Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

grainstorms If you don't expect too much from "Puppet on a Chain," you can spend an enjoyable session watching a nearly half-century-old bam- bam-wham- wham adventure movie set in beautiful Amsterdam.The story, cobbled from a book by Alaistair MacLean, once one of the most popular novelists working the global-thriller gold mine ("The Guns of Navarone," "The Satan Bug," "Ice Station Zebra,"), involves a narcotics gang working out of Holland, and the good guys bent on stopping them. If "Puppet on a Chain" has any claim to fame, it's because of its heart-pounding epochal speed-boat chase through Dutch canals. Beautifully set up, daringly acted by supremely skilled stuntmen and superbly photographed, it's one of the most exciting high-motion chase scenes in movie history.The rest of the movie involves a heavily layered story about dolls, Bibles, and ingenious ways of making the hero's life miserable and painful. Aside from the veteran American actor Alexander Knox ("Wilson") and a dependably hissable villain (Vladek Shaybel, a familiar Bond baddie, most notably the Czech chess grandmaster, "SPECTRE Number 5," in the 1963 "From Russia with Love") the acting is solidly second-rate and the undistinguished dialogue just a means of nudging the story forward. The hero, a US agent, is stolidly if unexpectedly portrayed by a Swedish actor, Sven-Bertil Taube (who was much better decades later in the Swedish film, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," as Henrick Vanger). Don't look for Bond girls here – just an assemblage of wan actresses, all looking curiously like Addams Family cousins in their dark-haired pallor, mouthing dull repartee.Good points include the aforesaid speedboat chase, beautiful cinematography in good color, Piero Piccioni's appealing score, some funny headgear, and a sometimes original look at the seamy underbelly of The Netherlands, including prostitutes, graffiti and some wildly complicated drug smuggling operations. All this doesn't stop director Geoffrey Reeve and cinematographer Jack Hildyard from having some fun, notably in photographing a) a naughty and messy floor show, and later, b) a prudish and precise folk dance – the vigilant moviegoer might enjoy comparing the two."Puppet on a Chain," for all its obvious influence on Bond movies, has somehow always hidden under the radar, and never been given its just due as a progenitor of the international thriller genre, although moviegoers have time and again been pleasantly surprised at the unpredictable morsels hidden within its bland Dutch cheese offering.

screenman 'Where Eagles Dare' and 'Guns Of Navarone' have proved to be enduring benchmark hokum. Even today, you can't resist a watch. But what both of these Alistair MacLean derived movies have in common is a top-drawer cast, or at least A-list stars in the leading roles. However, this isn't the only issue upon which 'Puppet On A Chain' fails. Apart from the much-vaunted speedboat chase, low budget seems to be written into every take. Nothing actually stands out in my mind, but I just seem to sense economy. With more money and a MacLean script, all manner of Hollywood heavyweights should have been tempted out to play. And let's face it; in 1971 there was no shortage.Instead, the starring role was given to someone who was little more than a wooden-faced extra, with a name most ordinary movie buffs are unlikely to ever have heard. And the rest of the cast appear to have been drawn from the same pool. Only Patrick Allen stands out, but he hardly counts as a movie star. There are one or two unexpected little twists like the lynching of the femme-fatale, but otherwise it's a pretty humdrum affair with very limited and stagy action, an unexceptional script, and TV-movie standard acting and directing. There's also some very hokey sequences like the arch-villain leaving the agent to 'die slowly and nastily' and thereby allowing him a chance to escape in the classic style so eloquently spoofed by 'Dr Evil'. At another time, Patrick Allen shoots this same agent, apparently wounding him. But instead of walking over and putting a bullet through his head just to make sure, he busies himself with an electric loading-winch and chain allowing him time to recover. And if that isn't daft enough; he unwinds the chain all the way to the ground(he's on the 4th floor) and then attempts to clamber down it, instead of using its hook-end as a foot platform and letting the electric motor simply lower him effortlessly to the street. It's gaffs like these that leave you feeling seriously short-changed.Most viewers remember the boat chase, and that is definitely a cinematic high-point. In fact it is so superior in its execution compared to the rest of the movie as to emphasise the other shortcomings. Not surprisingly; a different director handled it. Even so, it could have been a lot better. For example; when one boat crashes heavily into a lock-gate badly damaging the starboard bow, in a later sequence we see the vessel apparently unscathed. And just check-out the crowds of fans gathered along the canal banks and on the bridges. Didn't anybody think to keep them at bay? However; although this sequence is well worth a watch, the rest simply fails to deliver in any regard, be it suspense, story, directing, lighting, or whatever.Generally, not recommended.

suzanne-24 I think the comments made by the gentleman above me are a bit harsh. I received this film in DVD format for my birthday because I am a keen Vladek Sheybal fan.Please be aware I am going to give away spoilers so maybe read this after you have viewed the film, thanks!Ok, this film was made in 1970. Some of the special effects are a bit naff (eg, the back projection) and those dancers in the bar leave me in hysterics but I think the story-line holds up very well. I was rivetted and I certainly enjoyed the twist in the tale. I am still captivated by the enigmatic nuns in their fish-net tights and make-up and as for Mr Sheybal's character, Meergeren, I would love to know just what other dastardly things he go up to. I still wonder how he got mixed up in using a church and parading around as a priest. My mind still boggles. I also enjoyed the boat chase scene through the canals in Amsterdam. That was very well done and is probably more exciting than the swamp chase in Live and Let Die.I do take the former comments to heart about the book being much darker in tone. I look forward to reading it and, hopefully, I will get more of an insight to the Meergeren character. But if you like movies from the early '70's then time you will certainly enjoy it.

Garber Why - with the notable exceptions of 'Where Eagles Dare' and 'The Guns of Naverone' - are most films of McClean books so bad?I can only assume that Alistair didn't really care about how the films turned out, because for some reason the producers manage to cut out all the best bits of his books. They did it with 'Ice Station Zebra' and they do it here. They turn one of his darkest and most brutal thrillers into a slow and uninvolving 'action' film. The ominous and sinister Island of drug smugglers totally lacks suspense, and the removal of the scene where the girl is pitchforked (one of the most disturbing and frightening scenes I've ever read) is inexplicable.The guy playing Sherman has all the charisma of Al Gore, and as for the famous boat chase, it is woefull compared with 'Live and let die' or 'Face/Off'.In short, read the book, which is much more exciting, and imagine how good this film could have been.