Crossplot is certainly a product of it's time, a movie that grabs onto the coat tails of Swinging London, just before London threw that colourful coat in the bin. It's also a movie of many faces. 'Hitchcockian' in the thriller elements and conventional in the screwball Comedy elements. Dare I say it, many plot elements are lifted straight from North by Northwest, however, star Sir Roger Moore is called upon to be a lot more physical than Cary Grant had been in that movie.
Sir Roger Moore, straight from his 7 years in his iconic TV role as Simon Templar in The Saint, plays an advertising man, duped into finding a particular model for an Ad campaign he's trying to secure. The photo of this model has been 'planted' in his file by people with their own nefarious motives, who want to silence her for what she may or may not know, about a forthcoming assassination attempt on a visiting world leader and Moore's character is dragged further into this web of intrigue when he meets the girl and is wrongfully accused of Murder. Now on the run, he's determined to clear his name and unravel the mystery that has led to this mess. Throw in a few hippies, because after all, it's the sixities, you're left with a quite entertaining caper.
The plot, (or crossplot, if I may be allowed drop a pun or two), has a number of obvious holes. For instance, the whole scheme of the bad guys, relied solely on Moore not looking at the file with the planted photo, before he presented it to his advertising client (Bernard Lee), who turns out to be in it up to his neck anyway. That's pretty thin for starters.
The movie was designed to reinvent Roger Moore as something other than The Saint. Firstly, his image has been updated, (for the time anyway), the hair is slightly longer as are the sideburns and worn without the slick quiff the Saint had been known for. Secondly, the character Moore plays is not as cool under fire as Simon Templar had been and Moore's character is like Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill. This is where the comparisons to North by Northwest can be made.
A) An innocent ad man in the wrong place at the wrong time B) wrongfully accused of a murder must now clear his name whilst trying to stay alive C) uses an attention seeking obnoxious way to escape from would be assassins in a public place. D) There is also a Mcguffin, in North by Northwest, it was the fictional George Kaplan, here it is the Hungarian model.
I can only bring myself to give this a 7 because it is so obviously filmed on a shoestring budget, that the movie fails to be convincing. Poor and obvious back projection shots, blatant set constructions. It has all the hallmarks and feel of a Saint TV episode, which is not surprising given that almost to a man, the entire production crew that had worked on The Saint worked on this movie. In fact, had it not been for the different character name and the fact he was an Ad man, this would have made a great feature length Saint story.
The real thrill, as always is watching the great Sir Roger Moore in the lead role, However, if you want to see Moore at his best when he wasn't Ivanhoe, The Saint, Lord Brett Sinclair or James Bond, then you need to watch Moore's next movie, the darker, more serious, The Man Who Haunted Himself, made the following year. This is a great example of a TV crew on a TV budget trying to make a theatrical movie and for the most part, they succeed admirably. Very entertaining.
Enjoy!
Sir Roger Moore, straight from his 7 years in his iconic TV role as Simon Templar in The Saint, plays an advertising man, duped into finding a particular model for an Ad campaign he's trying to secure. The photo of this model has been 'planted' in his file by people with their own nefarious motives, who want to silence her for what she may or may not know, about a forthcoming assassination attempt on a visiting world leader and Moore's character is dragged further into this web of intrigue when he meets the girl and is wrongfully accused of Murder. Now on the run, he's determined to clear his name and unravel the mystery that has led to this mess. Throw in a few hippies, because after all, it's the sixities, you're left with a quite entertaining caper.
The plot, (or crossplot, if I may be allowed drop a pun or two), has a number of obvious holes. For instance, the whole scheme of the bad guys, relied solely on Moore not looking at the file with the planted photo, before he presented it to his advertising client (Bernard Lee), who turns out to be in it up to his neck anyway. That's pretty thin for starters.
The movie was designed to reinvent Roger Moore as something other than The Saint. Firstly, his image has been updated, (for the time anyway), the hair is slightly longer as are the sideburns and worn without the slick quiff the Saint had been known for. Secondly, the character Moore plays is not as cool under fire as Simon Templar had been and Moore's character is like Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill. This is where the comparisons to North by Northwest can be made.
A) An innocent ad man in the wrong place at the wrong time B) wrongfully accused of a murder must now clear his name whilst trying to stay alive C) uses an attention seeking obnoxious way to escape from would be assassins in a public place. D) There is also a Mcguffin, in North by Northwest, it was the fictional George Kaplan, here it is the Hungarian model.
I can only bring myself to give this a 7 because it is so obviously filmed on a shoestring budget, that the movie fails to be convincing. Poor and obvious back projection shots, blatant set constructions. It has all the hallmarks and feel of a Saint TV episode, which is not surprising given that almost to a man, the entire production crew that had worked on The Saint worked on this movie. In fact, had it not been for the different character name and the fact he was an Ad man, this would have made a great feature length Saint story.
The real thrill, as always is watching the great Sir Roger Moore in the lead role, However, if you want to see Moore at his best when he wasn't Ivanhoe, The Saint, Lord Brett Sinclair or James Bond, then you need to watch Moore's next movie, the darker, more serious, The Man Who Haunted Himself, made the following year. This is a great example of a TV crew on a TV budget trying to make a theatrical movie and for the most part, they succeed admirably. Very entertaining.
Enjoy!