McGuire, Go Home!

Something of a romantic potboiler but strongly redeemed by two factors which stamp it as a thoroughly British rather than a Hollywood production. First, the gritty realism of its portrayal of the Cypriot independence struggle against British military rule in the 1950s. Second, its warts-and-all portrayal of everyday relationships and behaviour, instead of the typical Hollywood sanitized morality of the era.

All you need to know about Cyprus is that the locals ran a successful guerilla war against British rule in the 1950s. Against that background, the movie sets up a tangle of love and conflicting loyalties for a British officer and a beautiful Cypriot-American visitor, which generates plenty of action, suspense and tough moral choices. The characters are portrayed with refreshing realism - a few four and seven letter words pepper the script along with references to rape, divorce, alcoholism and extra-marital sex, which would have been fairly shocking for the era and probably even when the movie was made in the 1960s.

Despite a few improbable aspects of the plot (eg the officer lives in an unguarded apartment in town where his security is always at risk), the overall result is a convincingly bold, brassy, in-your-face portrayal of life and love in the middle of a dirty war - and a moderately good thriller into the bargain.

After all theses many years, the film stands out in my memory mainly for one thing:

It was the first time I ever heard a swear word -- "bastard" -- on screen. (One of the characters is referred to as a "sneaky little bastard").

In those innocent times we were so taken aback that we thought we had heard wrong.

The next notch up the scale, incidentally, came about six years later when I saw "Woodstock" and actually heard the F word....

I also remember High Bright Sun for George Chakiris -- such a charismatic young actor -- and so sad that he faded out soon after

Back in 1957, Cypriots were fighting against the British occupying forces. After all, they wanted their own government and not be a colony of the United Kingdom. The viewer is expected to believe that in the midst of this civil war, an American tourist goes to Cypress to hang out with the locals and garden! Yes, Juno (Susan Strasberg) is apparently interested in hanging out in a war zone. And, while she wishes to remain neutral and on good terms with the Brits and locals, she is inexorably pulled into it...and doesn't have the common sense to leave.

So despite a dumb set-up, why did I watch this film? Because it stars Dirk Bogarde...and I'd watch this excellent actor in anything. Unfortunately, in addition to the dopey story idea, the film itself is sluggish and amazingly uninteresting...with an almost detached emotional feel to it. Not a good film but not exactly terrible either.

I like many things about this movie. First, the story. Although it certainly has flaws, it is very interesting. All the time I was watching the movie I was trying to decide if the British and the Cyprus people were portrayed objectively or not. With the exception of few scenes (boys with a knife in the beginning and the character of Hagios) I think they are. For most of the movie Bogarde is not a nice guy at all. This only goes to show the wide variety of roles he embodied.

And I must say that I don't understand other people's negative comments about Susan Strasberg, I think she was great here. And most of all, she was gorgeous, in a natural way.

If only the plot was relieved from a few clumsy turns, it could have been a great movie...

This is not for Bogarde fans:we are far from Visconti or Losey here.I wonder why he agreed to take part in such a dumb movie.The political background is botched ,for instance Chakiris 's character is a villain,period:he has no thoughts,no motivations,no opinions ,and he does not seem to care at all.But the biggest flaw is the late Susan Strasberg's "performance":she seems unable to act ;when she learns,on her way to the airport,that she can be killed any minute now,she's about as expressive as a Barbie Doll.Another priceless scene happens when she hitch- hikes and bumps into the machoest man in the island -who tries to rape her of course-Why Bogarde wants to marry this bubblehead girl remains the movie's biggest mystery!

The script ,full of holes and incoherent -on the plane,Strasberg proves she's not afraid of looking ridiculous once more-,leads nowhere,and the various titles (English: "a high bright sun";America:"" Go Home,McGuire"(sic);France:"dernière mission à Nicosie" ) shows that nobody seems to understand what they try to say.The hero is English of course and the poor girl's attentive escort , this tourist so mistreated by the villains,the Cypriot of course.