1973 - SCORPIO, more mediocrity from Michael Winner

For a guy who didn't make very good movies, Michael Winner was an amazingly prolific filmmaker.  Scorpio is typical of Winner's skill behind a camera.  The film is loaded up with a couple of good leading men, Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon.  There is also a decent supporting cast with old stalwarts like Paul Scofield (what's he doing in this?), Gaye Hunnitcutt, Vladek Sheybal, John Colicos and J.D. Cannon.  The film however is nothing you haven't seen on television a million times.

Delon is Scorpio a hired killer for the CIA who has been ordered by them to kill his mentor played by Burt Lancaster.  Lancaster is suspected of being a double agent, so he's got to go apparently.  So begins a game of "cat and mouse" as Lancaster the old pro takes on Delon the cold blooded killer.  The film's plot is basically a rehash of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, one of those who's doing what to whom spy stories.

 

About the only reason to watch this is Burt Lancaster who was 60 years old at the time they made this and still running around doing his own stunts during an elaborate shoot out.  Try as much as he could a big French star like Delon could never get a Hollywood career going, for some reason,  Scorpio is just another failed attempt.

 

Scorpio has the usual Michael Winner touches.   On location filming to the point of viewer distraction. The sound in almost every scene has a weird hollowness  to it. The staging and photographing of the action scenes are conceived from about every uninteresting camera angle he can think of.  The whole film has that "let's just get this thing done" feel to it which isn't the greatest way to approach film making.

Scorptio was written by David W. Rintels and Gerald Wilson, the running time is 114 tedious minutes.