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The Liquidator (1965 film)

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The Liquidator
Original UK quad cinema poster featuring Richard Willams artwork
Directed byJack Cardiff
Written byPeter Yeldham
Based onThe Liquidator
1964 novel
by John Gardner
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyEdward Scaife
Edited byErnest Walter
Music byLalo Schifrin
Production
company
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1965, original) Warner Bros. (2012, DVD)
Release date
  • November 1965 (1965-11) (UK)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1,175,000 (est. US/ Canada rentals)[1]
23,498 admissions (France)[2]

The Liquidator is a 1965 British-made, MGM-produced and distributed thriller film directed by Jack Cardiff and starring Rod Taylor, Trevor Howard, and Jill St. John.[3] Wilfrid Hyde-White, Akim Tamiroff, Gabriella Licudi, Eric Sykes, and David Tomlinson appear in support. The picture was based on The Liquidator (1964), the first of a series of Boysie Oakes novels by John Gardner.

Plot

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During the Allies' occupation of Paris late in World War II, bumbling tank corps Sergeant "Boysie" Oakes stumbles when responding to a fellow Englishman's call for help, and unwittingly shoots and kills two men attempting to assassinate British Intelligence Major Mostyn. A grateful Mostyn mistakenly believes Oakes is a born killer.

Twenty-one years later, Mostyn (now a colonel in British Intelligence) and his boss are in trouble due to a series of embarrassing security leaks. To save his job, the chief orders Mostyn to hire an assassin to illegally eliminate security problems without official authorisation. Mostyn recruits Oakes into MI5 without first telling him what his employment will entail, luring him in with a lavish apartment and a fancy sports car. After Oakes passes a training course, Mostyn informs him that his code name is "L", for "Liquidator", and he is employed as a paid assassin. Unable to resign and not at all a killer by nature, Oakes secretly hires freelance contract killer Griffin to do the dirty work.

Oakes is drawn to Mostyn's sexy secretary Iris, in spite of Mostyn's explicit detailing of an Agency prohibition against spies and civilian employees fraternising. Determined to risk grave consequences, the womanizing Oakes persuades Iris to spend the weekend with him on the Côte d'Azur. Falling for a lure, Oakes is captured by enemy agents led by Sheriek, who firmly believes he is on assignment in the south of France rather than there on an assignation. Sheriek demands to know who Oakes' target is. However, Sheriek's superior, Chekhov, is coldly furious that he has gone beyond his orders to merely surveil Oakes, and has endangered a much more important operation. He has Sheriek arrange for Oakes to escape.

Agent Quadrant, an Agency higher-up, arrives with a new mission for Oakes. He is to stage a fake assassination attempt on the Duke of Edinburgh when he visits a Royal Air Force base, to test its security. Just before pulling the trigger of a telescopic sniper rifle he has been assured is full of blanks, Oakes recognizes that Mostyn has taken the Duke's placed in the troop inspection, and Quadrant is actually an enemy agent. While Mostyn and Oakes are distracted (with Mostyn challenging Oakes loyalty), Quadrant and an accomplice steal an advanced Vulture supersonic nuclear bomber. Oakes manages to wound Quadrant and board the plane before it can take off. To his surprise, its pilot is none other than Iris, who informs him that she is actually the coordinator of the entire operation. He is able to overpower her and between autopilot and an experienced Vulture pilot "talking him down", he is able to return the aircraft to the base.

No sooner is he down than Oakes is eyeing Mostyn's new - and equally ravishing -secretary. More trouble lies ahead.

Cast

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Production

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Producer Jon Pennington brought Australian screenwriter Peter Yeldham to the project after both had cooperated on The Comedy Man (1963). Yeldham recalled that Pennington acquired the novel, read it on an airplane, and set the film into production in four or five months. As with the first of a projected Jason Love series Where the Spies Are (1966), also filmed in MGM-British Studios, MGM planned a Boysie Oakes film series. Producer Sydney Box spoke to Yeldham and wished him to write two more scripts in the projected series.[4]

Richard Harris was initially approached for the role but after negotiations chose to do The Heroes of Telemark (1965) instead.[5] Taylor insisted on playing the role with an American accent because he was more comfortable with it by that stage in his career.[6]

The film opens with animated titles by the Richard Williams studio.

The Liquidator was filmed in MGM-British Studios. Cardiff recalled that the censors insisted that one of Taylor's lines, "...it smells like a Turkish wrestler's jockstrap", be deleted.[7]

Soundtrack

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Main article: The Liquidator (soundtrack)

The original score was composed by Lalo Schifrin and includes a driving main title vocal theme and a soft end title theme ("My Liquidator"), both sung by Shirley Bassey. Other than the "Goldfinger"-type title song, Schifrin deliberately avoided the John Barry James Bond style of music.[8][9]

Release

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Release of the film was held up a number of months due to a legal conflict between producer Leslie Elliot and MGM. Jack Cardiff thought this hurt the final box office result of the film, which was disappointing.[10]

Critical reception

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The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "After a promising beginning, with a gravel-voiced Trevor Howard putting his private executioner through the niceties of his assassination programme, it is not long before this further sortie into sub-Bondian territory begins to look like a very poor relative. The cast make what they can of a script that strives after witty effect and ends up looking only like a pastiche of the spy film formula. Rod Taylor looks a little flabby as the reluctant assassin, but he does manage to make the character appealing, and Trevor Howard wickedly proves how dialogue can be made to sound better than it is; and there is an amusing interlude in the shape of Akim Tamiroff as a blundering torturer doing his best to look villainous. But these are the only flashes of light in a generally gloomy film."[11]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "This is one of dozens of Bond ripoffs, right down to Shirley Bassey belting out the title number. ... Very swinging 1960s in tone, with jet-set locations, snazzy cartoon titles and willing ladies in mini-skirts."[12]

Home media

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The Liquidator was released to DVD by Warner Home Video on 6 September 2012 via the Warner Archive DVD-on-demand service.

References

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  1. ^ "Big Rental Pictures of 1966", Variety, 4 January 1967 p 8
  2. ^ French box office for 1967 at Box Office Story
  3. ^ "The Liquidator". British Film Institute. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
  4. ^ p.31 Taylor, Tadhg Peter Yeldham Interview in Masters of the Shoot-'Em-Up: Conversations with Directors, Actors and Writers of Vintage Action Movies and Television Shows, McFarland, 14 October 2015
  5. ^ p.152 Callan, Michael Feeney Richard Harris: Sex, Death & The Movies Robson, 30 November 2004
  6. ^ Vagg, Stephen (2010). Rod Taylor: An Aussie in Hollywood. Bear Manor Media. p. 115. ISBN 978-1-59393-511-5.
  7. ^ Bowyer, Justin (2003). Conversations with Jack Cardiff. Batsford. p. 190. ISBN 0-7134-8855-7.
  8. ^ "The Liquidator soundtrack liner notes". Film Score Monthly. 9 (16). Lukas Kendall. November 2006.
  9. ^ Spencer, Kristpher (2008). Film and Television Scores, 1950–1979: A Critical Survey by Genre. McFarland & Co. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-0-7864-3682-8.
  10. ^ Stephen Vagg, Rod Taylor: An Aussie in Hollywood (Bear Manor Media, 2010) p118
  11. ^ "The Liquidator". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 33 (384): 154. 1 January 1966. ProQuest 1305825756.
  12. ^ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 546. ISBN 9780992936440.
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