The Prize (1963)

Wonderful character development!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

If you're in the mood for a little sophisticated humour leavened with just enough suspense to keep it interesting, then "The Prize" is for you. Set in Stockholm, Sweden at Nobel Prize Ceremony time, the story revolves around the lives, battles and petty jealousies of a disparate group of winners with only one of them seeming to have any sense-of-the-occasion. Grand soap opera at its most ridiculous, the film focuses on Paul Newman's Andrew Craig, a somewhat tipsy author of serious novels suffering from acute, 'serious writer's' block syndrome. But never one to let such a trivial annoyance get in the way, Craig keeps hearth and home together (along no doubt with a fancy liquor cabinet stocked with a favourite single malt) by punching out cheap detective stories for the masses under a pseudo name. He doesn't make his crime yarns sound much like high art, but then again neither is this movie. What both are, however (especially if you've ever read Dashiel Hammett, Jim Thompson or Raymond Chandler) are amazingly entertaining.At times re-tilling famous Hitchcock ground, "The Prize" is a thoroughly enjoyable soufflé with a delightful cast that includes (a little under-used) Edward G. Robinson, Elke Sommer, Diane Baker, Kevin McCarthy and the always solid, sturdy Leo G. Carroll. As directed by Mark Robson, the introductions and subsequent interplay of many of the film's characters is quite reminiscent of the approach Robson also took in his sumptuous 1957 soap opera "Peyton Place." And Robson wasn't the only one stealing from himself.Ernest Lehman (who also wrote the screenplay for Hitchcock's wildly successful "North by Northwest") shamelessly borrows more than once from that highly successful opus, but that's okay. His retreads also work very well in "The Prize" too thank you very much.Finally, other assets to this pleasant romp include Jerry Goldsmith's sometimes understated score coupled with some glorious cinematography that deftly captures the film's various locations.So again, if you're looking for sophisticated fare with a gentle thriller twist, don't pass up on this one. You can't take a single frame of it seriously, but then again, you're not intended to. Just sit back, be patient, relax and enjoy!! It really is worthy of its 8 out of 10.

An enjoyable comic thriller filled with familiar incidents. If, in "North by Northwest," Cary Grant is pursued in an open field by an airplane, here Paul Newman is chased back and forth by a murderous car on a long bridge. If, in the first, Grant must make himself enough of an annoyance in an auction to be rescued by the cops, here Newman must do the same at a meeting of nudists in a gymnasium. It's not too surprising since both films were written by the same man, Ernest Lehman. You can REPEAT yourself but you can't PLAGIARIZE yourself. Lehman even throws in an image from a Hitchcock number he had nothing to do with. In "Saboteur", the heavy falls from the Statue of Liberty. Here he falls from a rooftop in Stockholm and is impaled on the sword of a huge statue below. And the substitution of the evil Robinson for the good Robinson is from Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent."Newman is a former literary star, invited to Stockholm to accept a Nobel Prize, who has lost his willingness to try and now devotes himself to writing detective novels under a nom de plume and to drinking martini after martini. As far as the alcoholism goes, though, he remarks near the beginning, "Ewww. This is my third martini and I haven't even had breakfast yet," so he retains his amateur standing.Anyway, the booze business is dropped once he's swept up into a Cold War plot to substitute a faux scientist, a twin of Edward G. Robinson, who is a benign American scientist. At the awards ceremony, the Soviet ringer plans to make a speech condemning free enterprise, capitalism, the exploitation of the working class, the decadence of the West, miniskirts, shaved legs, hair mousse for men, electronic fussball, and Yosemite Sam. The genuine Robinson has been kidnapped and the sinister Robinson has taken his place. The difference between the two is nicely done -- mostly a matter of having the good Eddie smiling weakly and the bad Eddie scowling and sounding like Little Caesar in retirement. Make up has added darker, thicker eyebrows to the evildoer.It is Newman's self-appointed job to unravel the plot and restore the correct Robinson to his justified place on the dais at the ceremony. He will be helped by his toothsome chaperone, Elke Sommer, whom he squeezes so vigorously at one point that she complains he is breaking her "rips", something any normal man would enjoy doing.The inquiry takes Newman through myriad Swedish settings, from grand parties at the royal palace, through filthy rusting ships, to hotels in which he must run through the corridors wearing only a towel around his waste -- everybody's favorite nightmare.The direction by Mark Robson is professional and so are the performances. Paul Newman is a bit of a surprise. He's never been particularly good outside of dramas but he's quite effective here. Watch him try to explain to the skeptical Stockholm police that he has discovered the body of a murder victim and add that the body has now disappeared. Oh, the body has disappeared? Newman looks momentarily taken aback as he realizes how ludicrous this sounds, hesitates, then plunges determinedly ahead -- "Well . . . yes!" Cary Grant would have walked away with this part but Newman carries the ball well.The whole thing is a wanton ripoff of Hitchcock but it's so amiable and so funny in its characters, situations, and wisecracks, that it doesn't really matter. You'll probably enjoy it.

Yes, perhaps Paul Newman and Elke Sommer are a beautiful couple and Edward G. Robinson is not going to let you down. But is there any director behind the camera? Movies like these show you where was Hollywood standing at the beginning of the 60's. I suppose some people will enjoy it and they're entitled to it. But in my case I had to make a strong effort not to fall asleep, specially the first 60 minutes. Incidentally, was the cold war going on as strong as ever? On the other hand, Nobel Prizes are ridiculous but not that ridiculous! Kevin Mc Carthy and Sergio Fantoni are slightly bananas when fighting as competitors and Ms. Presle, well, can she be a scientist? By the way, Ms. Presle is really sexy despite her age and quite more attractive that Ms. Varsi, the toothless of the world. Pity to see old timers like Anna Lee in meaningless roles but actors have to eat. abel posadas

It seems that some people's criticism of "The Prize" is that it goes overboard in the sex stuff, and in particular makes Sweden look like a sex bastion. Considering that we were coming out of the repressed 1950s, I regard it as basically a necessity to show sex appeal in these sorts of movies (and hasn't Europe for many years been more open about sexuality than the US?). This one portrays several people going to Stockholm to accept Nobel prizes, when some thugs try to mess up everything.My opinion of this movie is mainly formed by Elke Sommer's presence. Is any man really going to tell me that he can think about her and NOT get at least one lewd thought?! Certainly the idea of her being on screen with Paul Newman as an American author with a devil-may-care attitude about everything magnifies any dirty image in my mind! With my sexual fantasies this extreme in my normal life, my hormones probably would have gone through the roof had I been on the set with her.So anyway, even though this is sort of a silly movie - and the Cold War stuff weakens it a little - it's always a pleasure just to get to see Elke Sommer on screen. I can imagine that in the unseen scenes, her character and Paul Newman's character probably went at it like wild animals. I think that, just to show all that she could be, Elke Sommer should have starred in a movie featuring her in the middle of a giant orgy. Maybe Paul Newman could have co-starred, but I also picture it starring the likes of Marcello Mastroianni, Peter Sellers, Dick Van Dyke, Audrey Hepburn, Steve McQueen, Sean Connery, Carroll Baker, Elizabeth Montgomery, Tina Louise, Barbara Eden, Sophia Loren and Dorothy Provine. That's my ideal."The Prize" co-stars Edward G. Robinson, Diane Baker, Micheline Presle, Leo G. Carroll and Kevin McCarthy.