Permission to Kill

Last updated

Permission to Kill
Permission to Kill001.jpeg
Original film poster by Robert Tanenbaum [1]
Directed by Cyril Frankel
Written by Robin Estridge
Produced byPaul Mills
Starring Dirk Bogarde
Ava Gardner
Bekim Fehmiu
Cinematography Freddie Young
Edited byErnest Walter
Music by Richard Rodney Bennett
Production
company
Distributed by AVCO Embassy Pictures (in the United Kingdom through Columbia-Warner Distributors [2] )
Release date
  • 20 November 1975 (1975-11-20)(UK)
Running time
93 minutes
CountriesAustria
United Kingdom
United States
LanguageEnglish

Permission to Kill (also known as The Executioner and Vollmacht Zum Mord) is a 1975 Austrian/American/British spy thriller film directed by Cyril Frankel and starring Dirk Bogarde, Ava Gardner and Bekim Fehmiu with Timothy Dalton, Nicole Calfan and Frederic Forrest. [3] It was produced by Paul Mills from a screenplay by Robin Estridge, made by Sascha-Verleih and distributed by AVCO Embassy Pictures. The film had original music by Richard Rodney Bennett and the cinematography was by Freddie Young.

Contents

Plot

Alexander Diakim, leader of the socialist "National Freedom Party", wants to return to his fascist controlled country in order to organise resistance to the government. An organisation calling itself "Western Intelligence Liaison" (WIL), has orders to stop him and the operation is led by agent Alan Curtis. Curtis has identified five individuals who would be useful to the operation, and has 'persuaded' them to travel to the town of Gmunden, Austria using a mixture of bribery, blackmail and subterfuge. The five are unaware of each other's presence and have been defined by WIL as 'expendable'.

One of the five is Scott Allison an American journalist who had been a close friend of Diakim when a student. He visits Diakim at his temporary headquarters and they meet despite the reservations of Diakim's aide-de-camp Kostas, but Allison's attempt to persuade him to postpone his return is unsuccessful. The next visitor is Katina Petersen, another of the five, Diakim's ex lover and mother of the son he had previously been unaware of. Curtis has leaked this information, and Petersen is forced to tell the full story, including the fact that the boy had been adopted soon after birth and is also one of the five present in Gmunden. She warns Diakim not to meet or trust Curtis.

But Curtis has tempted Diakim to join a cruise on the Traunsee, so that he can see his son, if only at a distance. He talks to Diakim directly, urging him to put off his return until a time when Western governments can fully support him, and holding out the possibility of a happy domestic life (with Petersen and their son) as an alternative, but Diakim is not impressed. Meanwhile, Allison has confirmed the identity of the two remaining people in Gmunden, the British civil servant Charles Lord and the French assassin Melissa Lascade. Lord had previously worked in securing a government loan for Diakim's party, while Lascade's function is apparently to kill Diakim if all other strategies fail - 'final insurance' as WIL terms it.

Now his attempts at persuasion have failed, Curtis asks Lord to visit Diakim, tell him that his loan has been written off, and offer him 500,000 dollars in cash - on condition he cancels his plan to return. Allison now makes contact with Lord and Lascade, and they decide to work together to frustrate Curtis' plans. Lord will steal the money, pay it to Lascade, who will then deliberately fail in her attempt to kill Daikim. However, the plan fails after Curtis realises the deception, Lord is shot while trying to escape, and Curtis forces Lascade to return the money.

Diakim makes the decision to proceed with his plans and travels to Vienna airport, so Curtis is forced to move to his last resort, the assassination. At the airport Allison and Katina reveal Curtis' plan, and Diakim is protected by his entourage so that Lascade cannot get a clean shot at him. However, as Diakim goes to board his plane, Curtis detonates a bomb concealed in his briefcase, killing him instantly. Curtis' henchmen then kill Lascade, planting the detonator on her body so that she will be blamed for Diakim's murder. As Curtis leaves the building, his mission accomplished, he is shot by Kostas.

Partial cast

Production

The film was shot at the Sievering Studios in Vienna and on location in Gmunden, Austria.[ citation needed ]

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "A suspense thriller entirely devoid of tension since Robin Estridge, from whose novel it is adapted, has failed to provide his protagonist Diakim with an authentic political identity. Lacking the vaguest idea who Diakim is or what he stands for, audiences can hardly be expected to feel strongly about his life or his death. The plot's overall lack of definition is not improved by the tritely ominous secrecy surrounding the character of Curtis, an agent of implausible efficiency and ruthlessness who would have been more at home in a fantasy thriller than in this pretentious political mishmash. ... The film reaches its melodramatic nadir when Lord, his bloody chest uncovered, is laid prominently on a table in the bustling HQ of Western Intelligence Liaison, studiously ignored by the hard-hearted Curtis while a secretary dabs ineffectively at the wound with a minuscule piece of cottonwool. Bogarde, at his best for some time recently in roles requiring understated menace, here shields behind his poker-face and occasionally twitching upper lip. The tousled but still good-looking Ava Gardner, in the thin supporting role of Katina, emotes heavily in a style of acting more suited to the star vehicles of an earlier age." [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Siodmak</span> German-born American film director

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).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ava Gardner</span> American actress (1922–1990)

Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress. She first signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew critics' attention in 1946 with her performance in Robert Siodmak's film noir The Killers. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in John Ford's Mogambo (1953), and for best actress for both a Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for her performance in John Huston's The Night of the Iguana (1964). She was a part of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dirk Bogarde</span> English actor (1921–1999)

Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as Doctor in the House (1954) for the Rank Organisation, he later acted in art house films, evolving from "heartthrob to icon of edginess".

