Scorpio | |
---|---|
Directed by | Michael Winner |
Written by | David W. Rintels Gerald Wilson |
Produced by | Walter Mirisch |
Starring | Burt Lancaster Alain Delon Paul Scofield John Colicos Gayle Hunnicutt |
Music by | Jerry Fielding |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 114 minutes |
Country | United States |
Budget | $4 million [1] |
Box office | $1,400,000 (US/ Canada rentals) [2] 1,052,001 admissions (France) [3] |
Scorpio is a 1973 American spy film directed by Michael Winner and written by David W. Rintels and Gerald Wilson. It stars Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Paul Scofield. Delon plays the title character, a hitman hired by the CIA to assassinate his mentor (Lancaster), a former agent suspected of treason. The film's score was composed by Jerry Fielding.
Cross is an experienced, but retiring Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent and assassin who is training freelance hitman Jean Laurier, alias Scorpio, to replace him. Cross is teaching him as much about protecting himself from his patrons and never trusting anyone as how to get away clean.
The CIA tells Scorpio to kill Cross for suspected treason and collaboration with the Soviets, but Cross gets to him first and pays him a large sum of money. Scorpio travels back to the US with Cross, where Cross visits his wife and Laurier visits his sister and girlfriend, who are roommates. The CIA continue to pressure Scorpio into assassinating Cross, but he proves reluctant until the CIA break into his apartment and frame Laurier with a narcotics charge. His only choice is to take the job and terminate Cross. Understanding that the CIA wants him out, Cross flees to Vienna in disguise and reunites with his Soviet opposite and friend, Sergei Zharkov who provides him a safehouse. Scorpio follows Cross' trail to Vienna. Cross intends to bring his wife out from the US and get out of the spy business. Despite blown covers and many failed CIA attempts to ambush him, Cross manages to stay one step ahead of his pursuers.
In a failed break-in at Cross's home, CIA agents shoot and kill his wife Sarah, causing Cross to return to America. He rejects protection from Zharkov, whose agency wants to know secrets he knows as a senior field agent. Zharkov helps Cross to cover his tracks and reach America. Cross evades capture by the CIA and manages to kill McLeod, the agency director responsible for his wife's death. CIA wants Cross' head on a platter and contracts Scorpio again.
The new CIA director and Scorpio's handler Filchock shows him evidence that Cross might have collaborated in the past with other foreign agents and was able to make a hefty sum from it. Following surveillance video of a potential meet up between Cross's wife and accomplice at the Library of Congress, Scorpio sees his girlfriend walking out as well and comes to realization that she is working with Cross.
Enraged by this, Scorpio corners Cross and Susan and kills his girlfriend instantly without remorse. Cross says she was a Czech courier and he is just a middleman between their agency for staying in the game and did not betray Scorpio. Scorpio finishes off Cross after hearing his last words of wisdom. Moments later, Scorpio is also shot by a mysterious assailant, as Cross had earlier predicted.
The film was based on a script by David W. Rintels which had been bought by Walter Mirisch, who had a deal with United Artists. Michael Winner came on board to direct but wanted a rewrite. Mirsch disagreed so Winner dropped out. Then United Artists decided to remove Mirisch from the project and gave control over to Winner (although Mirisch kept a producer credit.) It would be one of the last films made by Mirisch for United Artists. [4]
Winner brought in his regular writer, Gerard Wilson, to do a rewrite. [5] Delon and Lancaster were cast in April 1972. [6] Lancaster's fee was $750,000 plus ten percent of the profits. [7]
Winner said he agreed to do the film because it was a more serious spy film in the vein of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. "And it has a good plot," he added. "Unexpected things happen." He was also attracted to the theme "the problems of men who have opted out of normal society to make their own way." He says many of his movies dealt with this. [8]
Filming took place in Washington, Vienna and Paris. Filming began May 29, 1972 and went until mid August. [1] The unit filmed at the Watergate Hotel and were staying there the night of the notorious break in. [9]
Despite a script which showed the CIA assassinating people and involved with various nefarious plots, Winner was given permission to shoot in the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Scenes at Cross's home were actually filmed at then CIA Director Richard Helms's home in NW Washington D.C. Arnold Picker, Chairman of United Artists, was surprised that the CIA would allow such a thing and insisted that Winner show them a copy of the script before shooting began. He did so and approval was granted, making Scorpio the first movie ever shot on location at their Headquarters. [10]
Lancaster later said the film was "nothing incisive, just a lot of action" and was "one of those things you do as part of your living, but you try to avoid doing them as much as you can." [11]
The film was given an X rating in England but this was overturned on appeal. [12]
Reviewing Scorpio for Time Out magazine, Geoff Andrew took a negative view of the film: "Winner directs with typically crass abandon, wasting a solid performance from Lancaster". [13]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 59% rating from 22 reviews with the consensus: "Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon add some much-needed weight, but Scorpio doesn't offer much that spy thriller fans haven't already seen before." [14]
Scorpio was released on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment on April 1, 2003, as a Region 1 widescreen DVD.
A Limited Edition (3,000 units) was released by Twilight Time on November 10, 2015, as a Region A Blu-ray. It features an audio commentary by film historians Lem Dobbs, Julie Kirgo, and Nick Redman.
