Istanbul, mission impossible (1969) Online

I feel the need to comment here because surprisingly no one else has! What the hey?! This is basically "The Vic Morrow Show." The plot is secondary to the strength of Vic Morrow's performance and the great dialogue. Vic plays Harry, a guy stuck between a rock and a hard place, a victim of circumstances. Or in this case: a Vic Morrow of circumstances. In just about every scene Vic lets hilarious one-liners gently roll off his tongue and bitches about everything. He's really funny and made me an instant fan. He is complimented perfectly by the heavy (pun intended), Victor Buono, who gives yet another fine performance. Every scene he's in generates chuckles. It's obvious he's having fun hamming it up. The ending is great too, which has Vic literally strutting down the street. Adding to the effect, he's wearing yellow-tinted sunglasses while he strikes cool tough-guy facial expressions. Totally awesome. Unfortunately, as yet, this movie is unavailable in the USA- or at least very rare. I recommend buying a Phillips multi-region DVD player off Amazon for about 65 bucks and then buying the PAL DVD of this movie that's now available.

'Target: Harry' was originally meant for television pilot for ABC, but was released theatrically instead. For some reason, Roger Corman took his name off the film and was credited as Henry Neill. Well, if you've already seen the film then you might understand his decision. 'Target: Harry' is not so much awful film, but it is boringly generic. Vic Morrow is awesome as a pilot Harry Black, a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, and strutting through dangerous situations while throwing one-liners and puns to the left and to the right. The problem is, the protagonist looks too cool and gets out of serious situations too easily.

Harry Black is a private pilot who flies Jason Carlyle (Stanley Holloway) into Istanbul where Carlyle gets murdered. Harry gets associated with the murder and his paths cross with mysterious woman Diane Reed (Suzanne Pleshette) and powerful crime lord Mosul Rashi (Victor Buono). Harry finds out that Carlyle was carrying plates for counterfeiting money that got lost. Both, Reed and Rashi, thinks that Harry got them, or at least he knows where they are. One double cross follows another and so on.

'Target: Harry' is nothing spectacular in the pile of similar James Bondish spy themed action films that were popular at that time. Even the main score is awfully similar to one of James Bond. The acting is good and there are some fine moments in dialogue to make 'Target: Harry' passably entertaining while watching but nothing else. Rather forgettable and not very thrilling action piece.

I was surprised to see only one other review for this film so I thought to submit one myself for what I consider to be quite an enjoyable crime caper. Harry Black (Vic Morrow) is a bit of an habitual bad boy, being well known to the police chief, but soon Harry is mixed up in a murder mystery after transporting a mysterious Englishman to Istanbul. Cue Harry being pursued by all and sundry including the beautiful Suzanne Pleshette who may or may not be what she claims to be.

This is really a Vic Morrow vehicle as he wise-cracks and struts his way through the film. Even the chief bad guy played by an on-form Victor Buono hams it up mercilessly and is the ideal foil for Vic Morrow's good guy. No crime caper would be complete without a femme fatale and here she is in the shape of Charlotte Rampling, surely a woman designed for this role as can be seen in Farewell My lovely (1975).

This review is from the UK DVD which seems to be slightly cut down from its original form. The bedroom scene at the start bears all the signs of being panned and scanned with sharp cutaways and very close up close-ups. Also, the role of Virginia Hale seems to have been cut out completely because despite viewing the film several times, there seems to be no sign whatsoever of Miss Hale. Despite this, the film is a welcome antidote to the modern fast and loud type action films.