Odelecol
Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
Lucia Ayala
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
Mathilde the Guild
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
grantss
After an office party, David Stillwell discovers that he has no memory of certain people, people who should be familiar to him, or of anything about his life from more than two years previously. Then he discovers that the same night his boss, the famous businessman and philanthropist Charles Calvin, committed suicide by jumping out of his office window. Now some violent thugs are out to get him. They work for a shadowy figure known simply as The Major.Interesting, but not compelling. The plot has a Hitchcockian feel to it, but the movie lacks a few things to get into Hitchcock's league. The plot isn't watertight and often feels contrived. Things happen rather conveniently and sometimes without much plausibility. Director Edward Dmytryck doesn't really build the suspense well (Hitchcock was superb at this) and the movie seems to just be on auto-pilot at times.This said, it is reasonably intriguing. Gregory Peck puts in a solid performance as Stillwell though at times seems miscast, especially during the tough-guy scenes. Good supporting cast which includes Walter Matthau and George Kennedy.
ringfire211
Wow!! A real treat this one turned out to be! I was quite underwhelmed by Edward Dmytryk's (who's a Ukrainian by the way - like me!) THE CAINE MUTINY but Dmytryk really impressed me with this obscure gem. I already sang quite a bit of praise for Stanley Donen's mystery/spy/comedy films like CHARADE and ARABESQUE but I gotta say that Dmytryk's MIRAGE actually trumps them both! It's now one of my favorites from 1965 - only THUNDERBALL, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, and FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE are better. Anyhoo, Gregory Peck does a great job playing an amnesiac while Walter Matthau delivers another superbly humorous performance (as he did in CHARADE) as a private investigator whose first case just happens to be Peck. Throw in a solid supporting cast consisting of Diane Baker, Kevin McCarthy, Leif Erickson, Jack Weston, and George Kennedy and a nice jazzy score by Quincy Jones and you've got one heck of a mystery thriller!!
dimplet
Once you watch this movie about a mysterious amnesiac you will never forget it. It has some of the snappiest dialog this side of Casablanca. The script is fantastic and the imagery is iconic. In this and other respects it follows in the Hitchcock tradition, most of all North by Northwest, in which Cary Grant Grant must figure out who he is, or rather who the bad guys think he is. And, like Mirage, there is a beautiful femme fatale who is on the side of the bad guys, more or less. A key part of this Hitch formula is to take a fairly normal guy and put him in James Bond's shoes, so to speak, and see how long he stays alive. This shows up again in Silver Streak.As the viewer watches this unfold, the movie lays down a challenge: How could these seemingly impossible things have happened in a way that makes sense? Behind it all is the maguffin, the spy deus ex machina. I see some posters have complained about the weak ending, but I think the maguffin in Mirage is actually much stronger and relevant than that in North by Northwest which was nothing more than some xxxxxxx. (No, I'm not going to tell.)Every character is strongly etched, without becoming caricatures, like some more recent movies, particularly the menacing George Kennedy as Willard, and the often comedic Jack Weston as Lester. And who can forget House Jameson as the senior citizen hit man? But it is Walter Matthau who steals the show as newbie private eye with common sense and a conscience. Talk about avoiding stereotypes! He tries to give back half his fee, saying he's not worth it. This is one of Matthau's earliest major film roles, and still one of his most memorable. Another reason I love this film is the setting in Manhattan in the mid- 1960s, perhaps at its most picturesque point in recent history. I lived in a suburb, and often came into the city back then. The movie brings back the feel of the city at the time. And then there is the allusion to the great Northeast Blackout, a strange nightmarish experience that really happened.Obviously, I am trying to avoid giving away the plot, but don't worry, even after you know the ending, you will still enjoy watching the movie again. If you are lucky enough to find this on DVD, buy it because this is a rare movie, and one of those rare movies that you can watch over and over again over the years.
