Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966)

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

For quite some time, this movie has held a place on my list of quintessential 60s guilty pleasure; it's a mini-super-light heist flick variation on some of the same themes in John Boorman's masterpiece, POINT BLANK - with its consistent visual chronicling of a transient American culture made anonymous by its materialistic-quack preoccupations (and thus,easily vulnerable to chameleon criminality). James Coburn, who plays DEAD HEAT'S hero shares some of Lee Marvin's traits in POINT BLANK. Both men move, mysteriously, like the wind, "beat the system," "win out" as anti-heroes but, in the process,they negate themselves out of existence ( they are, literally, "gone with the wind" at their respective pictures' fade-outs). On this last go-round, having just recently watched it again (via TCM), I'm prepared to give it a less qualified, more hearty endorsement. Writer-director, Bernard Girard makes the best case for modern international airports to be THE stage for absurdist comedy of any film I can think of. It begins with a mock-dramatic monologue by Coburn that keys the unique tongue-in-cheek tone of the film brilliantly and is probably the best acting he ever did on film. Stu Philips' catchy theme music maintains the puckish spirit of the piece in a way that few American movie scores of the 60s ( or movie scores of any other period for that matter) have been able to do as successfully or as memorably.

We all recognize Harrison Ford in this famous no credit bit part (bell boy).Is that David Jannsen in a bit part (larger than Ford's), playing one of the uniformed police officers (he says a few lines) in the security area when Coburn's character "picks up" a prisoner? It really looks like Jannsen, but of course he doesn't have a credit that I could find. Between 1963 and 1967, Jannsen doesn't have any TV/movie credits listed on IMDb. This movie is 1966 (and before his famous Fugitive TV series), so I guess it's possible that he did some work for pay, but no credit.Does anyone else think it's David Jannsen?

To call this would-be 'with it' caper comedy muddled is a gross understatement – indeed, Bernard Girard the director should have fired Bernard Girard the writer because an admittedly ingenious premise has only resulted in a relentlessly dull movie! Hero James Coburn, with a permanent grin on his face, is involved in so many schemes on his way to rob Los Angeles' LAX airport (which brought back memories of my stay in the city three years ago, extending to the similarity of hotel interiors): in fact, he dupes a variety of people during the course of the narrative – including lovely leading lady Camilla Sparv (already ex-Mrs. Robert Evans by the time the film was released and who won a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer, over Candice Bergen and Lynn Redgrave[!], even if her career seemed to wither soon after); consequently, it's all needlessly (indeed painfully) stretched to 107 minutes! To add to the confusion (not to say dejection), we get a dreary subplot revolving around the visit of a Russian official to the United States and the elaborate (though not always successful) security measures American agencies – led by Robert Webber and assisted by an impossibly youthful Todd Armstrong (from the Ray Harryhausen opus JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS [1963]!) – have to undertake for this purpose. As with many films of its ilk from this 'anything goes' era, the title is a reference to nothing in particular – to be sure, it surfaces in the plot as the name of a book ostensibly written by Coburn (under one of the innumerable aliases he hides behind); again, typically, the criminals (also including Aldo Ray in an underwritten part) are allowed to get away with it…though there's a nice ironic final twist when the author – who has unaccountably gone 'missing' but, apparently, truly existed – is found to have left his vast fortune to bewildered 'bride' Sparv!This was my third effort from its little-known director in a relatively brief period of time – the first was intriguing but invincibly low-key, THE MIND SNATCHERS (1972), the second a Godawful (and barely-released) Western spoof called GONE WITH THE WEST (1975); the "Leonard Maltin Film Guide", then, awards DEAD HEAT ON A MERRY-GO-ROUND a very respectable *** – hence, it ranks as yet another disappointment! Incidentally, the star made innumerable films in this vein during the 1960s and 1970s – where his narcissistic and arrogant personality comes off as overbearing and, therefore, alienating: up next, in fact, is DUFFY (1968) which, despite rating an even lower *1/2, it's one I'd long been curious about in view of its rather interesting credentials

This crime movie was only "fair," not worth owning if you are a collector, but worth checking out if you are a James Coburn fan. The title is a lot better than the story.This is another of those mid-60s films that was Hollywood-in-transition, meaning it was just a year or so away from abolishing any moral codes. Here, we see casual sex accepted as okay and the bank robbers portrayed as the good guys, even though they are anything but good.The female lead, Camilla Sparv, was a strange-looking lady who never really made it as a star. One can see why. It's also interesting to hear the language of the period with the police being called "the fuzz," etc.James Coburn is fun to watch, but the rest of the cast is unmemorable, except that it marked the film debut of Harrison Ford, who plays a messenger boy in one quick scene. Other than that, the film provides few noteworthy memories which is probably one reason why there are so few reviews of this here.