THE BLACK WINDMILL (1974)



THE BLACK WINDMILL poster artwork


MICHAEL CAINE.....Major John Tarrant
DONALD PLEASENCE.....Cedric Harper
JOSEPH O'CONOR.....Sir Edward Julyan
JOHN VERNON.....McKee
JANET SUZMAN.....Alex Tarrant
DELPHINE SEYRIG.....Ceil Burrows

Produced and Directed by DON SIEGEL
Written by LEIGH VANCE


REVIEW BY NORA SAYRE


How welcome a spy who stumbles, worries or even pauses to reflect would be if he or she were appearing on a double bill with The Black Windmill, in which Michael Caine's exasperating cool robs this very well-made movie of some of its potential excitement. The Don Siegel picture opened Thursday at Radio City Music Hall.

Mr. Caine, an agent whose small son has been kidnapped by an international arms syndicate, is also suspected by his British colleagues of having arranged the snatch---partly because of his uncrackable composure. The actor makes an unlikely father (also husband). Much of the time, he appears as a tin man, with tiny wheels whirring punctually inside him. Although he manages to smoke one cigarette with a certain intensity and to achieve a little hard (if shallow) breathing when his son's life is at stake, he seems to lack a central nervous system, and that deficiency deprives the audience of sympathetic thrills.

Still, the flatness of the Caine persona is balanced by Donald Pleasence in his best form, as the phobic but stony head of the Department of Subversive Warfare---a type who even shreds his own Kleenex. With his lower lip sucked in, fingers twisting bits of his mustache, alternating a gutteral with a nasal voice, revulsion hardening in his boiled gooseberry eyes, he projects the kind of character who could burst with frustration if he ever allowed himself to unbutton at all. And surely few actors can deliver such a line as "Kindly have the goodness not to smoke in here" with such sensitive hostility. However, Delphine Seyrig, as one of the kidnappers, makes not one uncalculated gesture; "performing" with every tendon, she does the silken stunt that we've often seen from her before.

I feel some pangs about this picture: It's an admirably professional job, and distinctly entertaining. But the plot scatters into a flurry of devices for chases and escapes, and there are no lunges of astonishment, despite all the athletics. (Remember the shock of suddenly seeing a red London bus in The Ipcress File---when the Michael Caine character didn't know he was in England. That's the kind of invention that's missing here.) Really, The Black Windmill is an action movie, rather than a suspense thriller. And, in the age of Watergate, we need nimbler or more fantastic material to engage us---to grab our attention from wondering what may be on the news tonight.



From the May 18, 1974 edition of THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Review © 1974 THE NEW YORK TIMES. All Rights Reserved.

Poster artwork © 1974 UNIVERSAL PICTURES. All Rights Reserved.

Title and logo designed by Karen Rappaport




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