<i>Mogambo</i> 1953 American romantic drama film

Mogambo is a 1953 Technicolor adventure/romantic drama film directed by John Ford and starring Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, and Grace Kelly, and featuring Donald Sinden. Shot on location in Equatorial Africa, with a musical soundtrack consisting entirely of actual African tribal music recorded in the Congo, the film was adapted by John Lee Mahin from the play Red Dust by Wilson Collison. The picture is a remake of Red Dust (1932), which was set in Vietnam and also starred Gable in the same role.

<i>Seven Days in May</i> 1964 political thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer

Seven Days in May is a 1964 American political thriller film about a military-political cabal's planned takeover of the United States government in reaction to the president's negotiation of a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. The film, starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, and Ava Gardner, was directed by John Frankenheimer from a screenplay written by Rod Serling and based on the novel of the same name by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, published in September 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ava Lord</span> Fictional character

Ava Lord is a fictional character in Frank Miller's Sin City universe, the title character in the graphic novel A Dame to Kill For. An ex-lover of Dwight McCarthy, she manipulates men with her good looks and an innocent facade for her own personal gain or amusement. An expert liar, she is considered a goddess by Manute, her towering manservant, and a "manipulative bitch" by Dwight. She represents the classic femme fatale, acting as a foil to Dwight's hard-boiled antihero.

<i>The Angel Wore Red</i> 1960 film

The Angel Wore Red, also known as La sposa bella in its Italian version, is a 1960 Italian-American MGM/Titanus coproduction war drama starring Ava Gardner and Dirk Bogarde. It was directed by Nunnally Johnson and produced by Goffredo Lombardo from a screenplay by Johnson based on the 1953 novel The Fair Bride by Bruce Marshall.

Robin Estridge, a.k.a. Robin York and Philip Loraine was a British author of suspense fiction and a screenwriter.

<i>Black Sunday</i> (1977 film) 1977 film by John Frankenheimer

Black Sunday is a 1977 American action thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer and based on Thomas Harris's novel of the same name. It was produced by Robert Evans, and stars Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern and Marthe Keller. It was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1978. The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, Kenneth Ross and Ivan Moffat. Ross had previously written the screenplay for The Day of the Jackal, a similar plot-driven political thriller. The inspiration of the story came from the Munich massacre, perpetrated by the Black September organization against Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics, giving the title for the novel and film.

The Vision is a British television film which had its first showing on 9 January 1988 on BBC1. The film was written by William Nicholson and directed by Norman Stone. It starred Dirk Bogarde, Lee Remick and Helena Bonham Carter. It was episode 1 of the fourth series of Screen Two.

<i>The Sun Also Rises</i> (1957 film) 1957 film by Henry King

The Sun Also Rises is a 1957 American drama film adaptation of the 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel of the same name directed by Henry King. The screenplay was written by Peter Viertel and it starred Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, and Errol Flynn. Much of it was filmed on location in France and Spain as well as Mexico in Cinemascope and color by Deluxe. A highlight of the film is the famous "running of the bulls" in Pamplona, Spain and two bullfights.

<i>The Bribe</i> 1950 film by Robert Zigler Leonard

The Bribe is a 1949 American film noir directed by Robert Z. Leonard and written by Marguerite Roberts, based on a story written by Frederick Nebel. The drama features Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Charles Laughton, and Vincent Price.

<i>Campbells Kingdom</i> 1957 British film

Campbell's Kingdom is a 1957 British adventure film directed by Ralph Thomas, based on the 1952 novel of the same name by Hammond Innes. The film stars Dirk Bogarde and Stanley Baker, with Michael Craig, Barbara Murray, James Robertson Justice and Sid James in support. The story is set in Alberta, Canada, and largely follows the principles of the Northwestern genre of film-making.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bekim Fehmiu</span> Albanian actor (1936–2010)

Bekim Fehmiu was a Yugoslavian theater and film actor. He was the first Eastern European actor to star in Hollywood during the Cold War, and one of the internationally best-known ethnic Albanian actors.

<i>Checkpoint</i> (1956 film) 1956 English film

Checkpoint is a 1956 British crime drama film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Anthony Steel, Odile Versois, Stanley Baker, and James Robertson Justice.

<i>The Deserter</i> (1970 film) 1970 film

The Deserter, also known as The S.O.B.s and The Devil's Backbone is a 1970 Italian-Yugoslav American international co-production Western film produced by Dino De Laurentiis. It was directed by Burt Kennedy and written by Clair Huffaker.

<i>The Fair Bride</i> Book by Bruce Marshall

The Fair Bride is a 1953 novel by Scottish writer Bruce Marshall.

<i>Singapore</i> (1947 film) 1947 film by John Brahm

Singapore is a 1947 American film noir crime romance film directed by John Brahm and starring Fred MacMurray, Ava Gardner and Roland Culver. The film was remade as Istanbul (1957) with the location moved to Turkey, and Errol Flynn and Cornell Borchers in the starring roles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Llazi Sërbo</span> Albanian actor (1945–2010)

Llazi Sërbo was an Albanian actor.

The Cinematography in Kosovo in the Albanian language began its activities after the foundation of Kosovafilm, which produced short films, documentaries, cartoons and later feature films. Since 2008, the central authority for cinematography in Kosovo has been Kosova’s Cinematography Center (KCC) though numerous independent film companies are active in Kosovo. Before Kosovafilm, there were no fully Kosovan films.

References

  1. "Permission to Kill / 30x40 / USA".
  2. "Permission to Kill (1975)". BBFC . Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  3. "Permission to Kill". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
  4. "Permission to Kill". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 42 (492): 266. 1 January 1975 via ProQuest.