A Lovely Way to Die

Fans of Kirk Douglas will love this kitschy detective mystery. Douglas is in his early fifties and his best films (Spartacus in 1960 and Seven Days In May in 1964) are behind him. He still has the chops to be believable as a lothario law and order cop in the style of 'Dirty Harry'. (Although 'Dirty Harry' won't be released for another three years.) The problem is Douglas' character doesn't know if he's Matt Helm (Dean Martin) or Lew Harper (Paul Newman). The result is an unoriginal, contrived and disjointed story with little character development. Douglas swaggers through a myopic and distorted Hollywood version of the "Summer of Love" in a desperate attempt to appear relevant, cool and of the times. Kenyan Hopkins generic musical score of jazz idioms doesn't help matters. The bed hopping, free wheeling playboy with the cool car (1968 Ford Mustang) is just sad and dated up against more realistic and dour character studies like Steve McQueen's character in 'Bullitt' released in the same year. Sylva Koscina is enchanting as the supposed femme fatale and Eli Wallach is semi-ridiculous as a "southern" defense attorney. The "mystery" is tricky enough to keep your attention but just barely.