Burton Stephen Lancaster was an American actor and film producer. Initially known for playing tough guys with a tender heart, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-year career in films and television series. He was a four-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and he also won two BAFTA Awards and one Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actor. The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as #19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
James Maitland Stewart was an American actor. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality he portrayed both on and off the screen, he epitomized the "American ideal" in the mid-twentieth century. In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked him third on its list of the greatest American male actors. He received numerous honors including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1980, the Kennedy Center Honor in 1983, as well as the Academy Honorary Award and Presidential Medal of Freedom, both in 1985.
Robert Siodmak was a German film director who also worked in the United States. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for a series of films noir he made in the 1940s, such as The Killers (1946).
Scorpio is the Latin word for scorpion. It most often refers to:
Dirty Harry is a 1971 American neo-noir action thriller film produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first appearance as San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan. The film drew upon the real-life case of the Zodiac Killer as the Callahan character seeks out a similar vicious psychopath.
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon was a French actor, film producer, screenwriter, and singer. Acknowledged as a cultural and cinematic leading man of the 20th century, Delon emerged as one of the foremost European actors of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and became an international sex symbol. His style, looks, and roles made him an icon of cinema worldwide and earned him enduring popularity. Delon achieved critical acclaim for his roles in films such as Women Are Weak (1959), Purple Noon (1960), Rocco and His Brothers (1960), L'Eclisse (1962), The Leopard (1963), The Black Tulip (1964), The Last Adventure (1967), Le Samouraï (1967), The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968), La Piscine (1969), Le Cercle Rouge (1970), Un flic (1972), and Monsieur Klein (1976). Over the course of his career, Delon worked with many directors, including Luchino Visconti, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Louis Malle.
Ulzana's Raid is a 1972 American revisionist Western film starring Burt Lancaster, Richard Jaeckel, Bruce Davison and Joaquin Martinez. The film, which was filmed on location in Arizona, was directed by Robert Aldrich based on a script by Alan Sharp. It portrays a brutal raid by Chiricahua Apaches against European settlers in 1880s Arizona. The bleak and nihilistic tone of U.S. troops chasing an elusive merciless enemy has been seen as allegory to the United States participation in the Vietnam War.
Michael Robert Winner was a British filmmaker, writer, and media personality. He is known for directing numerous action, thriller, and black comedy films in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, including several collaborations with actors Oliver Reed and Charles Bronson.
The Osterman Weekend is a 1983 American suspense thriller film directed by Sam Peckinpah, based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum. The film stars Rutger Hauer, John Hurt, Burt Lancaster, Dennis Hopper, Meg Foster, Helen Shaver, Chris Sarandon and Craig T. Nelson. It was Peckinpah's final film before his death in 1984.
The 19th Annual TV Week Logie Awards were presented on Friday 25 March 1977 at Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne and broadcast on the Nine Network. Bert Newton from the Nine Network was the Master of Ceremonies. American film star Burt Lancaster and television actors Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Susan Seaforth and Bill Hayes, British actors Robin Nedwell and Geoffrey Davies, and Australian actor Jack Thompson appeared as guests. Kate Jackson, star of Charlie's Angels, was scheduled to appear but cancelled at the last minute to start filming on the television movie James at 15.
Casino Royale is a 1967 spy parody film originally distributed by Columbia Pictures featuring an ensemble cast. It is loosely based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, the first novel to feature the character James Bond.
The Leopard is a 1963 epic historical drama film directed by Luchino Visconti. Written by Visconti, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Enrico Medioli, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Massimo Franciosa, and an uncredited René Barjavel, the film is an adaptation of the 1958 novel of the same title by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.
Live and Let Die is a 1973 spy film, the eighth film in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It was directed by Guy Hamilton and produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, while Tom Mankiewicz wrote the script.
Lawman is a 1971 American revisionist Western film produced and directed by Michael Winner and starring Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb and Robert Duvall.
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold is a 1965 British spy film based on the 1963 novel of the same name by John le Carré. The film stars Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, and Oskar Werner. It was directed by Martin Ritt, and the screenplay was written by Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper.
Death Wish is a 1974 American vigilante action film directed by Michael Winner. The film, loosely based on the 1972 novel of the same title by Brian Garfield and the first film in the Death Wish film series, stars Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, alongside Hope Lange, Vincent Gardenia, William Redfield, Kathleen Tolan and Christopher Guest. In the film, Paul Kersey, an architect leading a peaceful life, resorts to vigilantism after his wife is murdered and daughter raped during a home invasion.
Borsalino is a 1970 French gangster film directed by Jacques Deray and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon and Catherine Rouvel. It was entered into the 20th Berlin International Film Festival. In 2009, Empire named it No. 19 in a poll of "The 20 Greatest Gangster Movies You've Never Seen… Probably". A sequel, Borsalino & Co., was released in 1974 with Alain Delon in the leading role. The film is based on real-life gangsters Paul Carbone and François Spirito, who collaborated with Nazi Germany during the occupation of France in World War II.
Operation C.I.A. is a 1965 black-and-white spy film directed by Christian Nyby and starring Burt Reynolds and John Hoyt.
Tony Arzenta is a 1973 Italian gangster-action film directed by Duccio Tessari. The film was commercially successful.
The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing is a 1973 American Western film adaptation of Marilyn Durham's novel of the same name directed by Richard C. Sarafian, written by Eleanor Perry and William W. Norton, and starring Burt Reynolds and Sarah Miles.