Scorpio (1973)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

***SPOILERS*** A lot like Michael Winner's previous thriller "The Mechanic" the film "Scoripo" has to do with an aging CIA assassin who's now regarded by his superiors as being both obsolete and expendable. There's also the suspicion that he's planing to flee to Moscow and reveal all the secrets of the agency, CIA, that can be very embarrassing to both his bosses in the US Government and his contacts and undercover agents in the USSR.Cross, Burt Lancaster, has been in the dirty business of political assassinations since WWII. Now in his 50's Cross wants to retire and live out the rest of his life with his wife Sarah, Joanne Linville, in peace and quite without looking over his shoulder every time he's out on the streets.With Cross' new boss McLoad, John Colicos, suspecting him of treason he sends out cat loving French hit-man Jean Laurier-Alain Delon-or code name Scorpio to do Cross in before, in McLoad opinion, he defects behind the Iron Curtain. It turns out that Laurier was Cross', who thought him every thing he knows about contract killings, protégé in the assassination business as well as being a good friend of his. Laurier is also curtain that Cross is clean and this antagonism towards him by McLoad is personal not professional in that Cross, a man who likes to do things his way, doesn't toady up to him like the rest of the agents he's in charge of.Suspense filled thriller with Cross on the run as his options for staying alive dwindle down to next to zero. Laurier is very hesitant to knock off Cross in that he feels that, besides being a good friend of his, he's innocent of the charges that McLoad accuses him off. With him trapped in Vienna Cross goes to the only person who can possibly save his life long time friend and adversary Soviet Agent Zarkov, Paul Scofield. McLoad uses the Cross/Zarkov relationship to try to convince Laurier that his friend Cross is actually a double agent worthy to be gunned down from his treachery to both the USA and Laurier's own country NATO member France. The movie's both thrilling and surprise ending has Laurie find out the truth behind Cross' actions and they have nothing at all to do with his attempted defection to the Soviet Union! But they do in fact have something to do with those that Laurie has been closely associating with! Someone who's a lot closer to Laurie then even he,in his wildest conspiracy paranoia, could possibly imagine!Like in Winner's 1972 assassin thriller "The Mechanic" the film "Serpico" shows just how thankless the job of a paid assassin really is. In the end Laurier finally realizes that being in the business he's in he has no time for friend and family as well as romantic relationships. In that the only one you can really trust is yourself and, in Lauries case, the street cats that you adopt; and worst of all the agency's retirement plan sucks!

It's something of a miracle that director Michael Winner was granted access to the Central Intelligence Agency for his filming of 'Scorpio.' This 1972 spy thriller, made just after the height of Cold War tensions, sheds a nasty light on espionage and had crew members that weren't favorites of Washington. The film's script was co-written by David Rintels, who experienced problems entering the U.S. from Canada on grounds of suspected Communist leanings, and its score was composed by Jerry Fielding, who was blacklisted from Hollywood during the McCarthy era. In a matter of further coincidence that helped Scorpio's box office, its cast and crew were staying at the Watergate Hotel when Richard Nixon's recruits broke into Democratic Party Headquarters; supposedly, lead actors Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon were in the building when these gentlemen performed their deeds.Controversies aside, 'Scorpio' was made after the peak of spy films but rates as an intriguing entry to the genre. It features a solid cast in Lancaster, Delon, and thespian Paul Scofield, while making fair use of Washington, Paris, and Vienna. 'Scorpio' is certainly not in the upper echelon of spy pictures, but it's a decent effort that moves against the grain of standard espionage. Its script by David Rintels (in his film debut) and Gerald Wilson erases our concept of good and evil, depicting the Cold War's underlying operations as a vast endgame where human life is of practically no value and loyalty is regarded as fatal weakness.Lancaster plays Gerald Cross, an experienced CIA agent with various contacts in Europe and the Middle East. His superiors, including CIA head McLeod (John Colicos) believe that Cross is serving as a double agent between the U.S. and Soviet Bloc, padding his finances along the way. Sensing a threat to national security, the CIA forcibly hires Jean Laurier (Delon, codenamed 'Scorpio'), a French assassin who has provided services to the U.S. government. Laurier is logically best for the job, since it was Cross who trained him and to whom he revealed his ways of thinking. Cross realizes that he is under surveillance and flees to Europe, leaving behind his wife Sarah (Joanne Linville). He hides in Vienna with assistance from Serge Zharkov (Scofield), a KGB agent who befriended Cross while in Iraq.'Scorpio' is a vast labyrinth of political infighting and backstabbing. Well-portrayed by Burt Lancaster, Cross is constantly on the move and hopes to reunite with his wife, but he's aware that time is inevitably running out. Laurier, aptly played by Delon, finds himself torn between friendship and his own survival; he knows that Cross must be killed, but stalls out of his respect for teacher and partner. Laurier is looking to flee the espionage world himself and even deals with betrayal from his fiancée Susan (Gayle Hunnicutt), who works as a courier. Not coincidentally, the CIA higher-ups are depicted as psychotics who won't hesitate to kill off women, children, and physically handicapped for the sake of 'national security.' 'Scorpio' is in the tradition of spy films where nobody wins and all sides are involved in an endless chain of murder.Lancaster is a strong presence and eye-opening in numerous action scenes, especially a construction site chase between Cross and Laurier. Unfortunately, Delon's low-key performance suffers because of this; although Delon is steady, he is drastically offset by Lancaster and a thick accent sometimes leaves him hard to understand. Paul Scofield is likable and charismatic, playing a 'rehabilitated' agent who served years in a labor camp but has not lost faith in the USSR's decrepit ideologies. The supporting cast, including John Colicos, brings a large amount of energy to their roles.Michael Winner recorded 'Scorpio' about two years before 'Death Wish,' which made his name as a director. 'Scorpio' has fairly plain direction and uses fewer of the camera movements and bizarre angles that would saturate Winner's later oeuvre. This is certainly one of his better films, although it is lacking in the technical department. Scorpio's dialogue track is sometimes out of kilter with the on-screen actors and there are continuity mistakes like an auto driven by Lancaster that becomes intact after smashing into a carload of federal agents! I sometimes ask if Winner made these goofs as a joke, but it does hamper the film's authenticity. Winner cannot be faulted for sticking with cinematographer Robert Paynter ('Hannibal Brooks,' 'Superman II') and composer Jerry Fielding. Paynter's images are always clean and efficient, while Fielding offers a versatile score that comes together in the finale.MGM latched onto Scorpio's Watergate connection when releasing its DVD in 2000. The case includes a four-page booklet with trivia on Scorpio's production. Lancaster, incidentally, didn't consider his role beyond a usual project. The disc presents 'Scorpio' in widescreen with optional French dubbing and subtitles in both French and English. 'Scorpio' has fair visual quality; colors are discernible, but there is continuous grain and speckling. Narrow black bars are used, leaving 'Scorpio' just shy of an open matte presentation. The audio is Dolby-enhanced mono, with non-English accents sometimes (and unavoidably) muddying the dialogue. Scorpio's theatrical trailer is the only DVD extra.'Scorpio' is dated, but dated in a good way. The film was made years before production companies replaced acting and scriptwriting with huge effects and 'icons' who merely take up room on screen. 'Scorpio' is cleverly written and relies on the durability of Lancaster, Delon, and Scofield to keep things in gear. There is always a better spy film to watch - 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' is one such example - but 'Scorpio' still belongs in the category of highly watchable thrillers and has a large nostalgia value in its cast.*** out of 4Roving Reviewer - www.geocities.com/paul_johnr

