Jim l'irresistibile detective

I've only gotten to see this movie once but it left a pretty vivid impression on me -- a psychedelic era private eye thriller with Kirk Douglas as a cynical detective assigned to protect the sexy defendant in a murder case (sexy Giallo film regular Sylva Koscina) being defended by fast-talking Eli Wallach from being unfairly (or, not) found guilty of murdering her rich old geezer of a husband. At least, I think that's the nature of the plot, my scanty knowledge of the film demonstrated by not even having remembered that Eli Wallach was in it. He's kind of a hard film presence to forget, but since I saw the movie on the tail end of a windowpane fueled Magical Mystery Tour it's not that surprising.

In fact, it's impressive that I recall anything at all, but it was one of those instances where I had nothing better to do in the afternoon after the journey in mention and just happened to catch this on TV while slumming around our on-campus apartment. I would usually look for certain things when selecting entertainment under such circumstances, and the production year of 1968 stuck out, suggesting that there might be subtle suggestions of psychedelia, ala POINT BLANK which at the time was my alltime favorite film. I was correct.

Two moments in the film stuck with me: One during a scene were Mr. Douglas' car is forced off the road by gangster thugs who chase him into the woods, and he administrates a very effective beating onto one of the thugs, which each blow of the fist highlighted by an orchestrated crescendo. The other moment was right after Douglas' character is introduced to Koscina, who simply oozes sex appear and regards him with a sort of "come hither" look from a balcony window. Douglas' reaction is to bite heartily into an apple -- along with another orchestrated flourish -- with a gusto that was the source of a nice belly laugh.

The film has apparently never been released on home video or DVD but I remember it vividly and would love to have the chance to watch it again.