A Man Could Get Killed *** (1966, James Garner, Melina Mercouri, Sandra Dee, Tony Franciosa, Robert Coote, Roland Culver, Cecil Parker) – Classic Movie Review 9551

James Garner gives an engaging lightweight turn as the lead character William Beddoes, an American businessman abroad on a work trip in Portugal, who gets confused with a British spy on the trail of lost diamonds, in the 1966 comedy thriller A Man Could Get Killed. It owes a debt to Alfred Hitchcock and his regular theme of the innocent man muddled with the guilty and embroiled in espionage plots.

The plot, based on David Esdaile Walker’s novel Diamonds Are Danger, takes a bewildering number of twists and turns, and still has no substance. But it is performed with spirit and style by the likeable cast. The very Sixties item would be better taken more seriously and less in knockabout vein.

It is remembered, if at all, as the film that originated the music for the all-time great song ‘Strangers on the Night’, which won the Golden Globe as Best Original Song for Bert Kaempfert (music) and Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder (lyrics).

Kaempfert’s original composition of ‘Strangers on the Night’ was under the title ‘Beddy Bye’ – referring to the lead character William Beddoes – as an instrumental for part of the score of the movie. The title ‘Strangers on the Night’ was created after the composition when New York music publishers Roosevelt Music requested that lyricists Snyder and Singleton put words to the tune.

The song was given to Melina Mercouri, who thought a man’s vocals would better suit the melody and declined to sing it. It was made famous in 1966 by Frank Sinatra as the title song for his 1966 album Strangers in the Night, his most commercially successful album. The song also reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart but Sinatra despised the song, calling it ‘a piece of shit’ and ‘the worst f**king song that I have ever heard’.

It is the last feature film of Peter Illing and of Dulcie Gray, who did far fewer films than she should.

Also in the experienced cast are Melina Mercouri, Sandra Dee, Tony Franciosa, Robert Coote, Roland Culver, Cecil Parker, Grégoire Aslan, Dulcie Gray, Martin Benson, Niall MacGinnis, Peter Illing, Isabel Dean, Nora Swinburne, Ann Firbank, George Pastell, Daniele Vargas, Arnold Diamond, Virgilio Teixeira and Jenny Agutter.

Ronald Neame took over as director when the studio thought the cast was in difficulty with original director Cliff Owen.

T E B Clarke’s first version of the script based on the novel by David Esdaile Walker kept the main character British, but in the Richard L Breen’s rewrites he is American. The original title of this film was Welcome, Mr Beddoes and the working title was D is for Diamonds. So that makes four poor titles: Diamonds Are Danger, Welcome, Mr Beddoes, D is for Diamonds and A Man Could Get Killed.

A Man Could Get Killed is directed by Ronald Neame and Cliff Owen, runs 98 minutes, is made by Cherokee Productions, Universal Pictures, is released by Universal Pictures (1966) (US) and Rank Film Distributors (1966) (UK), is written by T E B Clarke and Richard Breen, based on the novel by David Esdaile Walker, is shot in Panavision and Technicolor by Gábor Pogány, is produced by James Garner (executive producer), Robert Arthur, Ernest B Wehmeyer (associate producer), is scored by Bert Kaempfert, and is designed by John DeCuir with Set Decoration by Giuseppe Chevalier.

It is shot in Lisbon and Rome, and at Universal Studios, California.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9551

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