Crossplot (film)

Last updated

Crossplot
Crossplot FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed by Alvin Rakoff
Written byLeigh Vance
John Kruse
Produced by Robert S. Baker
Starring Roger Moore
Claudie Lange
Alexis Kanner
Cinematography Brendan J. Stafford
Edited byBurt Rule
Music by Stanley Black
Production
companies
Television Reporters International
Tribune Productions
Distributed by United Artists
Release date
  • 25 November 1969 (1969-11-25)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Crossplot is a 1969 British neo noir crime film starring Roger Moore. Belgian actress Claudie Lange was also featured in her largest English-speaking role. [1]

Contents

Plot

Roger Moore is Gary Fenn, a talent scout for a London modelling agency who finds the perfect target and calculates the events which mean that only one girl will be good enough for his bosses, a Hungarian Marla Kugash (Lange). He finds her among the anti-war movement in the bohemian depths of swinging London. She is in the company of a young man, Tarquin, who is extremely protective of her and overtly aggressive to Fenn.

The young Hungarian, an illegal refugee from her native homeland, accompanies Fenn to a photoshoot. However, she admits she is in fear of her life, and seems disturbed by the presence of her aunt. When she is nearly killed, the girl drops out of sight and Fenn has to go on the run himself, suspected of a separate murder. He locates her to a country house, which turns out to be the home of Tarquin, an aristocrat in spite of his anti-war sentiments.

It is revealed that Marla's aunt is part of a shadowy organisation trying to destabilise the existing world order so they can take over themselves. They will go to any length to try and shut Fenn and Marla up, including sending a helicopter after them. Fenn and his friend manage to escape to London, where they realise that the shadowy movement are planning to assassinate a visiting African head of state in Hyde Park. They manage to foil the plot.

Cast

Reception

The film is not particularly well regarded by critics. One suggested that the film quickly became "tedious" in spite of the numerous action sequences, and the plot was far too "convoluted" and "confusing". [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Moore</span> English actor (1927–2017)

Sir Roger George Moore was an English actor. He was the third actor to portray fictional secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions/MGM Studios film series, playing the character in seven feature films between 1973 and 1985. Moore's seven appearances as Bond, from Live and Let Die to A View to a Kill, are the most of any actor in the Eon-produced entries.

<i>Love Letters</i> (1945 film) 1945 film by William Dieterle

Love Letters is a 1945 American film noir. The screenplay was adapted by Ayn Rand from the novel Pity My Simplicity by Christopher Massie. It was directed by William Dieterle and stars Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ann Richards, Cecil Kellaway, Gladys Cooper and Anita Louise. The plot tells the story of a man falling in love with an amnesiac woman with two personalities, who is supposed to have killed his soldier friend.

<i>Octopussy</i> 1983 James Bond film by John Glen

Octopussy is a 1983 spy film and the thirteenth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions. It is the sixth to star Roger Moore as the MI6 agent James Bond. It was directed by John Glen and the screenplay was written by George MacDonald Fraser, Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson.

<i>Bedazzled</i> (1967 film) 1967 film by Stanley Donen

Bedazzled is a 1967 British comedy DeLuxe Color film directed and produced by Stanley Donen in Panavision format. It was written by comedian Peter Cook and starred both Cook and his comedy partner Dudley Moore. It is a comic retelling of the Faust legend, set in the Swinging London of the 1960s. The Devil (Cook) offers an unhappy young man (Moore) seven wishes in return for his soul, but twists the spirit of the wishes to frustrate the man's hopes.

<i>Music Box</i> (film) 1989 film by Costa-Gavras

Music Box is a 1989 film by Costa-Gavras that tells the story of a Hungarian-American immigrant who is accused of having been a war criminal. The plot revolves around his daughter, an attorney, who defends him, and her struggle to uncover the truth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sherilyn Fenn</span> American actress (born 1965)

Sherilyn Fenn is an American actress. She played Audrey Horne on the television series Twin Peaks for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award.

