St. Ives (1976)

From my favorite movies..

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Charles Bronson appeared in a right stinker in the form of "St. Ives." This film has no action, a dull and confusing plot and no interest of any kind. The whole cast is thoroughly wasted. The scenes look as though they were put together in haste. There is no narrative structure to speak of. Even hardened fans of Bronson might frown down upon this one!

In this refreshing change of pace for Bronson, he portrays a novelist and former crime reporter on the trail of stolen file belonging to an eccentric John Houseman. As Bronson pursues the pilfered files, a number of bodies turn up dead, with no apparent suspect other that St Ives !. Each time he is cleared, inching closer to recovering the files and nabbing the culprit ! Jacqueline Bissett is the beautiful assistant to Houseman, whoi seems to take an immediate liking to the frustrated novelist. Dana Elcar turns in his best performance ever as the Police Captain trying to make sense of it all .A great cast, likable performance by Bronson and an interesting ending make this an enjoyable film effort. Highly recommended for Bronson fans.

I'm not sure why Charles Bronson chose to star in "St. Ives" during the peak period of his career, since it's far from the tough guy roles that made him famous. Maybe he liked the promised change of pace. I do admit that Bronson is fine in the title role, more of a troubleshooter and go- between instead of a violent individual. Unfortunately, he is surrounded by material that's kind of lacklustre. The movie as a whole lacks edge. I know this is more of a mystery than an action exercise, but a little more action would have sparked things up considerably. It doesn't help that director J. Lee Thompson makes the entire movie look and feel more like a made for television exercise rather than a theatrical movie. This isn't actively awful, but I would only recommend it to die hard Bronson fans.

Ex-crime journalist Raymond St Ives is struggling for doe, due to his gambling addiction and his slow progress of his unfinished novel. His offered a job as a "go-between" for the strange, old wealthy Abner Procane. He'll be payed 10,000 dollars for the job, to hand over cash for the exchange of Procane's stolen ledgers. However since he takes the job, nothing seems quite right and this leaves St Ives trying to put together what happened at the bungle exchange. Director J. Lee Thompson along with actor Charles Bronson ( the first exercise to kick start their long-listed collaborations together) churn out a acceptable time-filler in the shape of the luxuriously smooth and constantly busy comic-crime caper "St Ives". Underlining the atmospherically exotic style is Thompson's sophisticatedly tidy direction, along with Lucien Ballard's handsomely crisp cinematography and Lalo Schifrin's high-strung score of sizzling jazz arrangement. The screenplay by Barry Beckerman is sleek, but overly knotty and perplexing in its deliberate developments of a devious layout. Still it stays conventional to the scheming and shady connections lurking around nearly every corner, and this generally engages. Sometimes not deliberately so, like often mentioned 'drive-in' sequence. The offbeat script can loose shape (even though it manages some quite cheeky dialogues), and begin to slumber off in the pulpy latter end of the film. The action is quite little, but pacey with some well performed and animatedly stylised stunts. The production managed to get a hold off a sensational cast. Charles Bronson in the lead as St Ives eases into the performance nicely. Jacqueline Bisset adds a sumptuously classy touch. John Houseman is very fun, and Dana Elcar gets some memorable scenes. Maximilian Schell hones in one hammy entrée turn, and Harry Guardino and Harris Yulin likewise are amusing. Also look out for some diverting performances from up-and-coming Robert Englund and Jeff Goldblum as two petty crooks. Michael Lerner and Elisha Cook Jr show up in minor roles too. An elegantly charming enterprise with an excellent Bronson performance and great support.