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Taste of Excitement

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Taste of Excitement
Spanish film poster
Directed byDon Sharp
Screenplay byBrian Carton
Don Sharp
Alec Coppel (uncredited)
Based onWaiting for a Tiger
1965 novel
by Ben Healey
Produced byGeorge Willoughby
StarringEva Renzi
David Buck
Peter Vaughan
Paul Hubschmid
Sophie Hardy
Kay Walsh
Francis Matthews
George Pravda
Peter Bowles
CinematographyPaul Beeson
Edited byRaymond Poulton
Music byKeith Mansfield
Production
companies
Trio Films
Group W Films
Distributed byLondon Independent Producers
Alliance International Film Distributors
Release date
  • 16 November 1969 (1969-11-16)
[1]
Running time
89 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Taste of Excitement, also known as Why Would Anyone Want to Kill a Nice Girl Like You?, is a 1969 British mystery thriller film directed by Don Sharp and starring Eva Renzi, David Buck and Peter Vaughan.[2][3][4] It was written by Sharp and Brian Carton based on the 1965 novel Waiting for a Tiger by Ben Healey.

The film was a co production between Group W and Trio Films. It was shot during 1968 on location around Nice on the French Riviera, but not given a general release until 1970. It had an X certificate for violence and brief nudity.

Plot

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A series of attempts are made on the life of a young woman, Jane.

Cast

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Original novel

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Taste of Excitement was based on Brian Healey's novel Waiting for a Tiger (1965), the first of a series of thrillers about artist Paul Hedley (the next would be The Millstone Men, The Terrible Pictures, Murder without Crime, The Trouble with Penelope, Blanket of the Dark, and Last Ferry from the Lido).

Reviewing the book in the New York Times, Antony Boucher wrote "the action is incessant and well varied."[5] The Los Angeles Times said it "suggests the Ambler touch."[6] The Philadelphia Inquirer called it "clever, restrained, brightly sinister."[7] "The story is a delight," wrote the San Francisco Examiner.[8]

Production

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Sharp says he was approached to make the film by producer George Willoughby, who had been recommended to use the director by John Terry of the National Film Finance Corporation. Sharp says it was "rather a nice thriller" with the original title of The Girl in the Red Mini. The film was being made for television and theatrical release; Westinghouse – through its company, Group W – was providing American finance. It was shot in France in 1968.[9] Sharp's commitment to the film meant he had to turn down an offer from Hammer Films to direct Vengeance of She.[10]

Sharp said it had "quite a nice cast without any big names" but four days before shooting was to begin Westinghouse announced it had done a survey of what had been successful of television that revealed comedy-thrillers rated better than straight thrillers. Accordingly the company sent over a writer, Alec Coppel, to turn the film into a comedy-thriller. Sharp knew Coppel from Australia before the war and felt "he'd done some good work" like I Killed the Count (1939) and The Gazebo (1959) but that was "some time back". Sharp says Coppel would rewrite "out of context... reams of stuff" which the director had to rewrite and cut the night before filming "getting it into the right shape... You wouldn't believe the chaos and confusion", said Sharp. The director says the roles played by Peter Bowles, David Buck and Francis Matthews in particular were greatly reduced.[9]

However Sharp said he "got along very well" with producer George Willoughby and the other producers from Group W, who hired him to make a second film, The Violent Enemy (1969), which would ultimately be released before Taste of Excitement. (In between Sharp worked on a film version of Till Death Us Do Part but was fired.)[9]

Peter Bowles wrote in his memoirs that he had clashed with Don Sharp while making an episode of The Avengers but three weeks later Sharp offered the actor a role in Taste of Excitement. Bowles loved making the film because of its location.[11]

Reception

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The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Standard mystery adventure which, apart from the opening sequence, rather surprisingly fails to make much of its Riviera setting. The title's promise of excitement is fulfilled only on the most conventional level, but though a little stale in appearance the film has enough twists and red herrings to keep it moving and the cast adequately meet the small demands made of them."[12]

References

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  1. ^ "Advertisement". Evening Post. 15 November 1969. p. 6.
  2. ^ "Taste of Excitement". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 17 June 2024.
  3. ^ "Taste of Excitement". BFI. Archived from the original on 12 July 2012.
  4. ^ Vagg, Stephen (27 July 2019). "Unsung Aussie Filmmakers: Don Sharp – A Top 25". Filmink.
  5. ^ Boucher, Anthony (5 September 1965). "Criminals at Large". New York Times. p. BR21.
  6. ^ "The Book Report". The Los Angeles Times. 6 September 1965. p. 6 Part 5.
  7. ^ "Book reviews in brief". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 12 September 1965. p. 7.
  8. ^ "Mystery and Suspense". The San Francisco Examiner. 12 September 1965. p. 27.
  9. ^ a b c Sharp, Don (2 November 1993). "Don Sharp Side 5" (Interview). Interviewed by Teddy Darvas and Alan Lawson. London: History Project. Retrieved 14 July 2021. - around 18 minutes in
  10. ^ Koetting, Christopher (June 1995). "Costume dramas". Hammer Horror. p. 13.
  11. ^ Bowles, Peter (2012). Ask me if I'm happy. p. 139-139. ISBN 9780750534932.
  12. ^ "Taste of Excitement". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 37 (432): 17. 1 January 1970 – via ProQuest.
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