The Innocent * (1993, Anthony Hopkins, Isabella Rossellini, Campbell Scott) – Classic Movie Review 11,931

Director John Schlesinger’s 1993 German/ UK co-production drama film The Innocent has a good cast and an interesting story to tell, but it is a fumbled Cold War thriller with an unconvincing screenplay by Ian McEwan (coming up with some deathless dialogue) and poor performances from miscast players.

McEwan’s screenplay is based on his 1990 novel set in Fifties Berlin at the height of the Cold War against the background of building a tunnel under the Russian sector of Berlin – the CIA and MI6 Operation Gold.

A bewigged Anthony Hopkins ends a long run of great success by making no headway as an American intelligence worker in Berlin in 1955 who befriends a British electronics expert (played by the equally perversely cast American actor Campbell Scott). The two men vie for the love of a German bilingual typist at the British embassy (Isabella Rossellini, cast presumably to bring back memories of her mother in Casablanca).

Director Schlesinger gets the tone and pacing wrong, and he is as unable to draw sympathetic performances from his cast as he is to provide thrills or tears. The story is framed in a re-meeting of the principals at the time the Berlin Wall is coming down, which looks cheap and opportunistic, with the actors further stretched in ‘old’ makeup and wigs.

It ends up as a case of quality people on a off day.

The cast are Anthony Hopkins as Bob Glass, Isabella Rossellini as Maria, Campbell Scott as Leonard Markham, Ronald Nitschke as Otto, Hart Bochner as Russell, James Grant as Macnamee, Jeremy Sinden as Captain Lofting, Richard Durden as Black, Corey Johnson as Lou and Richard Good as Piper.

It was released in Germany on 16 September1993, in the UK in 1993 by Entertainment, and, after two years on the shelf, in the US by Miramax on 22 September 1995 with no advance screenings for critics, and it took only $553,000 in the US.

The Innocent is directed by John Schlesinger, runs 118 minutes, is released in the UK by Entertainment and in the US by Miramax, is written by Ian McEwan, based on his novel, is shot by Dietrich Lomann, is produced by Norma Heyman and is scored by Gerald Gouriet.

John Schlesinger’s famous film is Midnight Cowboy.

John Schlesinger’s famous film is Midnight Cowboy and then most recent film was the efficient thriller Pacific Heights (1990). He is the great director of A Kind of Loving (1962), Billy Liar (1963), Darling (1965), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971).

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,931

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