SCORPIO
Directed by Michael Winner
Written by David W. Rintels and Gerald Wilson
Starring Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon
Released in 1973
Directed by Michael Winner
Written by David W. Rintels and Gerald Wilson
Starring Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon
Released in 1973
What with a new James Bond film out of the can and into the streets this week, it feels altogether appropriate that we kick down the doors and out the jams with a terrific little spy-assassination thriller called Scorpio (1973). There's a definite cold war aroma to this movie, so the right wing contingent will groove on it. There is also an even stronger philosophic enlightenment flavor here, though, one that will elevate the spirits of the more progressive elements of the audience. Plus it's just plain fun.
Burt Lancaster is Cross, an assassin in the employ of the Central Intelligence Agency. His job is to knock off world leaders whose aims run contrary to those of the current administration. Alain Delon is Scorpio, a French assassin who clearly admires and respects Cross. He also respects his own freedom and personal power, so when McLeod, one of the bosses at the CIA, has Scorpio arrested on a trumped up heroin possession charge, the Frenchman decides to play the hand he's dealt.
We end up sort of liking both these guys because of their smarts, their instincts and of course their friendship with one another. And friendship is a huge theme in this movie, as well as a device. Probably the most interesting support character is the Soviet spy Zharkov, played--no, inhabited--by Paul Scofield. There's a scene where Cross--the Russian's friend and nemesis--is sitting around a safehouse discussing communism. "I am a communist," Zharkov tells Cross.
"Then you're an idiot," Cross retorts. "How can you be a communist after the [Stalin era] purges and trials?"
Then Zharkov nails it. "I watched poor men who embraced the party, who were true communists, pulling plows like mules in forced labor camps. I was there too. It did not change the basic understanding of the nature of man. This is about ideas. No injustice can defeat that."
So when I said earlier that friendship is a device in this movie, that's what I'm talking about. Director Michael Winner and screenwriter David Rintels used the love-hate relationship between Cross and everyone else to get the viewer to feel and--as a consequence--to think. The movie doesn't try to persuade you of the propriety of one world view over another. It does, however, pretty accurately offer up what the alternatives are, something you'll never see in a typically amoral Bond movie.
There's a segment between Cross and an old friend he rescued from the Nazi concentration camps year earlier. Cross needs a message delivered to his wife. The friend says sure, I'll do it. I owe you. Cross says, well, now, this might be kind of dangerous. The friend says it was dangerous when Cross took out the field marshalls back in WWII but that didn't stop him. So we really get a sense that behind all the cynicism of killing for money in the national interest that Cross has some principles lurking and even manifesting. Even Scorpio, cold as he is, refuses to take the contract on Cross until he learns the reason for the assignment. McLeod tells him Cross is a double agent, selling out to the commies. No way in fuck, Scorpio replies. He's just not that kind of guy. Sure he is, says the spymaster. Besides, we'll lock you up for the heroin. Tell you what, says Scorpio. You give me Cross's job and we've got a deal. There's a profound difference between Cross and Scorpio. It's a difference not only of morality but of humanity.
So in the final analysis, Scorpio is that rarest of things in the spy movie genre: it transcends the genre itself, despite some highly realistic chase and shoot-up scenes, by exploring the very human nature of the principal players here. It's also unfortunately somewhat careless with the female characters, using them as more than scenery but not much more. How exciting it would have been to have had a Laura Flanders journalist type character in the process of exposing the government's complicity in the assassination of foreign leaders and thereby adding to the internal pressure on both killers to either make the escape or get the job done. Well, that's what we would see if the movie were made today, if it weren't perverted into some type of Broccoli and Saltzman gadget festival.
So skip the Daniel Craig nonsense, order up the queue and lean toward the screen, Gunga Din. This picture is for you.
Burt Lancaster is Cross, an assassin in the employ of the Central Intelligence Agency. His job is to knock off world leaders whose aims run contrary to those of the current administration. Alain Delon is Scorpio, a French assassin who clearly admires and respects Cross. He also respects his own freedom and personal power, so when McLeod, one of the bosses at the CIA, has Scorpio arrested on a trumped up heroin possession charge, the Frenchman decides to play the hand he's dealt.
We end up sort of liking both these guys because of their smarts, their instincts and of course their friendship with one another. And friendship is a huge theme in this movie, as well as a device. Probably the most interesting support character is the Soviet spy Zharkov, played--no, inhabited--by Paul Scofield. There's a scene where Cross--the Russian's friend and nemesis--is sitting around a safehouse discussing communism. "I am a communist," Zharkov tells Cross.
"Then you're an idiot," Cross retorts. "How can you be a communist after the [Stalin era] purges and trials?"
Then Zharkov nails it. "I watched poor men who embraced the party, who were true communists, pulling plows like mules in forced labor camps. I was there too. It did not change the basic understanding of the nature of man. This is about ideas. No injustice can defeat that."
So when I said earlier that friendship is a device in this movie, that's what I'm talking about. Director Michael Winner and screenwriter David Rintels used the love-hate relationship between Cross and everyone else to get the viewer to feel and--as a consequence--to think. The movie doesn't try to persuade you of the propriety of one world view over another. It does, however, pretty accurately offer up what the alternatives are, something you'll never see in a typically amoral Bond movie.
There's a segment between Cross and an old friend he rescued from the Nazi concentration camps year earlier. Cross needs a message delivered to his wife. The friend says sure, I'll do it. I owe you. Cross says, well, now, this might be kind of dangerous. The friend says it was dangerous when Cross took out the field marshalls back in WWII but that didn't stop him. So we really get a sense that behind all the cynicism of killing for money in the national interest that Cross has some principles lurking and even manifesting. Even Scorpio, cold as he is, refuses to take the contract on Cross until he learns the reason for the assignment. McLeod tells him Cross is a double agent, selling out to the commies. No way in fuck, Scorpio replies. He's just not that kind of guy. Sure he is, says the spymaster. Besides, we'll lock you up for the heroin. Tell you what, says Scorpio. You give me Cross's job and we've got a deal. There's a profound difference between Cross and Scorpio. It's a difference not only of morality but of humanity.
So in the final analysis, Scorpio is that rarest of things in the spy movie genre: it transcends the genre itself, despite some highly realistic chase and shoot-up scenes, by exploring the very human nature of the principal players here. It's also unfortunately somewhat careless with the female characters, using them as more than scenery but not much more. How exciting it would have been to have had a Laura Flanders journalist type character in the process of exposing the government's complicity in the assassination of foreign leaders and thereby adding to the internal pressure on both killers to either make the escape or get the job done. Well, that's what we would see if the movie were made today, if it weren't perverted into some type of Broccoli and Saltzman gadget festival.
So skip the Daniel Craig nonsense, order up the queue and lean toward the screen, Gunga Din. This picture is for you.
