Sun 24 Jan 2016
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: SOL MADRID (1968).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[4] Comments
SOL MADRID. MGM, 1968. David McCallum, Stella Stevens, Telly Savalas, Ricardo Montalban, Rip Torn, Pat Hingle, Paul Lukas, Capo Riccione, Michael Ansara. Screenplay by David Karp based on the book Fruit of the Poppy by Robert Wilder. Director: Brian G. Hutton.
Hot off his television role in CBS’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., David McCallum starred in the hardboiled thriller, Sol Madrid. Featuring an alternatively psychedelic and jazzy score by Lalo Schifrin, Sol Madrid has McCallum portraying the eponymous title character, a cynical, at times ruthless Interpol agent tasked with bringing down a heroin ring run by flamboyant criminal mastermind by the name of Emil Dietrich (a scenery-chewing Telly Savalas).
Set in Mexico, the movie also features Rip Torn as a sadistic mafia boss, Stella Stevens as a nice small town girl who gets herself mixed up with some unsavory characters, and Ricardo Montalban as Madrid’s Mexican Interpol contact who wants nothing more than to live it up and retire early.
Although the plot really is quite basic with very little new to offer, the movie’s explicit depiction of heroin usage certainly pushed boundaries when it was first released. Not only does the movie begin with a seedy scene in a shooting gallery, there’s also a horrific sequence in which Rip Torn’s character tortures a girl by deliberately getting her hooked on dope.
Despite some tense moments and some terse dialogue, the movie ends up feeling tremendously incomplete. Not only does one get the impression that some of the movie’s most important sequences may have been edited out, but one can’t help but wonder whether most of the actors in the film were simply there for their paycheck. In more ways than one, that is a real shame, for Sol Madrid really had the potential to be something far more than just another rather forgettable late 1960s studio production, albeit one with just enough punch to it to make you want to watch to the very end.
January 25th, 2016 at 8:21 am
We saw it on a double bill with something we wanted to see (can’t remember what at this late date) in 1968 and were tremendously underwhelmed.
January 25th, 2016 at 3:45 pm
Underwhelming is the right word for it. The “Dennis the Menace” haircut doesn’t lend itself to super spydom, either
January 25th, 2016 at 5:00 pm
Another movie I don’t need to look for.
January 25th, 2016 at 5:01 pm
McCallum is a big part of the problem, since he never feels like a tough hard nosed undercover narc. This needed a hard as nails lead and even then it needs to double down on some aspects of the character’s darker side. Played as noir this might have worked, played as a glitzy Technicolor romp in Mexico with forays into kinky sex and drugs it just falls flat.
The book by Robert Wilder (FLAMINGO ROAD, WIND FROM THE CAROLINAS) was tough and hard nosed (Wilder had written a Gold Medal original back in the day before becoming a major bestseller) with hints of kinky sex and a tough nasty protagonist. David McCallum was simply miscast and the film can’t overcome it.