This is one of four 1970s movies by the same writer about sensationalistic small-town murders solved by the local police chief against the backdrop of quirky town regulars and a light-touch love interest. The movies are: (1) They Only Kill Their Masters (James Garner, 1972); (2) Isn't It Shocking (Alan Alda, 1973); and (3) The Girl In The Empty Grave and (4) Deadly Game (both Andy Griffith, 1977).
The films try to capture the feel of a small town, to move at a relaxed pace among a likable lead and comfortable supporting characters, and to tell a mystery with at least some detective work and complicated twist or turn to it. But all the movies suffer from thin, far-fetched stories, weak dialogue, slack pacing, superficial and exaggerated characters, and off-putting, forced attempts (often juvenile or crude) at color or humor. For detailed comments about some recycled elements, silly traits of Griffith's Marsh, and the often clumsy writing and humor, see my review of the better Empty Grave. (More examples: "All things considered, I'd rather be in the South of France"; "There's nobody here. They're all in a church supper, in Peru.")
Deadly Game vividly displays the flaws. A military transport of nerve gas is sabotaged along a mountain road in Marsh's town. The incident kills a half-dozen people, pollutes some land, and results in a demand for $400,000 by the landowner, young, cynical, smart-mouthed Amy Franklin. The military is portrayed in a hackneyed, heavy-handed manner as sinister and inept. Dan O'Herlihy, despite his out-of-place Irish accent, deserves a medal for his game effort as a decent-seeming Colonel trying to cope (mostly with the lame script).
The nerve gas is merely a gimmick to serve the implausible plot. People die. At possible direct risk are "2000 back-packers, hikers, and campers." Yet, the treatment of the subject is flippant and non-credible. It begins with a pompous, ridiculous scene where a supposed official, pointing to a red wall-phone, instructs the Colonel: "Dump it. Pack it up, move it, dump it. Pull in that crew, that nervous bunch of boobs you worked with before and move it." When Colonel demurs: Points at red phone again. "But he loves you." "Oh no he doesn't, he needs me. That's a different thing, Billy." "Is it? Are you certain?" "Yes." "Well, I'm not. As I grow older, I'm not really certain about anything any more." "That's why you're the perfect man for your job, Billy." "I know. That's probably why I'm in charge here. I haven't the faintest idea what I'm doing." "You're lying." "I often lie." "There's no need to lie." "Isn't there?" (Knee slap, raucous laugh.) At the bomb/crash scene: "close the area off and pray"; "We may get by, unless the wind comes up."; "All we can do is wait, keep people away, not breathe too deep."; with a broad, stupid grin, as if it were all a joke, Deputy Fred dares Marsh to visit the scene with a gas mask, only to have an Army technician warn that if there's a problem, "Get back up here fast, if you can still walk, if you're still alive."; "Safe to go in there?" "More or less."
The plot turns on the land damage, so characters belabor that, despite the human loss: "At least there are no more people threatened." "It's the land. You can't suck 412 out of the land. That's why Congress said out to sea with it, dump it. 412 does to the land what it did to those people and just as permanent."; "It's only the land, not people." "Only land? It's our
your future."; "We're losing the land and the water and the air. Because we're sloppy. Or cruel. Or greedy and rapacious."
How would it possibly have been safe for a "bunch of boobs" to simply "dump" nerve gas "out to sea"? If the wind poses a great danger, why does the Colonel arrive swooping in low over the spill site in a helicopter, roiling the air? How does he instantly bypass all red tape and produce the $400,000 check? How is a critical impersonation arranged?
Another plot gimmick, insulting to everyone involved, is Amy's apparent "sleeping around" with lumbering lunch-counter oaf "Tiny" and roughneck, broken-down stable-hand "Jake," while dating drippy Deputy Malcolm (James Cromwell in a humiliating role). We get this embarrassing exchange between Marsh and Jake: "I'm legal." "So was World War II, Jake." "I bathe when I want, I shave when I want, and I pay my own way. And what I do with my friends is my business who I see, what I do, and when I do it. And if you don't like it, go ahead and put the cuffs on me. You drink scotch whiskey in a glass. I drink beer from a can. Arrest me. You live in a house. I live in a trailer park. Book me. I go bowling. You play chess. Well, arraign me. I got a young girl likes me. You don't. Lock me up. I spent the night out, you spent it in. Throw the keys away. I got something women like, Chief, and it ain't no funny truck." "Jake, I must tell you, my manhood is not at stake here, believe me." "Well neither is mine. You just go inside there and ask." Later, from Malcolm: "You know, I never touched her. Oh, I touched her. We necked. But I never really
."
Lines that are supposed to sound sharp and world-wise instead come off as lame and stilted. This includes Amy's snide speech about her ex-husband and remarks to the Colonel: "Here's to truth in advertising."; "That'll be a thousand dollars an acre, soldier boy." A favorite is to interject "I bet you do/did" after another's line. The subplot of Marsh building a concrete boat, only to sink in it with girlfriend "Doc" in four feet of lake water, is labored nonsense. The movie ends up being more exasperating than entertaining.
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