robert-temple-1
This is one of my favourite films, a true classic. I saw it in the cinema when it was first released, and have seen it many times since then. I would rate it as the best of the many 'amnesia films', and I believe I have seen most of them (and reviewed several). It has recently been released on DVD in a Gregory Peck box set, and it is worth getting the set just to get MIRAGE. It contains one of Peck's finest performances, in my opinion. (Perhaps his best of all was in ON THE BEACH, 1959, see my review.) This is one of the best-scripted and best-directed psychological thrillers ever made by someone who was not called Hitchcock, and it is not surprising that the brilliant Ed Dmytryk was the director, and here he really surpasses himself. He has tremendous fun with some expressionist scenes early on, when the lights of a New York skyscraper have been cut off and Gregory Peck is descending 27 flights of stairs. (I know what that's like, as I used to climb and descend 26 flights to my first American publisher in the Flat Iron Building.) The only aspects of the film which I find disappointing are the art direction and sets. Walter Matthau gives one of his finest sardonic performances, as a hopeless detective trying to sort out Gregory Peck's dilemma. And Diane Baker is at her absolute peak here, in a part that could have been written for her, she is so perfect in it. She glisters like diamonds. This film just 'clicks' in every way. It has a strong story, an overwhelming atmosphere of mystery and intrigue and suspense, and the harrowing dilemma of watching Gregory Peck try to remember who he is and why people are trying to kill him. The interesting twist is that Diane Baker knows perfectly well who he is, but refuses to tell him because she says that is the only way he can stay alive, for as long as the sinister and powerful figure known as 'the Major' thinks he can't remember anything, Peck is safe. We do not see 'the Major' until the latter part of the film. He is played by Leif Erickson, and is suitably menacing. Kevin McCarthy gives stalwart support as 'Josephson'. McCarthy was in just about every film that was made in English in those days, it seemed at the time. He was just 'everywhere', and he always did a good job, which I suppose is why he was 'everywhere'. The mysterious figure known as Charles Calvin, whose death in falling from the 27th floor begins the film (but he reappears in flashbacks), is played by Martin Abel, who was perfect for the part. I had the opportunity to meet and chat with him briefly the year after this film came out, and I was curious to see what he was like, as I was so keen on this film. Well, I can tell you. He was just like he was on the screen, a likable and smiley fellow of a certain age. We had no chance to discuss the meaning of life, as this was a brief encounter. He's the only member of this cast I ever met, which is a shame, as I was dead keen on Diane Baker and would have followed her across the Sahara on foot. The worst film Diane Baker was ever in (though she herself was charming as usual) was probably KRAKATOA EAST OF JAVA, if only because Krakatoa is West of Java. (True!!) I saw it in Cinerama. Does anybody remember Cinerama? The best thing about Diane Baker is that she is still around and doing great things. Well done! So many beautiful actresses die young (Natalie Wood for instance, aged 43), isn't a relief when one doesn't? George Kennedy is superb in this film as a really threatening 'heavy' called Willard. (Where do they get these names?) Willard would just as soon kill you as look at you. And that brings me to this question: why does the human species produce so many people of that sort? Aren't they the very opposite of a survival mechanism? It's enough to turn an evolutionist into a creationist, just thinking about all the Willards in the world, but then of course the world would have had to be created by The Great Archon, or Sakla, but I do not wish to discuss Gnosticism when Diane Baker is around, lest she and we blush at the thought that anyone less than perfect could have 'created' her, which would have been impossible (so that settles that theological argument!). I must just stop thinking about Diane Baker and her charms for long enough to say a bit more about Gregory Peck. We all know he was the 'Mr. Integrity' of the screen, all square-jawed and earnest and tolerant and with that look of reliability in his eyes. (Yes, I would buy a used car from that man.) But what is less realized is that it was because he was the kind of guy everybody felt they could trust that he could be so convincing about being an amnesia victim. Amnesia is one of the most fascinating of subjects, because it would seem that we only know who we are if we can remember who we are. (This is the dilemma faced by all those with relatives with Aldzheimers.) Amnesia is a never-failing recipe for a successful thriller film, especially when the person with the amnesia is on the run but can't remember who is trying to kill him or why. Just think about it: most nights when you go to sleep you cease to be you, and you become an anonymous dreamer. In other words: what does it mean to have an identity? And more to the point, what does it mean to lose it? MIRAGE is a film which really stirs up all of these deep anxieties.
