La casa de los siete halcones

An entertaining movie, not great, but OK. At one point, I felt like the screenplay was written with a cast of Humphrey Bogart, Sidney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre in mind, but instead, they got Robert Taylor, Eric Pohlmann, and David Kossoff. That point was when the characters Rohner and Dekker were explaining the situation to Nordley. It reminded me of The Maltese Falcon hotel room scene where Greenstreet likes "talking to a man who likes to talk".

This movie has twists, in fact the twists have twists, which meant that occassionally I lost the thread a little. But this movie has merit, it is very well characterised throughout and has fascinating Dutch locations.

This movie just doesn't have the most exciting or best mystery-elements around. It's a rather dull movie that lacks most of the required genre elements. Although it tries in parts- this is no film-noir but even for a 'standard' thriller type of movie this one just isn't good enough.

The story isn't the most interesting one around but it's even worse how the story is told. Some of the sequences go on for far too long, without anything interesting happening in it. Problem is that the story felt the need to put in way too much (redundant) dialog. Guess that they just desperately tried to make the movie longer, since it's a quite short one (92 minutes). The movie really isn't build up well and in the beginning it's too unclear were the movie is trying to head to.

The movie picks some weird and unbelievable plot-lines. Besides that, the movie also doesn't offer any real surprises. It's pretty clear from the beginning on who are going to be the good and bad guys and gals of the movie.

It's true that the movie gets better toward the end but it's all too late to still fully save the movie. In its build up the movie simply lacks all the things needed to make a good and tense genre movie with. For a thriller this movie is just too dull and totally not interesting enough to follow. The characters all remain too flat and the only established actor in this movie is Robert Taylor, who does his very best but just can't carry this movie on his own. I mean this movie is not even good or really interesting to watch for the most hardened Robert Taylor fans.

For me it was a big plus that the movie is set and actually filmed- and almost entirely set in The Netherlands. It was all very recognizable. It's locations and atmosphere works well for the movie, although it's too bad that they didn't made the trouble to cast Dutch actors in the roles of Dutch, not even for the bit parts, which was a bit distracting but obviously only should be so when you're Dutch yourself.

By no means the worst genre movie I've ever seen but just not among one of the best or most refreshingly original ones either. Somewhat watchable but not really recommendable to anyone.

5/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

"The House of Seven Hawks" would have been much better had it been produced by Robert Taylor's old employer, MGM.

Instead, the film turned out to be quite a disappointment for Taylor, a man who had been a major star for two decades. I will say this; the opening is quite intriguing. Taylor's character agrees to transport a man from England to the Continent by boat, and does so. After arrival, however, he soon discovers that this simple business deal is quite a bit more complicated than what he expected.

Sadly, the film does not take advantage of this clever opening. From that point on, it is rather routine.

As others have suggested, this ends up being a rather lackluster B effort not close to the level of the films Taylor made for MGM. In that regard, this movie is similar to the 1959 efforts of Alan Ladd, a man whose great success in the 1940s and early 1950s was followed by some very mediocre productions. (In Ladd's case, the actor himself was largely to blame due to very poor judgment regarding choice of film projects.)

My admiration for Robert Taylor has grown over time. He was a better actor than many gave him credit for. (I recommend his performances in "Bataan" and "Johnny Eager.") Sadly, this particular movie, though watchable, did nothing to enhance his reputation.

I wasn't expecting anything when I came across this film late one night, but it hooked me from the get-go and I thoroughly enjoyed discovering a new movie that I thought had wit, suspense and intrigue aplenty.

As other positive reviews have noted, it's not a cinematic masterpiece, just a well-written little bit of mystery and adventure-- with quite a good performance from Robert Taylor in a kind of Bogart-esque role as a boat captain based in England whose vessel is chartered by a mysterious man. Before long, our man Nordley (Taylor) has to deal with corpses and plot twists galore, taking him to Holland, where a lot of the film takes place.

The supporting cast includes two beautiful European ladies, Nicole Maurey and Linda Christian, and a fine group of character actors (Donald Wolfit, Eric Pohlmann, David Kossoff, and others).

I really enjoy films like this, set and filmed in European countries, in the 1950s and '60s, that have to do with the still fairly recent World War.

The plot will keep you guessing, and there's drama and a surprising amount of comedy to keep the film entertaining during its roughly 90 minute running time. Richard Thorpe was one of MGM's reliable directors, who had directed Taylor before, and the star seems very comfortable in his role.

I don't know if you'll enjoy it, but I did.