Blue Ice (1992)

Glasses: No.

Doing an Accent?: No

Accent for whole film?: N/A

Hair: Yes

Does he point at someone?: Yes.

Best Line: "The person who owns that car will be upset? The person who owns this car is BLOODY FURIOUS!" 

Blue Ice, yet ANOTHER spy related film in Caines oeuvre. He must just really like spy novels or something, as on this one he appears to have put up some of his own money (earning a Producer credit) instead of doing the normal and, you know, just turning up for a fat pay cheque and funding a new pond or something.

London based, seemingly filmed all around Borough and London Bridge areas (nice location for this sort of thing), in extremely 90s dry ice heavy fashion, with an appalling Michael Kamen score and lots of moody lighting. A lot of Edward Hopper like mise-en-scene in this one, which is no bad thing really.

Caine plays Harry Palmer Anders, a retired spy who now runs a jazz club and spends his days involved in The Jazz and all that comes with it. One day, his tasty Jag Mk2 is rear ended by a mysterious seductive woman who carries a secret and which leads him back down the rabbit hole of ye olde spy business. You know - the normal state of affairs for this kind of film. 

This ends up with the American embassy, a group of assassins who appear to drive around in a post office van (??), Caines old firm and the police all wanting a piece of him. When, really, all he wants is a fling with Sean Young, to do his ironing in his tasteful apartment above his club and to spend his evenings immersed in The Jazz. 

And who could blame him?

This film carries heavy Harry Palmer associations, from the London setting, to Caine really pulling out the Harry tricks, to an utterly utterly mental drug induced interrogation scene (ala Ipcress File). This is before they went the whole hog and brought back Harry P for those pair of 90s films.

Not bad, but not hugely great either. A solid 6/10 effort. Not as entertaining as I remember it being back in the 90s when I first saw it (around the same time as Shock To The System) 

Still, if you want to kick back late night with a J&B (as I did) and enjoy a passable little thriller, than this is just the job.

Noticeable Things.

1. We have to start with Harrys tasteful club "Harrys" (imaginative!), which looks like  a perfect Valhalla to me.

 Humble from the outside.....

  ......Where the music flows.......

  ....Charlie Watts is the house drummer.....

 ........and you can get pints of bitter served to the table.

 (you cannot see the sheer ecstatic joy on Sean Youngs face here)

 2. There is an exact point in this film where, if you look, the seed of doubt is planted:

This is supposed to be the residence of the American ambassador. But look:

A circa '91 standard issue BT landline phone in hearing aid beige? In the ambassadors? 

Thats a giveaway about a wrong un, if ever I saw it.


3. Midway through the film, I thought there'd been a mistake as suddenly, it goes from a moody spy thriller into a full bore action gangster film? I honestly thought that another film had been spliced in by mistake:

We get men hurrying out from a building

Bob Hoskins, doing the full Bob Hoskins

Classic balaclava terrorists

High speed car chases

Drive-by M18 firefights

Big explosions

And Bob laying waste to all and sundry

None of which really seems to have anything to do with the main plot of the film, other than being a very elaborate way of Maurice getting a gun and taking part in that classic "prowl the warehouse, shooting wooden cut outs of criminals that pop out at random" scene.

4. This security van turns up. Now, if you grew up in Britain in the 90s, then shite security guards driving around in these style vans were de rigueur.

5. A frankly bizarre ending, which sees the main bad guy hoist into the air 'pon a hook, wildly firing a machine gun and screaming madly whilst gunfighting with Caine. Really.

6. Now, I know what you are thinking. "This is all very well, but where are the points?" Well, never let it be said that we don't give the two people that read this blog what they want:

We get pointing at a car

Pointing during the middle of a fight

Pointing at a fish, interrupting Young mid line to throw this point.

Pointing over breakfast. (breakfast not in shot)

Outfit of the film: It has to be the basic, casual, white shirt he wears for cooking in his rather cool flat. I'd live there. Its crumpled, rolled up at the sleeves, but the boy wears it well.

You smooth bastard.

And it ends with a champagne toast. Cheers!

Silver Bears (1978)

Glasses: No.

Doing an Accent?: No

Accent for whole film?: N/A

Hair: Yes

Does he point at someone?: Oh yes. Yes, indeed.

Best Line: "CHOW MY ARSE"

Unlike many of his contemporaries, our MC can actually pull of a convincing comedy turn, this film being a good example of a lightweight Sunday afternoon affair where we all know its all gonna turn out okay in the end.

MC plays "Doc Fletcher" a mob finances man who convinces his boss that buying a Swiss bank to launder dirty money is a workable idea. When the motley crew of Caine, Jay Leno (!) as the bosses son and a minder/forger/heavy type find out that it's not going to be as easy as all that. 

