The Salzburg Connection (1972)

Another Helen MacInnis adaptation, albeit one that is somewhat easier to see than The Venetian Affair (1966), The Salzburg Connection (1972) unfortunately repeats many of the mistakes of the earlier film.  Most damagingly, it also tries to condense a lengthy and complex novel into a ninety minute film, resulting in a confusing and disjointed story line with far too many characters to keep track of, let alone care about.  A lack of charismatic leads doesn't help either - Barry Newman is one of those actors who while not dislikeable, is also not exactly likeable and makes for a bland lead.  He lacks the presence to headline a film, (although there were several attempts in the early seventies to turn him into a leading man, including this film), but found his greatest success on TV.  His leading lady, Anna Karina, has more presence and is a better actor, but the script here gives her little t do, her character an eternal victim, forever at the mercy of other characters' actions.  Wolfgang Preiss, taking time off from playing World War Two German generals, gives sterling support, while Klaus Maria Brandauer gains his first screen credit, starting as means to go on, playing Karina's shady brother with a surfeit of manic grins, giggles and gesticulations.  Really, if you've seen one of his performances, you've seen them all.  

The film's biggest problem lies in Lee H Katzin's direction.  Katzin was a TV director who had made some interesting forays into features, directing cult favourites Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969) and The Phynx (1970), not to mention the Steve McQueen film Le Mans (1971).  Unfortunately, for The Salzburg Connection he seemed to revert to his TV roots, with cramped shots, the actors usually seen only from the waist up, few long shots, far too many scenes of characters spouting exposition in a vain attempt to explain the plot and a rushed pace which doesn't give that plot, already condensed from its source, much of a chance to develop, let alone the characters.  It also prevents the film from building up anything in the way of real suspense - an essential ingredient in a spy thriller.  There are a few action sequences, which Katzin handles reasonably well, although they ultimately fail to generate much excitement.  The cinematography, though, is very good, with the Austrian locations well filmed and well employed.  The scenes in the mountains are particularly well shot and very nice to look at.  It is perhaps significant that, after The Salzburg Connection, Katzin wouldn't direct another feature until 1987, reverting to TV movies and series during the interim.

The plot, as far as it can be discerned from the confused and confusing script, might have held some promise, given a better treatment.  It concerns a list of Nazi collaborators recovered from a lake in Austria, which the world and his wife want to get their hands on.  Consequently, hordes of intelligence agents from various agencies converge on Salzburg in search of the list.  The CIA, who want it because some of the names on it might now be working for them and would therefore be susceptible to blackmail, enlist the aid of holidaying US lawyer Barry Newman..  He had already broken his holiday to investigate why a missing photographer thought he had been commissioned by Newman's publisher client to produce a book, when the publisher has no record of a contract.  Of course, the photographer is the one who had recovered the case containing the list, then been killed by foreign agents in search of the list, which he had already hidden.  Meanwhile, various agents search his shop, run by his wife (Karina) and her brother (Brandauer).  Nobody quite knows who anybody else is or who they can trust and there is some reasonably effective misdirection with regard to the loyalties of some of the key characters.  But a potentially intriguing set-up quickly degenerates into a welter of chases, double crosses and shootings.  With so many characters and so much plot shoe horned into ninety or so minutes, it is difficult to care about any of it - none of the characters enjoy sufficient screen time to become properly established and the plot stumbles and stutters from one static and talky scene to another.  

While The Salzburg Connection is certainly a very good-looking film with  handsome production values and great locations, it is also hopelessly confused, failing to tell its complicated story with any clarity.  There's no compensation in the way of intelligent dialogue or engaging characters - they come over as universally bland, the actors seemingly jut going through the motions.  You can't help but feel that the film is something of a missed opportunity to produce an intelligent and suspenseful spy thriller.