The Assassination Bureau
Picture: C+
Sound: C Extras: D Film: B-
It is always an interesting event when Basil Dearden’s The
Assassination Bureau (1969) surfaces in conversation. Most people are disappointed because they
are disappointed by what they expected.
Some want more of what female lead Diana Rigg offered in her TV classic The
Avengers, while others want to see a yesteryear James Bond film ala Rigg’s On
Her Majesty’s Secret Service from the same year as this film. The presence of Telly Savalas as a villain
in both only pushes that desire further.
When that fails, many then expect a Sherlock Holmes-type mystery.
Instead, the Michael Relph screenplay (from some “ideas”
out of the Jack London/Robert Fish book of the same name) is trying something
different. The film is trying to make
witty, classic observations about murder and maintain that approach
throughout. That job ultimately falls
to British gentlemen director Basil Dearden, who has produced some fine films
in his time.
The picture opens with Rigg’s character talking about how
murder was always a way problems were solved in even the earliest of times,
though many attempts were laughable and badly botched. Thus, in high society during the early 20th
century, The Assassination Bureau Limited (the full name of the book and film
in British release) is the first organization to solve that problem. They take the guesswork out of killing
others by doing it for you with great accuracy. Instead of turning into a dark thriller, the film turns into a
witty, adult and British diatribe about murder in society. Rigg’s Miss Winter is a reporter who is
going to do a story about the organization who will kill for the right price. This brings her to the head of it, Ivan
Dragonoff (Oliver Reed), for whom she has a killing job of her own to
perform. She wants him killed!
As you can see, this is trying to be witty in ways that
might at first seem childish, but it turns out to be cleverer than that. Wolf Mankowitz supplied addition dialogue to
keep the conversations sharp. The way
Savalas’ Lord Bostwick figures into this is that he is an even bigger killer
and as joined by General Von Pinck (Curt Jurgens, a future lead Bond villain
himself), both loyal to the Germans who want to rule the world. Of course, the film is then addressing
international politics and tries to make a few grand statements while being
class entertainment. Though the film
does not always work, its ambitions to work on a higher level and ambitiously
attempt something different work more often than they do not. Rigg is key here, injecting comedy and wit
with great timing. Phillippe Noiret,
Warren Mitchell, Clive Revill, George Coulouris, and Peter Bowles are among the
supporting cats that also up the film’s ante.
Also making the film interesting is the cinematography by
Geoffrey Unsworth, B.S.C., fresh off of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space
Odyssey the year before. He also
adds dimension to the film, so all this adds up to a very unique viewing
experience. The 1.66 X 1 image is
anamorphically enhanced and was originally issued in three-strip dye-transfer
Technicolor. Occasionally, this
transfer offers how good that looks, but has some softness problems and grain
issues that hold the image back. The
Dolby digital 2.0 Mono is a bit smaller than we’d have liked it to be, but Ron
Grainer’s score is very interesting.
There are remarkably no extras, not even a trailer.
I love the story that at one point, the soda pop Tab was
going to do a tie-in with the film because its’ spelling had the same initials
as the film, but that was dropped. The
film has a following and this DVD is certain to get people talking about it
again. The Assassination Bureau
might not be what you are expecting, but if you go in armed expecting something
different, it has its rewards.
- Nicholas Sheffo
