The Salzburg Connection ** (1972, Barry Newman, Anna Karina, Klaus Maria Brandauer) – Classic Movie Review 12,531

The likeable enough 1972 thriller film The Salzburg Connection stars Barry Newman as an American attorney vacationing in scenic Salzburg, Austria, where he gets involved with the world’s secret agents who are after a box of incriminating Nazi documents. 

Director Lee H Katzin’s likeable enough 1972 thriller film The Salzburg Connection stars Barry Newman, who is typecast as an American attorney called Bill Mathison, vacationing in scenic Salzburg, Austria, where he gets involved with the world’s secret agents who are all after a box of incriminating Nazi documents.

This flashy, watchable travelogue movie-cum-action thriller, taken from Helen MacInnes’s popular novel, is let down by the spy clichés in the script by Oscar Millard; the clumsy, anonymous direction by Katzin; and by the always genial and amiable Newman’s slightly dull, and rather bland performance as action hero.

But Newman is eager to please, and the film looks pretty nifty and moves fast enough, with the bursts of action fairly exciting. It is notable as co-starring Euro icon Anna Karina, featuring Udo Kier, and as Klaus Maria Brandauer’s first film (aged 28) and he didn’t make another for nine years – Mephisto (1981).

Also in the cast are Karen Jensen, Wolfgang Preiss, Joe Maross, Helmut Schimdt, Udo Kier, and Whit Bissell.

Barry Newman (November 7, 1930 – May 11, 2023) was best known for Vanishing Point, The Salzburg Connection and Fear Is the Key, and for playing Tony Petrocelli in The Lawyer (1970) and in the 1970s spinoff TV series Petrocelli.

He also played Jason Rudd in a BBC TV Miss Marple film The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (1992, TV).

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,531

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