mgtbltp
This film is hard to pigeon hole into any preset category. Its based on the writings of John D. MacDonald a Pennsylvania native and a very prolific author of crime and suspense novels, many of them set in the South and predominantly the southern tip of the state of Florida. Between the years 1953 and 1964, MacDonald specialized in crime thrillers, considered now as masterpieces of the hard-boiled genre. Most of these novels were published as pulp paperback originals, with their attendant sleazy cover art. His noir/neo noir street creds start with his 1957 novel The Executioners that was brought to the screen in 1962 as Cape Fear, a very dark story of suspense and animalistic menace starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. Many of MacDonald's novels suggested a sinister presence just beneath the friendly patina of palm tree studded small coastal towns.The film followed McGee's back story very well. McGee was basically a Florida beach bum, a Korean War Vet, who won a large 52-foot barge-type houseboat in a poker game. His home base was Ft. Lauderdale, Bahia Mar Marina, slip F-18, but his life style enabled him to drift about the inter-coastal waterway, the Everglades, and the Florida Keys, beach combing, drinking, fishing. He named the houseboat boat the Busted Flush, and took his retirement in installments between jobs, when the money ran out he did "salvage consultant" work. The salvage work was retrieving things lost by people, in shady legal deals, scams, flimflams, skulduggery, etc., etc., usually things with no proper recourse for the victim. McGee's price was for half of whatever he recovered, and half was better than nothing. Occasionally McGee was asked to locate missing people in other Gulf States or foreign locals in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. He is a sort of rogue PI without a license.McGee had a quasi partner/buddy Meyer, a retired economics professor, a brainy type that McGee could bounce problems and ideas off of, who lived on a cabin cruiser moored in a slip near by. The only other regular was the "Alabama Tiger" a millionaire, who had the "worlds longest running boat party" on a large yacht also in the Marina. In the film this is changed to the "Alabama Tigress" (Jane Russell). McGee also had an old Rolls Royce that had been in an accident and had been converted into a pickup truck that was called "Miss Agnes".The story of Darker Than Amber starts off very noir-ishly. As credits roll to a jazzy tune, a convertible speeds down a deserted highway, street lights whiz by overhead, a passing car highlights a driver (Robert Phillips), and a bleach blond goon (William Smith) sitting in the back seat with a honey-haired woman named Vangie (Suzy Kendall). A street lamp flash reveals that one of her feet is lashed to a dumbbell. The car passes over a long bridge a remote section of the Overseas Highway bridge (the highway that island hops its way to Key West) it reaches the far end and makes a U-turn. After a semi passes the car drives back onto the bridge. Cut to McGee (Rod Taylor) and Meyer (Theodore Bikel) fishing from a small rental skiff anchored at night under the ridge. The car pulls to a stop above them and the honey-haired woman strapped to the dumbbell is dropped off the bridge. As the car speeds off she sinks immediately from site and she's hooked on McGee's lure. McGee, with Meyer wielding a flashlight, dives in and brings her up. They resuscitate her and head back the Flush. She wont tell them her name, and she doesn't want them to go to the police. McGee heads back to the bridge in the daytime and dives to retrieve the dumbbell, (an 85 lb. weight for a 100 lb. woman) but is seen by a lookout who is staking out the "murder" site. As they cruise leisurely back up the Keys McGee slowly pries the story out of her. Her name is Vangie (Suzy Kendall), short for Evangeline she was literally a Femme Fatale, a high priced call girl working a cruise ship racket that lured drunk wealthy unattached men to a rendezvous at her cabin. The men were surprised by either Griff (Phillips) or Terry (Smith) and killed for their money then deep six-ed over the side. She was wanting out of the racket but the only way out is dead. By the time they reach Bahia Mar, McGee and Vangie are an item. But she decides to sneak off the Flush in another noir-ish sequence and go back to her bungalow and retrieve her stash of ill gotten loot. Her two murder racket accomplices Terry (William Smith) and Griff (Robert Phillips) tipped off that she is still alive, spot her while she is on her way. Terry grabs Vangie and while Griff speeds down the highway towards them Terry tosses Vangie into the cars path, the force blasts her through a plate glass window of an ice cream parlor.Ahna Capri delivers a good performance as Del, Vangie's co Femme Fatale partner in Terry's murder for money scheme. McGee is able to convince her that she is next to be eliminated.The hit-and-run murder of Vangie, sets McGee off on a revenge mission that culminates in a legendary graphically violent, savage, fight scene, between Rod Taylor's Travis McGee and the film's villain, Terry. This film needs a fully restored DVD release of the full Runtime: 96 min, the version I have was recorded off TCM and it is missing a few minutes of the legendary fight sequence (which can be see on YouTube in a Dutch release)A 9/10 for McGee fans (it could have been a tad bit longer for character development) and an 8/10 if you are unfamiliar with the material
Muskox53
Taylor is likable as McGee, but neither imposing (he's 5' 11", not a 6' 4" ex-defensive-linebacker) nor gentle enough. Bikel never displays Meyer's formidable intelligence, nor his astonishing personal magnetism; he's just a sidekick, who also looks wrong (Meyer is described in the books as having the pelt of a black bear). The Flush is...well, a houseboat, nothing special. Miss Agnes probably is, but we never get a really good look at her. The Alabama Tigress...a great excuse for Jane Russell to come out of retirement, for a few seconds on the screen. Kendall is beautiful, but not right at all for Vangie, who was Hawaiian and a hard-as-nails totally self-absorbed hooker from a pretty grim background. The music score is also distracting and inappropriate—a mix of badly done late-cool jazz and TV-movie clichés.The plot is closer to the book than Hollywood usually allowed its writers to adhere. But a couple of significant changes are senseless. The bad guys trace clues to a friend of McGee's and kill him, to no point whatsoever. (They're smart enough to get that far, but too stupid to keep the guy alive so they can get further...) McGee goes back to the fishing hole and dives to pull up...a barbell. (Replacing the novel's cinder-block, why? Would a bodybuilder ever be so stupid? Or did he just have an extra lying around that he wanted to throw out?)Most annoying was the rewrite on McGee's relationship with Vangie, I guess so that he could look as much as possible like Bond (i.e. have sex with every woman who wanders through the script). Given who McGee is (and how well readers of the book know his principles and his habits of self-reflection) and what he thinks of Vangie, any devotee of the books will look at this strange Taylor-inhabited character, and wonder who it really is. Certainly not the Travis McGee that we wanted to see in a decent film.
Ray Kuryla
Not having known of this movie's existence until reading about John D. MacDonald when IMDb'ing "Cape Fear", I was delighted to find out that there was a movie made from his Travis McGee series. It was hard to find (had to procure from one of those "hard-to-find video" businesses), but, like the others here who have seen it, was glad to have seen a cinematic portrayal of Trav. I too think Rod Taylor did a good job in portraying Trav, as well as Theodore Bikel in portraying Meyer. I was mildly disappointed in some of the changes made from the book to the movie. It seems as if some screenwriters think that they MUST make some changes, JUST for the sake of making changes. Some I can understand: for example,the book's "Ans Terry" to the movie's "Terry Bartlett" is easier to hear. But WHY the "Alabama Tigress"? Why couldn't they left the book's "Alabama Tiger"? Also, Vangie shouldn't have been portrayed as a blonde, because her ethnic heritage is where the title "Darker than Amber" came from; it was Trav's comment on the color of her eyes. There was no tie in the movie to the title at all. However, all that being said, as a big fan of the Travis McGee series, who re-reads them every few years, I would recommend this to all other McGee fans.
