The other night I caught SCORPIO because I liked the look of
the cast. How could I pass up a spy thriller with Burt Lancaster and Alain
Delon? Even if it stank it would
interesting. Lucky for me it turned out to be excellent and one of my favorite
unexpected discoveries of the year so far. Lancaster
plays Cross , an aging agent of the CIA responsible for arranging the
assassinations of foreign citizens that stand in the way of the United States '
interests. Delon plays a French professional assassin codenamed Scorpio that
Cross uses often in his plans. The film opens with the duo seeing through the
removal of an Arab government official and then traveling back to Washington DC
Oh! I really enjoyed the casting of a number of great
character actors in SCORPIO too. There are good roles for Paul Scofield, James
Sikking, Gayle Hunnicutt, J. D. Cannon and two familiar faces from Star Trek as
well - John Colicos as the CIA boss out for Cross' head and Joanne Linville as
Cross' wife.
2 comments:
I watched this on MGM-HD last year and liked it.
Two things I remember most about the film:
(1) Instead of resulting in an embarrassing faux pas, the scene in which Lancaster's character disguises himself as a black man (a reverend, no less) actually works... Lancaster pulls it off!
(2) Lancaster will still in great shape at the time (he was 60), doing his own stunt work.
MGM-HD is where I caught it too! Good channel. And I agree that Lancaster pulls off the nigh impossible blackface stunt. Incredible.
And as for his stuntwork - I guess he never got too far away from his trapeze artist beginnings. To stay in the shape he was in for this is stunning. Of course, he was still pretty spry in TOUGH GUYS years later too!
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