Action of the Tiger

Along Romania, Albania suffered after WW2 the hardest communist dictatorship; Enver Hoxca (d.1985) ,who proclaimed his country the most atheist in the world,was responsible for extremely bloody reprisals .

It came to an end only in 1991. Today the country has opened up to Tourism ; you can go to the country from Greece by boat .....

But circa 1957 ,you were not able to walk just right in, like our heroes ; the borders were inaccessible, and a guy and his machine gun ( Sean Connery in the movie) single-handedly fighting both the Albanian soldiers and police , in your dreams perhaps !

Not only the captain (Van Johnson ) and his passenger (Martine Carol) can enter the country ,but most of the time they cross the country while effotlessly deceiving caricatures of soldiers (the galeries Lafayette bill - a department store in Paris- takes the biscuit !) and finding the brother straight-away , but they also find help on the way (Carol being the price to pay !)

Martine Carol was French biggest sex symbol in the fisrt half of the fifties ,till the coming of BB : she often appeared topless ("Lucrèce Borgia" "un caprice de Caroline Chérie" ) ,so it was only natural to show her breast after a swim :there's absolutely no chemistry between her and Johnson ,but Sean Connery -who would work again with Terence Young and was catapulted into megastardom- is more than fond of her .

A woman (Martine Carol) hires an American smuggler (Van Johnson) to try and rescue her brother (Gustavo Rojo) from a political prison in Albania. They end up escorting a group of refugee kids, as well, as they struggle to make it across the border into Greece.

I liked Carol, an actress I wasnt familiar with, and Herbert Lom has fun as the lusty leader of a group bandits on horseback. Johnson tries, and while he isn't awful, I would have preferred someone else in his role. Connery plays Johnson's second mate aboard his small boat, and the future James Bond gets to drunkenly paw at Ms. Carol. Speaking of Bond, 5 years later Connery would shoot Anthony Dawson (here playing an Albanian military officer) in the first Bond film Dr. No, which incidentally was also directed by this film's Terence Young.

Action of the Tiger is a very ordinary anti-Communist film that benefits from a location shoot in Greece (filling in for nearby Albania). The woefully miscast Van Johnson plays Carson, an amoral American smuggler who agrees to help blonde bombshell Martine Carol rescue her brother from the bondage of Enver Hoxha and company. Herbert Lom and Sean Connery provide assistance for Johnson, whose part really should have gone to someone with a little more gravitas, perhaps Sterling Hayden or Richard Widmark. Instead, our lead tries to prove his masculinity by wearing sweaters that are much too tight, a less than pretty sight. Desmond Dickinson's cinematography is uniformly good, especially in exterior setups, but the script is undercooked and ultimately unbelievable, as our heroes end up rescuing a motley assortment of Greek children and outwitting those dumb commies. Action of the Tiger is also of minor interest for Connery fans, as the Scots actor would reunite with director Terence Young for a little film called Dr. No five years later.

This movie by Terence Young is the typical adventure-movie of the fifties. The action in Albania is well described with the Albanian resistance against communism and the double-spy colonel Stendho. The battles - horses against jeeps - are realistic and the Albanian family-life and the Countess Valona is also realistic with the remembrance of the past (Italians, Geeks). Martine Carol is wonderful and she does everything to save the children and her brother. Captain Carson is the typical American smuggler of the Mediterranean Sea and he falls in love with Tracy Malvoisie (Carol). Good script, good family-movie.

Director Terence Young later dismissed ACTION OF THE TIGER as poorly directed and acted. Today, many seem to concur it's a bad film, only of interest because it brought Young and Sean Connery together, setting them on the path to make history with DR. NO five years later. However, I have to contest the idea that ACTION OF THE TIGER is a total turkey. Maybe it's because of its low reputation, but I was pleasantly surprised with it.

To be sure, the conventional wisdom that Van Johnson is miscast as a tough-talking sea captain is true. This role would have been ideal for Humphrey Bogart in his 1940s heyday, but not Johnson by any means. He struggles to seem like a hardass and his tough guy line delivery is stiff. Martine Carrol is a little better, but she's often wooden as well. She also happens to be the other lead.

However, I say the film survives this miscasting. It's a straightforward adventure story, the sort that would be homaged in the INDIANA JONES series. There's travel, exotic locations, dangers from an authoritarian regime, moments of humor, and plenty of suspense. Young keeps it all rolling and his direction, far from lousy, is assured throughout. It's not earth-shattering, but it is entertaining, ideal for a rainy Sunday.