsomer Murders.

This enjoyable suspenser contains intriguing events , emotion , and plot twists . A former intelligence officer called Anthony Gethryn (George C. Scott) is tasked by the heir to the Gleneyre estate to investigate the unusual deaths of a disparate group of eleven men on a list . Later on , a mysterious stranger (Kirk Douglas) visiting an English state whose owner is a Lord , Marquis of Gleneyre (Clive Brook) , and the puzzling series of killings that coincide with his arrival . As retired MI-5 officer has to figure out the unusual deaths of a varied group of eleven men on a list , each seems to have died in mysterious circumstances . Working with a survivor from a airplane disaster, Raoul Le Borg (Jacques Roux) he discovers weird clues until an unexpected conclusion . The main question is the following : Someone committed killings . Can you guess who's behind the disguise?

This whodunit packs crisp performance , intrigue , thrilling scenes , suspense , twists and turns . The main gimmick results to be the all-star-cast are all heavily disguised in the character roles . This is a family film made by John Huston , as it was partially filmed on John Huston's own estate in Ireland and played by Huston's friends as well as his son . The best scenes turned to be when the stars appeared at end of the film in unmasking sequence where they peeled off makeup . Highlights of the movie result to be the fox chase scenes under an impressive soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith . Very good support cast such Robert Mitchum , Tony Curtis , Frank Sinatra , Herbert Marshall , Gladys Cooper , Marcel Dalio , Bernard Fox , being the fourth of seven films that Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster made together and final film of Clive Brook . And cameo by John Huston , who was an avid rider and hunter, appeared in a small role as Lord Ashton in a short dialogue scene in the last hunt . The filmmaker's child Tony , billed as Anthony Waller Huston plays Dana Winter's son . Evocative as well as atmospheric cinematography in black and white by Joseph MacDonald . Thrilling and suspenseful musical score by the great Jerry Goldsmith .

The motion picture well produced by Edward Lewis was stunningly by the great John Huston at his best , its tense filmmaking makes this crackerjack entertainment . The picture was made in a good time of the 60s , 70s and 80s when Huston resurged as a director of quality films with Fat City, (1972), The man who would be king (1975) and Wise blood (1979). He ended his career on a high note with Under volcano (1984), the afore-mentioned Honor of Prizzi (1985) and Dublineses (1987). Rating : Above average , this is one of John Huston's best films , a model of his kind , definitely a must see if you are aficionado to suspense films . Huston broke a new ground with this landmark movie , providing classic scenes and agreeable dialogs . Rating : Above average , as the intrigue is entertaining on its own .

Because of that gimmick with Curtis, Mitchum, Sinatra and Lancaster people seem to regard this film as a sort of spot-the-star contest. But it is much more than that. Excellent acting (especially Douglas in what must be his best role since Paths of Glory), superb music (Jerry Goldsmith) and brilliant direction of John Huston more than make up for occasional lapses in the story.

The story is quite simple, but the less said the better. The 'list' in question is a list of 10 names of people from all over the UK, who seem to have nothing in common except...well just see the movie.

And spotting the stars is quite fun too.