A Man Could Get Killed

A year before we were married, my wife and I went to see this movie on a date. We have not seen it since, yet we still quote a line or two from it all these decades later. I hope we do not have to wait for James Garner's death before it is released on DVD. It is a truly funny motion picture, liked even by someone like me who likes very few comedies. As I recall, the humour in this movie springs from the story, ridiculous though it may be, and that makes for a good amusing film. Robert Coote in particular was superb.

I was shocked when the Academy Award Show mentioned that both Tony Franciosa and Sandra Dee died during the year. They co-starred in one of my favorite movies, A Man Could Get Killed.

How the hell could they be dead? They seemed like kids to me. I guess you live long enough most people start to seem like kids. But these were special to me. They gave me pleasure with their performances in an excellent movie.

Franciosa especially. I became a fan of his for life. He played a native street hustler/smuggler in Lisbon. His accent sounded believable to me. But then Sandra Dee came along.

Wait a minute.

Let's start at the beginning.

James Garner and Melina Mercouri starred in this comedy/action-adventure. (According to an English website Robert Coote starred. Tell them to take their cooties and go home.) Garner plays an American businessman who is mistaken by everybody for a super-secret British agent on the trail of smuggled diamonds. When Coote, supposedly his liaison at the British Embassy meets him at the Lisbon airport, the car intended for him is blown up. No matter how much Garner protests, all of which are accepted as cover for his actual mission, he is then transported into a world of scheming, dangerous, underworld characters.

First among these is the fabulous Melina Mercouri playing the amorous, amoral, ungrieving widow of a recently killed gangster. It is great fun for us to see how much fun she has in this role. She flirts with Garner at the funeral of her husband.

Tony Franciosa, totally charming in his guise as a Portuguese hustler, attaches himself to Garner. Sandra Dee, the archetypical Southern California beach girl appears and exposes Franciosa. They had been connected in America. But Franciosa's exposition is that he is an American hustler, not Portuguese. Not much change there.

The four of them are then off on a life or death quest to find the smuggled diamonds. It is a fun trip. Garner, straight and proper, is continuously agitated by Mercouri's delightful lack of morals.

In one memorable scene, the bad guys tell the two of them to strip so they can be searched. While Garner tries to defend her honor, Mercouri eagerly begins to comply. She begins by removing her false eyelashes.

This is a fun romp with charismatic stars and great chemistry between them. Much of the fine background music throughout became the ballad, "Strangers in the Night." See it if you get a chance.

And say goodbye to Sandra Dee and Tony Franciosa.

Whatever happened to the intelligent "adult" comedy movie? Well, my theory is that they made one too many like "A Man Could Get Killed."

The movie starts out well: Garner is a banker examining some sort of prospects near Lisbon (that part doesn't matter in the slightest, it's just an excuse to get him there) and from the moment he disembarks from the airplane it's assumed by everyone he's an American spy and no one will listen to the truth, thinking it's a clever cover story.

This includes the dunderheads at the British embassy (Robert Coote, Cecil Parker) an American smuggler posing as Portugese (Anthony Franciosa) and a collection of spies working in groups of twos and threes who are more like Keystone Kops.

Garner plays "comically frustrated" as well as or better than anyone in the business and I've never seen Franciosa better. And the movie has some fine comic moments. I even laughed out loud and I'm pretty jaded.

But as the movie drags on it seems to run out of ideas. It gets bogged down in fish and rice scenes (if you must know what that means, see the flick). Though it does keep trying new (rather, familiar) plot twists right up to the climax, i'd trade a plot twist or two for something funny.

In fact, one of the best things about "A Man Could Get Killed" is a trial run of music for what became "Strangers in the Night," a chart-topping hit for Sinatra in the age of the Beatles. It's lovely.

If the writers (or whomever) had been able to sustain the ideas and energy propelling its first half-hour "A Man Could Get Killed" might've been a spy-spoof classic. Garner is certainly good enough and has range enough as an actor to carry it off, as he did in the comic-western "Support Your Local Sheriff " But at some point someone decided the way to proceed was with boring scenes of fish and rice and that's what we're left with.

(James Coburn's unfortunately dated spy spoof "The President's Analyst" nailed the genre better and despite a third-act lull ultimately sustains itself to the end.)

I like Sandra Dee but she's just awful. Rumor is, she didn't want to go to Lisbon and was forced to do the movie contractually. I never "got" Melina Mercori and that's probably my own blind spot, but I can provide, under separate cover, a list of actresses I'd prefer cast as the women who bedevil Garner and Franciosa (as if Coote, Parker and the spies didn't bedevil them enough).

Overall, a worthy try until it runs out of steam. Despite a wonderful title, good music, and fine performances by Garner and Franciosa, "A Man Could Get Killed" is not a must-see classic you've missed all your life. Too bad.

1965s 'A Man Could Get Killed' is a great slice of 60s movie hokum. It has James Garner at his "Basically, I'm just passing through on my way to Australia" best. Added to that, the cream of England's 'old duffer' character actors, Coote, Culver, Parker and Grey. An interesting cameo from the great Irish doctor/actor Niall MacGinnis, as the ships captain. Sandra Dee is as loud as any American tourist in Europe should be allowed to get, but still gorgeous. Tony Franciosa as the pretend Portuguese smuggler is fun and of course the wonderful, and criminally underrated, Melina Mercouri stealing the show. Throw in some diamonds and it all adds up to a not bad 97 minutes of escapism. And with a nice romantic ending to the strains of, probably Bert Kaempfert's greatest tune 'Strangers in the Night'. What's not to like! I saw this film as a young boy, when first released, loved it and have never forgotten it. How this film is not available on DVD is beyond me! It's about time we had a box set of James Garner 60s films with, obviously, this film included.

I saw this film several times, and really thought it was great. James Garner put in a superb performance as did Melina Mercouri. In fact, the chemistry between all of the performers seemed natural and lent to making a hilariously preposterous plot all the more believable.

Try as I might, I can't understand why it was never released on VHS or DVD. I thought the film to be very entertaining. It must have been popular, based on the number of times it was later shown on TV. It seemed too, to be an excellent showcase for James Garner's talents as an actor.

If you get a chance to see the film, please don't hesitate. It was not only very entertaining, but it is a fine representation of the movies of the day - original, intelligent, romantic and funny all at once. It had a quality about it that is sadly lacking in films today.