The Ambassador ** (1984 Robert Mitchum, Ellen Burstyn, Rock Hudson, Donald Pleasence, Fabio Testi) – Classic Movie Review 8524

Elmore Leonard’s excellent 1974 novel 52 Pick-Up is reworked as J Lee Thompson’s watchable and entertaining 1984 political thriller The Ambassador starring Robert Mitchum as the American ambassador to Israel trying to solve the crisis between Israel and Palestine.

Mitchum, Ellen Burstyn (as the envoy’s cheating wife), Rock Hudson (as his security officer buddy) and Donald Pleasence (as Israeli Minister Eretz) may be a bit long in the tooth, but they are very welcome presences anyway, and work with their usual professional skill, while the handling of the busy script by Max Jack and Ronald M Cohen is fairly adroit. Italian-born Fabio Testi also stars as Mustapha Hashimi.

Amazingly, the same producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus and production company, the Cannon Group, had another go at the novel just a year later under its proper title 52 Pick-Up, plot and locations. But, then again, the films bear little or no resemblance to each other, though The Ambassador keeps the novel’s sex film blackmail plot.

It is poor Rock Hudson’s last cinema feature. He was brought in a week before filming started to replace Telly Savalas, who backed out of playing Frank Stevenson at the last minute because of a scheduling conflict. Mitchum clashed with Hudson who was in poor health and held up production. Mitchum made the film after being accused of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

Elmore Leonard, who is not credited, said: ‘Menahem Golan hired me to adapt my novel 52 Pick-Up and set it in Tel Aviv. I wrote two drafts and then told him to get another writer. He did and the result was The Ambassador, which has nothing to do with 52 Pick-Up. It has none of my characters, none of my situations, nothing. But he still owed me for the screenplay and had to pay up before he could release the picture.’

The Ambassador is also known as Peacemaker.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8524

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