Puppet on a Chain (1972)

hyped garbage

As Good As It Gets

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Historically, the 1946 Dick Powell movie "To The Ends of the Earth" kicked off the drug smuggling movie genre when the old Production Code Administration amended the infamous Motion Picture Code in 1946 to allow the depiction of narcotics traffic. Previously, the PCA refuses in most instants to let filmmakers name the narcotics in their movies, much less show people abusing these substances. "The French Connection" captured the most awards with a Best Picture Oscar in 1971, and then the Alistair MacLean heroin thriller "Puppet on a Chain" came out in 1972. The formulaic "Puppet on a Chain" is not half as exciting as either "The Satan Bug" or "When Eight Bells Toll," two superior MacLean sagas. This ranks one of the lesser MacLean melodramas.Since Dutch authorities in Amsterdam cannot get a fix on the folks in their fair city who are smuggling tons of heroin to the United States, a dapper but divorced narcotics agent from Washington, Paul Sherman (Sven-Bertil Taube of "The Eagle Has Landed"), heads to the city of canals and barrel organs to see what he can do. Alistair MacLean astonished everybody with his dynamic "Where Eagles Dare" screenplay, but nobody will be astonished by this lethargic thriller that spins more time with talk instead of action. For example, sixty-four minutes elapses before director Geoffrey Reeves stages a decent hand-to-hand combat fight. Okay, the earlier fight scene at 21 minutes into the action in the hotel room where our hero stays qualified as a one-sided, disposable scuffle, even though the intruder died. Anyhow, this respectable mystery unfolds after three people are gunned down by a mustached hit-man wearing gloves and armed with a silenced automatic pistol. Dude drives up, walks in, and guns them down in the living room.The next thing we see is our handsome hero aboard a jet landing in Amsterdam. A man is shot at the airport where Sherman was supposed to have made a rendezvous with him. Anyway, Amsterdam authorities are not happy with the arrival of Sherman and the interference of a Yankee narco man in their backyard. The only remnant of "Where Eagles Dare" here is the use of a back-up agent, Maggie (Barbara Perkins of "Valley of the Dolls"), who does a bit of her own snooping without arousing suspicion. Yes, like the Mary Ure character in "Where Eagles Dare," nobody is supposed to know that Maggie is a part of the plan. Maggie investigates a suspicious looking church where Bibles are passed out to nuns wearing fishnet hose. Naturally, Maggie and Sherman have an intimate moment to smooch before he proves his action hero chops against a thug who loves to strangle his victims.Meegeren (Vladek Sheybal of "From Russia with Love") serves as the minister but you know that he is up to no good. Hmm! Meanwhile, Amsterdam Police Chief Colonel De Graaf (Alexander Knox of "You Only Live Twice") resents the cooperation that he has to extend to the troublesome Sherman. Things grow more interesting after the heroine is murdered by the evil villain who wraps a chain around her neck and strangles her. Of course, we are not shown the entire strangulation, but Barbara Parkins does a great job of begging for mercy before she winds up dangling next to a doll whose facial features resemble her. Eventually, our hero shows up at the castle where the villains hide out. Not only does Sherman discover a heroin laboratory with dolls neatly arranged for packing, but he also stumbles into Maggie hanging from the ceiling. The villain tries to dispose of him initially by piping the deafening sounds of clocks chiming into his ears via a headset. Fifteen minutes of this will drive a man crazy, the villain warns, but twenty will kill him. Lenser Jack Hildyard does a good job of enhancing the agony that our hero feels by photographing him with wide-angle lens. The resourceful Sherman escapes.Eight-one minutes into the action, Don Sharp takes over from Reeve and helms an outstanding power boat speed chase through the canals of Amsterdam that concludes with the villain smashing into a gate. The villain wearing a white suit and fedora is a nice touch. Anyway, Sherman tracks down the villains behind the villain and a neat revelation occurs when they surprise our hero. Yes, there is a dirty cop involved in these hijinks. The chief villain explains that each doll can pack up to $60-thousand dollars in heroin. The finale includes a brief gunfight at a shadowy warehouse where the hero takes a slug in the shoulder and the villain takes a fatal plunge.

