If I had to pick a single movie to remember Susannah York by it would be Robert Altman's little-seen but utterly brilliant Images. To be quite honest, sweet and appealing though her character is, she's kind of wasted here. However, as not many of my friends have seen it, and as it has some very interesting credits, I
thought I would recommend this nifty Canadian thriller instead. It was scripted by Curtis Hanson, who would go on to direct, among other things, L.A. Confidential and Wonder Boys, it features an early appearance by John Candy and its score was composed by jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. The ingenious plot has bank teller Elliott Gould pre-empting a robbery, filling his own pockets first and leaving hapless robber Christopher Plummer to take all of the blame but precious little of the loot. Predictably, Plummer, a psychopath, realises he's been duped and comes looking for the rest of 'his' money... The first half of the movie, in which Gould and Plummer play cat and mouse, repeatedly turning the tables on one another, is brilliant and gloriously entertaining; sadly, the plotting starts to wobble in the last hour and silliness creeps in. The film's fatal flaw, however, is that it cannot seem to decide how light or dark it wants to be, resulting in some jarring shifts in tone and some thoroughly gratuitous, nasty, misogynistic violence. Gould is okay but has been more charming elsewhere; Susannah York is, as I've said, good but underused; Plummer, however, hams it up a treat as the villain.
February 7, 2008
