Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round *** (1966, James Coburn, Camilla Sparv, Aldo Ray, Nina Wayne, Robert Webber, Rose Marie) – Classic Movie Review 9032

Writer-director Bernard Girard’s 1966 crime drama Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round is a bright and brash tongue-in-cheek-thriller adventure starring James Coburn as Swinging Sixties ladies’ man crook Eli Kotch, a paroled conman masterminding a gang’s heist on the LA international airport bank while the Soviet prime minister is on a visit.

There are twists and turns galore, all presented in a quintessentially surface glossy Sixties style that sometimes works very nicely and sometimes looks a little bit crass.

James Coburn in Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966).

Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round boasts Coburn in his element, a trick climax and the first brief appearance of the young Harrison Ford, all three things adding interest.

In his film debut, Ford has a small, uncredited role as a bellhop. The name tag on his bellhop jacket reads Thornton Wild.

Stockholm-born Camilla Sparv won the 1967 Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer – Female. She went on to Murderers’ Row (1966), She was the second wife of Robert Evans (5 September 1964 – 1967, divorced), who became Paramount Pictures’ production chief.

The studio cut a final sequence with the gang preparing for another heist five years later.

Also in the cast are Aldo Ray, Nina Wayne, Robert Webber, Rose Marie, Todd Armstrong, Marian Moses, Michael Strong, James Westerfield, Severn Darden and Simon Scott.

Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round is directed by Bernard Girard, runs 107 minutes, is made and released by Columbia Pictures, is written by Bernard Girard, is shot in Pathécolor by Lionel Lindon, is produced by Carter DeHaven III and is scored by Stu Phillips.

It was going to be called Eli Kotch, until some bright spark came up with the brilliantly inane Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, though there is a later 1971 film called Kotch with Walter Matthau.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9032

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