Istanbul (1957)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

A Masterpiece!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I always get an unpleasant jolt when I see a movie from the late phase of Errol Flynn's career. He had not gotten fat, but his face had puffed up and seemed vertically scrunched. Worst of all, his youthful roguish smile and impish expressions had become a permanent stone face. His 1930s style mustache seemed an unusual affectation in an era of clean shaven men. His lips barely moved as he let his lines leak out. He looked sad and angry, no matter what emotions the script called for. He certainly had a lot of illnesses, so maybe his perpetually tightly shut mouth was hiding some physical problem.His female lead, Cornel Borchers, had many closeups as she spoke to Flynn. Her animation and sparkling smile contrasted with Flynn's stone face. Thus, the scenes did not play well. They also seemed to have fallen into devoted, passionate love in a nanosecond, for reasons which are unexplained.The movie is a mild romantic/adventure story. There is enough in it to keep you watching, but just enough. There is an amnesia thread in the story which belongs in the Three Stooges Handbook of psychiatric practice. Nat Cole sings well, of course.

Istanbul and the associated reviews are really interesting. Yes it is a bit cliché'd and yes some of the characters are one dimensional. Errol Flynn's acting is unique and there are clearly attempts to refer to film noir (even though this a colour film) and there is an attempt by the film studio to lay this film over the moral dilemma of Casablanca and throw in Nat King Cole and "when I fall in love" as a replacement for Dooley Wilson and Time Goes by. But let us not forget films cost a significant amount of money to make and studios are stupid and they feel that they have to piggy back the film's selling point with another film's Unique selling point...see Altman's The Player....if you need proof. But actually the pull of this film's USP, namely the love interest's amnesia and Errol Flynn's affection for her are quite striking. The diamond smuggling sub plot works to a degree albeit the villains, as one reviewer says, are rather thinly drawn. What I found interesting as well was 1950's view of women. There was no depth to the relationship between the lead characters just a suggestion of something deep and intense going on. However floating on a love boat in the Bosphorus was all that explained this "love". Also the potential life after the successful acquisition of the diamonds was hinted without any explanation...and the lead female's new life was ugly to the 21st century mind...a suggestion that she would look after Mr Fielding, (presumably cooking, looking nice and proving oral sex) and in return he would feed and clothe her and take her to places like Istanbul, was contrasted with Marge and her husband, where the husband dished out a black eye because Marge might have been tempted by a Frenchman who would have gone with her to see Hamlet in Turkish was almost risible. But I stuck with this film to the end and enjoyed the mild threat and laughed at the cloak and dagger stuff........no it's not great but it is worth watching.

Istanbul is another one of those expatriate films that Errol Flynn was making in the last decade of his life trying to support his family and stay out of trouble with the IRS. It's a remake of the Fred MacMurray- Ava Gardner film Singapore from a decade ago.Unlike that studio product, Istanbul has the advantage of that great location cinematography right at the sight of the Golden Horn. But Errol Flynn, who was aging exponentially before the camera in every film, was way too old to be playing these action/adventure types any longer. His scenes with Cornell Borchers really do lack conviction.As for Cornell, she plays Errol's former sweetheart who through the trauma of being saved from a fire now has amnesia. She both doesn't remember Errol and is now married to Torin Thatcher. But Errol's got some nasty people led by Martin Benson and Werner Klemperer who are after some diamonds which have come into his possession. Got to deal with them too.Best reason to see Istanbul is to hear Nat King Cole sing and play the piano. Most people today don't realize that Cole was an accomplished jazz pianist, they only think of him as a singer. Actually he was a pianist first, the singing was an afterthought.Istanbul is a routine action/adventure film for those who are fans of that type of movie.

Fairly good movie with some similarities to Casablanca including a song comparable to 'As Time Goes By' sung by the leading man's black sidekick.Nat Cole was one of the greatest song stylists ever, and the way he caresses 'When I Fall In Love' is something to behold. As an actor he was just fair, but when he sings at the piano even Errol Flynn pays him an envious compliment.Cornell Borchers is pretty but doesn't jump off the screen like Ingrid Bergman. Flynn is good but shows the beginnings of his alcohol induced physical slide that led to his premature death in 1959.