Kill! (1971)

I'm pretty sure that Kill! (1971) - also known as Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!, just in case you didn't get the message the first time  - was the film which, when asked why he'd appeared in it, James Mason replied 'because I didn't that anyone in the English speaking world would ever see it'.  Unfortunately for him, this Italian-Spanish-West German-French co-production was released in English and was widely reviled.  Written and directed by novelist Romain Gary, the film is an absolute mess - choppy editing makes an already confusing script virtually incomprehensible in places, while poor day for night shooting makes some sequences virtually unwatchable, all of which is combined with some poor performances from international stars and uncertain direction from Gary.  Supposedly a globe-trotting international action thriller, produced by Alexander Salkind (later to produce the Three Musketeers and Superman films), Kill! seems to go out of its way to be as ludicrous as possible, with unlikely twist following unlikely twist and bizarre incident following bizarre incident as it builds to a truly insane conclusion.  Yet, it isn't entirely without merit and remains fascinating to watch.  While all too frequently dismissed as being simply an example of bad film-making, a more careful viewing of the film would seem to suggest that it was meant to be as weird and off-kilter as it it turned out to be.  

The problem with films which were as thoroughly trashed on their release (and subsequently buried by its distributors) as was Kill!, that very little remains on record as to the makers' original intent.  So, we are instead left to engage in some informed speculation as to its genesis.  What seems obvious from the film's scenario and structure is that it was intended as a parody of the whole James Bond inspired spy movie genre.  Not only does it feature a masculine, over sexed hero who, the more violent acts and killings her performs, the more attractive he seems to become to the heroine, but it also has a plot which takes the various characters to multiple international locations - although here they all turn out to be grimy looking and distinctly unglamourous.  Other Bondian tropes include the strategy meeting held by the villains, where they lay out all their plans in detail for the audience's benefit.  Except that, instead of the usual fabulous headquarters or glamourous villa that are the usual venues, this conference takes place with a porn shoot going on in the background.  Moreover, rather than plotting to hold the world to nuclear ransom, rob Fort Knox or kidnap space capsules, this group of miscreants are simply interested in cornering the global narcotics and hardcore porn markets, (increasing the market for the former by hooking children on drugs, just for good measure).  

Taking a fashionably - for the early seventies - nihilistic view of the situation, the film takes the idea of Bond's 'Licence to Kill' to its logical extreme by having a rogue Interpol narcotics bureau agent taking matters into his own hands when the law enforcement and legal establishment prove inadequate when it comes to convicting and punishing the drug barons and pornographers.  But it isn't just him who takes this attitude, with James Mason's senior Interpol investigator, upon being told by a local colleague that cohorts of leading drug trade figures are arriving in Pakistan, suggests that they be machine gunned to death as they travel from the airport, with the killings blamed on local terrorists.  Elsewhere, other Interpol operates happily stand back and allow members of the gang to be mown down in cold blood by the rogue agent and his associates.  The film's stance is all too obvious: despite what James Bond-type films might tell you, the business of international crime is anything but glamourous, it is instead sordid and unpleasant - on both sides of the conflict - all carried out against a background of poverty and deprivation.  All of which could have made for a decent parody of the genre, interrogating all of its tropes and cliches.  For a parody to work, though, it has to be at least as competently made as its subject, which is where Kill! falls down badly.  Rather than emulating the slickness of the Bond films, it instead comes over like a cheap knock off of an OSS 117 movie with pretensions.

The film is further complicated by the fact that it seems to have been used by writer/director Gary to publicly enact a version of his recent private life.  His recently divorced wife Jean Seberg plays the female lead and Gary's script has her seemingly play out various of his grievances about their break up.  Early on, for instance, for no real reason, her character is seen wearing an Afro wig and her screen husband, played by James Mason, remarks caustically about it perhaps reflecting her latest crusade - black rights - to take her away from her marriage.  This appears to be a clear reference to one of Gary's complaints about Seberg with regard to the breakdown of their marriage.  It is notable that in the film Mason's character, particularly his hair style and facial hair, has more than a passing physical resemblance to Gary himself.  The character is also, like Gary, a middle aged man who finds himself cuckolded by a younger rival, in this case the rogue agent, Brad Killian (Stephen Boyd), in Gary's case, Clint Eastwood.  (Gary reportedly challenged Eastwood to a duel over his affair with Seberg, but the actor declined).  Watching the film, it is tempting to think of the Killian character as being an Eastwood surrogate: a young virile macho man of few words, who reduces the concept of 'justice' to gunning down or knifing to death anyone he deems 'bad'.  You can't help but feel the Mason character's disdainful view of Killian and his belated attempt to try and emulate his violent vigilantism as he concedes defeat, reflected Gary's attitude toward Eastwood.

As noted earlier, whatever the film's original ambitions, Kill! is ultimately undermined by poor execution, with murky photography, confusing editing and leaden script.  (To be absolutely fair, the version I saw looked as if it was a third or fourth generation duplicate of an already poor video transfer, which probably made it look even worse than it already was).  Even the stars can't lift it, with all of them defeated by a script that gives them ludicrous dialogue and little to work with in the way of characterisation.  Indeed, the four main stars, James Mason, Stephen Boyd, Jean Seberg and Curd Jurgens, look utterly defeated by it all and give correspondingly weary performances.  Boyd probably shows the most signs of life in his role as Killian, ridiculously attired in a leather jacket with no shirt and his shoulder holsters strapped across his bare chest, toting all manner of large firearms and knives and killing as if murder is going out of fashion.  His apparently endless quest to dispense 'justice' having become as much an addiction as any of the narcotics he opposes.  But the film does have its good points: a unique and very memorable musical score, a well staged car chase part way through the film and a climax that tumbles over into the surreal.  Indeed, this final sequence is alone worth sitting through the whole film for - if you've ever seen the Monty Python parody of a slow motion Sam Peckinpah shoot out, you'll have some inkling of what it is like.  But it goes far beyond that, with the bullet riddled corpses of the gangsters leaping back up and jumping up and down as if on trampolines, as a mortally wounded character experiences a series of bizarre dying visions.  

Not that any of this is enough to redeem Kill! as a film - it is still an unholy mess,ludicrous and over the top, that fails to work on any level.  It feels too clunky and inept to pass muster as a straight action thriller.  Its tone is too uneven, its script too weak and its direction and performances too unsure for it to work as a parody.  While its tone is too shrill and histrionic for it work as a piece of anti-drugs propaganda, (straight or parody).  But is quite fascinating, not to mention, enjoyable, to watch as its cinematic inadequacies unfold on screen.  It stands a salutary reminder that even bringing together a wealth of on screen and off screen talent and backing them with a sizeable budget, doesn't guarantee success.