Scorpio was a film Burt Lancaster didn't think too much of according to a recent biography and after viewing it I can certainly see why.On the plus side Lancaster got to work with former co-stars Alain Delon from The Leopard and with Paul Scofield from The Train, both films considerably better than Scorpio. Too bad he wasn't given something better than a warmed over espionage story.Lancaster is a CIA agent suspected of being a double agent. Word has come from on high to terminate his existence. Not an easy task by any means. Lancaster hasn't survived in the spy business by being a dummy for thirty years.From French intelligence the CIA borrows hit-man Alain Delon who has worked and trained with Lancaster. He's got the title role as one nicknamed Scorpio because of the way he strikes. Lancaster has an ace or two up his sleeve also. An old friend with the KGB, Paul Scofield, is willing to help up to a point.Here's where there is a real problem. Both Lancaster and Scofield are identified by the script as having served in Loyalist Spain with 'volunteer' groups. Of course in the Soviet case I'm sure volunteering was strongly urged.In America however that would have been the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. And during the post World War II McCarthy era that was one of a group of organizations past and present that was considered a Communist front. I'm sorry, but there ain't NO WAY that Lancaster with that in his background would have ever gotten a job with the Central Intelligence Agency. And if he did, he would have been found out and dismissed back then and there. The whole story falls apart knowing this.There are some nice location shots of Vienna and of Washington, DC in Scorpio and acting honors if any go to Paul Scofield. But the film is one colossal waste of time.

Michael Winner must hold the crown for Most Successful Awful Director in film history. With a string of pedestrian Charles Bronson action films to his "credit," and really godawful pictures like FIREPOWER, THE SENTINEL, WON TON TON, THE DOG WHO SAVED HOLLYWOOD, and that astoundingly misbegotten remake of THE BIG SLEEP, I've never understood how Winner kept being allowed to make A-budget pictures. Now I've seen SCORPIO, and I can't understand why he was allowed even to keep making home movies! This is a painfully amateurish film starring several fine actors in what must have been an humiliating experience all around. Every line of dialogue in the movie is looped (dubbed after the fact), destroying any sense of authenticity and verisimilitude. The plot isn't complex enough for one of those comics that comes wrapped around bubble-gum, and technically the film looks like one of those local used-car dealer commercials in a small town. I've been studying Burt Lancaster's career lately, trying to catch up on every film of his I hadn't already seen, yet I couldn't stick this one out quite to the end. If that's being unfair to a picture that turns into a masterpiece in the last few frames, forgive me. There was nothing prior to those frames to indicate even basic competence on the filmmaker's part, much less a potential masterpiece. I've only quit in the middle of three movies in my whole life. This was the third.