<i>Sugar & Spice</i> 2001 film by Francine McDougall

Sugar & Spice is a 2001 American teen film directed by Francine McDougall and starring Marley Shelton, Marla Sokoloff and Mena Suvari. The plot follows a group of high school cheerleaders who conspire and commit armed robbery when one of them becomes pregnant and desperate for money.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jill Esmond</span> British actress (1908–1990)

Jill Esmond Moore was an English stage and screen actress.

<i>Midnight Lace</i> 1960 film directed by David Miller

Midnight Lace is a 1960 American psychological thriller film directed by David Miller and starring Doris Day, Rex Harrison, John Gavin, Myrna Loy, and Roddy McDowall. The plot centers on a woman threatened by an anonymous stalker who has a hard time convincing others of what is happening. The screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts was based on the play Matilda Shouted Fire by Janet Green. The new title referred to a lacy dress that Day's character purchases early in the film and wears at the climax.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Derek Francis</span> English actor (1923–1984)

Derek Francis was an English comedy and character actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Provine</span> American singer, dancer, actress and comedienne

Dorothy Michelle Provine was an American singer, dancer and actress. Born in 1935 in Deadwood, South Dakota, she grew up in Seattle, Washington, and was hired in 1958 by Warner Bros., after which she first starred in The Bonnie Parker Story and played many roles in TV series. During the 1960s, Provine starred in series such as The Alaskans and The Roaring Twenties, and her major roles in movies included It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Good Neighbor Sam (1964) with Jack Lemmon, That Darn Cat! (1965), Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die (1966), Who's Minding the Mint? (1967), and Never a Dull Moment (1968) with Dick Van Dyke and Edward G. Robinson. In 1968, Provine married the film and television director Robert Day and mostly retired. She died of emphysema on April 25, 2010, in Bremerton, Washington.

<i>Odds On</i> Novel by Michael Crichton

Odds On is Michael Crichton's first published novel. It was released in 1966 under the pseudonym of John Lange. It is a short 215-page paperback novel. Hard Case Crime republished the novel under Crichton's name on November 19, 2013. Prior to the reissue, copies were rare and hard to find. Since then even the reissue is becoming scarce, with few copies available on sources such as bookfinder or ebay.

<i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i> (film) 1974 James Bond film by Guy Hamilton

The Man with the Golden Gun is a 1974 spy film and the ninth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and the second to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. A loose adaptation of Ian Fleming's posthumously published 1965 novel of the same name, the film has Bond sent after the Solex Agitator, a breakthrough technological solution to contemporary energy shortages, while facing the assassin Francisco Scaramanga, the "Man with the Golden Gun". The action culminates in a duel between them that settles the fate of the Solex.

<i>A Carol Christmas</i> 2003 television film

A Carol Christmas is a TV movie starring Tori Spelling, Dinah Manoff, William Shatner, Jason Brooks and Gary Coleman. It premiered on the Hallmark Channel in 2003. The film is an adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.

Alexandra Pigg is a British actress who first came to prominence as Petra Taylor in the TV soap opera Brookside. Her best-known film appearances are as Elaine in Letter to Brezhnev (1985), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA award, and as Bridget Baines in A Chorus of Disapproval (1988).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vivian Pickles</span> English actress

Vivian Pickles is an English actress.

<i>The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic</i>

The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic (2000) is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, the first in the Shopaholic series. It focuses on Becky Bloomwood, a financial journalist who is in serious debt due to her shopping addiction.

<i>Eye of the Cat</i> 1969 American horror film

Eye of the Cat is a 1969 American horror film directed by David Lowell Rich and starring Michael Sarrazin, Gayle Hunnicutt, and Eleanor Parker. The screenplay is by Joseph Stefano, best known as the co-creator of the tv-series The Outer Limits and the author of the script for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

Claudie Lange is a Belgian actress and model, mainly active in Italian cinema.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Barrard</span> English actor (1924–2013)

John Barrard was a British character actor who had a career spanning five decades and who perhaps is best known for playing Dooley, Santa's No. 2, in Santa Claus: The Movie (1985).

References

  1. "Roger Moore To Star In Suspense Comedy". The Calgary Herald . 10 September 1968. p. 19. Retrieved 26 April 2012.
  2. "Crossplot (1969)".
  3. Five Thrillers from MGM – Reviews by David Nusair