By which I mean everyone else apparently dislikes this TV movie but I kind of like it. It is perhaps the last (I can't think of a later one) of the 1960s "spy" genre movie - you know, featuring some super smooth and slick Sean Connery/Dean Martin/Robert Wagner/Robert Vaughn/James Coburn type who knows everything and can do anything while working for some all-so-secret-and-powerful yet unnamed super spy agency, surrounded by women flaunting their charms and throwing themselves at him - of a kind that only outlasted the era in the increasingly campy James Bond films. Darren McGavin is a hoot, trying so hard to play it straight but once in a while uncorking his Kolchak-style sarcastic-style wit and cynicism, which is dreadfully against character but still fun to see. Why do I like this overly complex, out of date already spy sturm und drang? First, it's one of the few TV movies of the period shot on location and we get great scenes of Berlin. Second, McGavin is awesome even though his characterization wobbles all over the place as he seems to delight in making faces the more absurd the situation gets. Third, the female co-stars are fabulous, including his criminally underused wife, Kathie Browne. Fourth, the script is kind of clever even if indecipherable at times. (Bad guy: "Remember me, I work for XYZ?" McGavin: "Ah, XYZ." Bad guy: "Yes, XYZ" McGavin: "AG!" Okay, you have to be following the plot to understand why that's amusing, and incidentally, "AG" is just German for "Inc.," so this is kind of German in-joke inside a Hollywood production, which you just don't see too often. Okay, anyway....) The female characters are the only ones allowed to show emotion in this kind of flick, and they do a good job. It's just moody and episodic, with loose cannon McGavin struggling mightily to keep a straight face carrying it. Okay, go ahead, hate me for being the oddball who likes this, but I do. I think it's worth catching if you're just in the mood for something moody.
Review of Berlin Affair
