Frantic **** (1988, Harrison Ford, Betty Buckley, Emmanuelle Seigner, Alexandra Stewart, John Mahoney) – Classic Movie Review 6663

Director Roman Polanski’s mischievous 1988 thriller is a hugely entertaining Hitchcock spoof starring Harrison Ford as the earnest, sympathetic middle-aged hero, Dr Richard Walker, the typical innocent abroad.

Dr Walker is an American in Paris for a medical conference, who goes frantic searching for his wife Sondra (Betty Buckley) who has accompanied him on his trip but is kidnapped following a baggage muddle at the airport. Just as Dr Walker is showering in their hotel room, the lady vanishes.

Among the oddball characters Walker meets during his desperate punk and drug scene low-life search in Paris is Michelle (Emmanuelle Seigner), a tall dark sexy swinger. Ford and Seigner get to do a flatfooted boogie together in a scene at The Touch of Class Club. The song they dance to is based on a composition called Libertango by foremost tango composer Astor Piazzola (1921 – 1992).

Handled in the liveliest, most playful kind of way, Frantic is full of zesty joie de vivre and cynically quirky Polanski touches. It is underpinned with his habitual dark base notes, and it grips both as a black comedy and a crime mystery thriller too.

Frantic is written by Polanski and his regular script collaborator Gérard Brach. The soundtrack is livened up no end by the fine music score by Ennio Morricone.

Also in the cast are Alexandra Stewart, John Mahoney, Jimmie Ray Weeks and Patrice Melennec.

Though popular now on its TV runs, it was greatly undervalued on its cinema release. It cost $20,000,000 and took only $17,637,950 at the US box office.

Emmanuelle Seigner married Roman Polanski on 30 August 1989. They have two children, Morgane Polanski (born 1993) and Elvis Polanski (born 1998). Four years after Frantic, Polanski gave Seigner the leading part in his movie Bitter Moon (1992).

John Mahoney plays a US Embassy official.

It is shot by Witold Sobocinski, produced by Thom Mount and Tim Hampton, scored by Ennio Morricone and designed by Pierre Guffray.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6663

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