Puppet on a Chain starts in L.A. where three people are killed by a professional hit-man after stealing some imported heroin... American narcotics cop Paul Sherman (Sven-Bertil Taube) is sent to Amsterdam to investigate their murders & the illegal importation of heroin from Holland into the US, a sort of kill two birds with one stone operation. Sherman's contact in Amsterdam Jimmy Duclos (Drewe Henley) is assassinated at Schipol Airport before they even meet so he's on the back foot straight away, then he realises he is being followed so the bad guy's know he's there. He meets his other contact undercover officer Maggie (Barbara Parkins) who says Jimmy's girlfriend might know something & so begins Sherman's dangerous investigation into one of Amsterdam's biggest drug smuggling operations & the people behind it...This British production was directed by Geoffrey Reeve although the end credits say that Don Sharp directed the boat sequence & 'additional scenes' which never sounds great & is a low rent James Bond sort of thing, it's an OK time waster but fairly forgettable when all said & done. The script by Alistair MacLean again with 'additional material' by Don Sharp & Paul Wheeler doesn't quite know what it wants to be & the influence of three different writers all pulling in opposite directions occasionally show's, is it an action film? Well not really because there are only two or three sequences you could describe as action orientated. Is it a thriller? Well again not really as it's not that thrilling or gritty or tough enough. In truth it's somewhere between the two & never quite succeeds at being either, I must admit that Puppet on a Chain has one of the most predictable plot twists I've ever seen. I guessed it within twenty minutes & I was absolutely right, I just thought about how a writer would try & 'surprise' the audience by making the person least likely to be the bad guy turn out to be the bad guy & it's just far too obvious & as a plot device was way past it's sell by date even in 1971! To be fair the writing & lack of decent character's really don't help matters, there is also a strangely out of place moralistic sequence in which Sherman takes a trip around an Amsterdam morgue to look at dead drug addicts for no real reason which I suppose was a message to anyone watching that drugs are bad!Director's Reeve & Sharp do OK, I must admit I love the Amsterdam location as it's unusual & I've been there myself on a few occasions. To be brutally honest it's not the safest place in the world & I speak from personal experience but it can be a pretty cool place all the same, it's just a shame about all the drunks, the people high on drugs & the prostitution the three of which can make for volatile situations... The action is brief here & not really worth mentioning apart from a 10 minute long boat chase through the canal's of Amsterdam, this may initially sound exciting but when you have one boat in front & another one behind chasing it it becomes tedious quickly as there's not much else happening. The violence is tame & the best scene in the film the opening long continuous shot of the assassin driving up to a house, entering it & killing three people inside in one swift camera movement. There's also a silly James Bond moment when a villain instead of just killing Sherman there & then he rigs an elaborate trap for Sherman in which he is going to die from the high pitched sounds made by chiming clocks! Sherman manages to escape James Bond fashion too.Technically the film is alright, the locations are nice enough & it has reasonable production values throughout. It's filmed in a bland sort of way, it's watchable but forgettable. The acting is alright by a largely unknown, by me anyway, cast.Puppet on a Chain is an OK James Bond type action thriller that doesn't quite come off as exciting or thrilling & it is one of the most predictable films I've ever seen with one of the most obvious twists. Nothing special.

I've grown up reading Alistair McLean's books and I have watched a couple of movies based on his books. There are some pretty good ones made. But this one is probably the best. Mainly because the characters are pretty interesting and the story line is one of the most original ones you will come across (considering the fact that this is as old as 1972!). Movies on drugs/drug trafficking etc. have been inspired from this slick pic! The hero (Sven Bertil-Taube) is cool as a cucumber (just the way McLean sketched it) .. and he suits his role to the hilt. The plot is usual McLean and the concept is WOW! No review of this film is complete without a mention of the Speed Boat chase in the canals of Amsterdam. My Gawd' ! The "French Connection" road chase, the "Ronin" road chase, the "Tomorrow Never Dies" speed boat chase around the Millennium Dome are all inspired by this superbly crafted sequence which is interspersed with aerial shots, close-ups, action shots and more. Even without a background score, this sequence is great! This movie is a MUST WATCH! :-)Enjoy!

Why - with the notable exceptions of 'Where Eagles Dare' and 'The Guns of Naverone' - are most films of McClean books so bad?I can only assume that Alistair didn't really care about how the films turned out, because for some reason the producers manage to cut out all the best bits of his books. They did it with 'Ice Station Zebra' and they do it here. They turn one of his darkest and most brutal thrillers into a slow and uninvolving 'action' film. The ominous and sinister Island of drug smugglers totally lacks suspense, and the removal of the scene where the girl is pitchforked (one of the most disturbing and frightening scenes I've ever read) is inexplicable.The guy playing Sherman has all the charisma of Al Gore, and as for the famous boat chase, it is woefull compared with 'Live and let die' or 'Face/Off'.In short, read the book, which is much more exciting, and imagine how good this film could have been.