Eventually, they get stuck into a swindle of importing dodgy silver and everyones double crossing each other, fine friends are made, cigars are chuffed and theres even a bit of a romantic storyline in there too. Wonderful - just the job for when you are laying about and can't be bothered reaching for the Zulu DVD. 

Thats not damning it with faint praise, just summing up the scenario for optimum viewing conditions. Imagine it as a semi sequel to the Italian Job, with Croaker ten years later, and you've got it.

Good mix of locations - the film dots from America, to Geneva, to Persia, via London and back.

Great cast too, all taking it in the right spirit and scene stealing from one another. Prime fashion, good backdrops, entertaining storyline and Cybil Shepherd looking quite stunning. 

What more you want from a Caine deep cut, eh?

1 - The points. Oh the points. This may be the record film for sheer volume of points going on.

(Literally the first scene he's in)

(Note the jaunty look on Senior Caines face.)

Even Louis Jourdan gets in on the act.....

(Caine taken aback at being on the receiving end of a point for once)

.........as does David Warner.

(wonderfully done, this one. a graceful point.)

2 - Caine will seduce you

But he will not, repeat NOT, dance with you

(note disdain)

3 - At one point a scene jumps to Leadenhall Market in London. Behold, the pub in the background? Thats the Lamb and was the Birthplace of Caineology and is our office space.

4 - Another drunken turn. Underplayed, but fun. Good show Sir.

(very rare whiskey bottle middle finger clutching point)

Outfit of the film. Leaving aside the fact that Karl Lagerfeld apparently had a hand in costuming (?!), its a good film for threads. This be the pick of many choices

Dressed to Kill (1980)

Glasses: No.

Doing an Accent?: No

Accent for whole film?: N/A

Hair: Yes

Does he point at someone?: Yes. Only quickly, only once.

Best Line: "Are you sexually attracted to me?" said with all the passion of a cold cobra.

In spite of Michael Caine regularly taking the money where offered, he really kept to a higher level of slumming (i.e kept to the highest paying cheque) and never really dipped into the soupcon of the Italian film industry around this point in his career, like so many of his fellow actors of this vintage and  thus meaning that we missed the chance of seeing him appear in something like an Argento or a Martino movie.

BUT, what Dressed to Kill provides is the closest possible version of what Maurice may have been like had he ended up in a giallo. As this is a purest giallo from that master of aping Argento and Hitchock, Brian De Palma (we like De Palma, here at Caineology, for this exact reason). Chock full of the insanity, violence, trenchcoats and sexual subversions that you expect for yr money when watching one of these.

A frustrated married housewife, bored with her rich life and inattentive husband, confides to her doctor (Caine) that she is sexually frustrated and bored, coming on to him (very professionally rebuted, I must say) and later to a random stranger she meets in a gallery. On the way out of this romantic rendezvous, the poor lady is brutally murdered by the classic giallo killer type - razor, trenchcoat, but no trilby.

The only witness to this murder is a plucky high class prostitute trying to make her way off the street, who sets out to investigate the murder with the womans bereaved son (Guy Picciotto). At the same time, Mr Caine begins receiving threatening phone calls from another patient of his, Bobby, who is undergoing a sex change and is claiming to the murder - having stolen Caines razor for use as the murder weapon. Caine undertakes an investigation of his own to find Bobby and to try prevent any further violence.

Highly stylised, very competent, filmed in classic 80s NY and with all the trashy goodness you could desire from a film like this. Caine does well for his money and gives a very strong performance - if a little subdued. Perhaps the knowledge that this is *gasp* a horror film caused him to hold back a little. Who knows?

This is a film of great set pieces and really deserves more than a single watch to take it all in.

1 - Caine has a special drawer in his office designed for holding his shaving gear? In his office? Theres something deviant about the idea of shaving with a cutthroat razor in the workplace. But then seeing Angie Dickinson being attacked with a Gillette safety razor wouldn't have quite the same impact, I suppose.

2 - Some great faces appear in this film:

SIPOWICZ!

That fellow with the hat, off Friday the 13th 2!

LENNY!

 

3 - The most unfortunate romantic afternoon in history.

4 - "You got better motivation than I do. YO ASS!!"

5 - Shitty tacked on ending. Or is this the moment when De Palma really decided to show his pure Italo admiration? This is pure Italo madness gold.

 

We get hugely irregular mental health facilities. Lit for "calming"

 

Saucy nurses.

 

 

An inmates viewing galley

 

 

And yet another Psycho shower scene, this time with horrifying footwear.

 

 

And a twist after a twist after a twist..........none of which really has much to do with the film.

 

Outfit of the film: Slim pickings here as its all very non descript.

Suppose its the pale blue shirt and dark overcoat, but he's massively overshadowed by Sipowicz leathers n collar effect, and he full well knows it.