Ticket 2 Ride

Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, together again, their first film pairing since Sleuth.

How’s that for star power? An espionage thriller, directed by Terence Young, responsible for Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Thunderball.

Add a supporting cast including Robert Powell, Susan George and Charles Gray, and a few familiar faces of Bond films past.

The film was based on the novel of the same name by Dorothea Bennett, who happened to be married to Young.

The Jigsaw Man is a Cold War thriller, allegedly. A British intelligence defector to the Soviets, thought dead, returns with a new face and identity. Cat and mouse between old colleagues. Sounds priming.

Young, whose career high point were the Bond films of 20 years earlier, still had some swagger in the British film industry and gathered friends to make this film. Securing Olivier and Caine no doubt guaranteed financing, although the film has a distinctive cheapness about it.

Young hired cinematographer Freddie Francis to photograph the story. Francis’s credits include The Elephant Man, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Cape Fear, and taking home Academy Awards for Sons and Lovers (1961) and Glory (1999). This film looks nothing like those other films. I suspect it was the modest budget and short production schedule.

Peter Hunt, editor on the first three Bond films, supervising editor on the next two Bond films, and director of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and ten more feature and television films, came aboard as Young’s second unit director.

The first thing evident was the garish 1980s synthesized film score. Not only is it cheesy, the musical cues are overblown and almost campy. The score is the responsibility of John Cameron and Bob Gaudio. you might recognize Gaudio’s name from the musical group The Four Seasons and producing other artists like Neil Diamond and Frank Sinatra.

Someone forgot to tell the actors that constant yelling is not necessary good acting. There is an attempt at humor, but it draws attention to itself and not the story. Olivier is trying anything to breathe life into this film, but the patient is dead.

A team of Olivier and Caine should be cause for a great acting demonstration. Instead, both actors ham it up, deciding it’s more fun to show off these characters, and make sure the checks clear. In his twilight years, Olivier admitted taking cheesy roles for the money, for his young family. Why not, he deserved it after a life mainly in the theater. Caine was also known for taking roles for the money, going from film to film to film in those days. Caine never forgot his years in extreme poverty and it drove his need to work all of the time.

From the annoying film score to the low-budget look to the unhinged acting to the poorly conceived story, this film fails on every level. What disappoints most of all is the waste of talent that couldn’t, or didn’t care, to create a more satisfying viewing experience. Was this simply a paycheck or an ill conceived project with larger aspirations? With the two stars, the director and the Cold War spy theme, I was hooked. Before the opening credits were done, I had a bad feeling and only got bigger as Caine’s character was introduced and the story unspooled.

Films go off the tracks all the time, failing to capture the magic or not connecting with audience. The Jigsaw Man isn’t the worst film I’ve ever seen, but it’s painful to watch because so much talent was wasted and whatever promise was doomed from the beginning.