Eureka *** (1983, Gene Hackman, Theresa Russell, Rutger Hauer, Mickey Rourke, Joe Pesci) – Classic Movie Review 6616

Director Nicolas Roeg’s fascinating but uneasy 1983 film about the world’s richest man (Gene Hackman), Arctic prospector Jack McCann, who struck gold in 1925.

Two decades on, he is a Citizen Kane figure who is having trouble with his daughter Tracy (Theresa Russell, Roeg’s real-life wife) and her French boyfriend Claude (Rutger Hauer) and problems with greedy Miami hoods Aurelio D’Amato and Mayakofsky (Mickey Rourke and Joe Pesci) who want to build a casino on his Caribbean island.

Roeg dazzles us with confusing images: brilliant sequences like the gold discovery (to music from Wagner’s Das Rheingold), and nasty scenes of violence and death. Beautiful vistas alternate with ugly zoom shots, hand-held camera and sudden cutting.

It is a director’s show-off film, though even so much credit must also go to Paul Mayersberg’s intriguing screenplay, based on the novel Who Killed Sir Harry Oakes? by Marshall Houts.

But the actors are given space to shine by Mayersberg, and all the stars (also including Jane Lapotaire, Ed Lauter, Corin Redgrave and James Faulkner) are allowed time by Roeg to impress – and Hackman is superb as Citizen McCann.

Also in the cast are Elena Kallianiotis, Tim Scott, Cavan Kendall, Joe Spinell, Norman Beaton, Emrys James, Michael Scott Addis, Frank Pesce and Ellis Dale.

In the UK it was shown in two London cinemas quickly withdrawn when it was later released on video.  In America, it was shelved for a time – almost two years – by the apparently bewildered and confused distributors MGM/UA. Perhaps they were right. It grossed an impressively low $123,572 in the US, but then they showed it in only a handful of cities.

It runs 130 minutes, is produced by JF Productions, Recorded Picture Company and Sunley Productions, is shot by Alex Thomson, is produced by Jeremy Thomas, is scored by Stanley Myers and is designed by Michael Seymour.

Eureka comes from the Greek, which translates as I have found it!’, Archimedes’s famous catchword. Gold-diggers like McCann shout it when striking gold. And McCann names his Caribbean dream house Eureka.

Hackman defended it: ‘It’s not an adventure story, although it has all the elements. It’s not a straight mystery, although it has a lot of mystery. It’s not a drama of a family, and yet it has that too. It also has a variety of locations. Everything it takes to make a really interesting movie.’

Roeg recalled: ‘I was initially interested in a character who wanted to satisfy an all-consuming desire. But when he gets it, what happens after his brief ecstatic moment? Nothing more than left-over life to kill.’

Hackman’s character McCannis is based on gold prospector and philanthropist Sir Harry Oakes, found dead in his mansion in the Bahamas in 1943. Pesci’s character Mayakofsky is based on mob boss Meyer Lansky. Houts speculates Lansky was behind the killing of Oakes, who resisted casino gambling in the Bahamas.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6616

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