COLD SWEAT
France/Italy, 1970, 94 minutes, Colour.
Charles Bronson, Liv Ullmann, James Mason, Jill Ireland, Michael Constantin.
Directed by Terence Young.
Cold Sweat was made by director Terence Young (The Valacchi Papers, Red Sun, the early Bond films): this thriller provides good average entertainment. It might not exactly raise a cold sweat for the audience, but it does generate quite some suspense4 Charles Bronson stars as a harassed ex-convict, who has made good on the Riviera, visited and menaced by vengeful former comrades led by James Mason (with a strange Southern U.S. accent). Bronson's wife. played interestingly by Liv Ullman, and his step-daughter are held hostage and share the prolonged terror. Attractive French settings, likeable stars who help make the action more plausible and some suspenseful climaxes are all to advantage.
1. How true was the title for the film, for audience reaction?
2. How successful a thriller was this? In its use of thriller conventions, hero, menace, chase? How much excitement did it generate? Or did it remain on the level of the conventional, in plot, situations, dialogue and performances?
3. How well could audiences identify with the characters and feel with them? The use of threat to Joe, of violence and rape to mother and daughter, the chase at the end? The ordinariness of the people and ordinary audiences identifying with this? Was it successful here?
4. Did the Mediterranean settings and exotic background add to the film as a thriller? The use of colour. music?
5. Was Joe a convincing hero? Charles Bronson's style. tough laconic heroism? His use of wits and force? Could audiences sympathize with him? The mystery of his past? Should he have kept it from his wife? His response to the invasion of his home? His response to the threats to his life, wife and child? Was his response to the situation adequate and his use of ingenuity? Was his concern for wife and child well communicated? How?
6. Was the flashback technique and explanation satisfying for Joe's past? As giving motivation and emotional response for the crisis situation?
7. The importance of Whitey's arrival and his threats and death? How did this change the atmosphere of the film? The cinematic use of the house and its rooms for this dramatic effect and audience identification?
8. Was Ross a convincing villain? In style, James mason's personality, his Southern accent? Did the film explain his grudge against Joe satisfactorily? What hold did he have over Joe and his associates? How evil was he in his plots, menace. drug-traffic? The malice of his revenge? Why did he ultimately let Fabienne and the daughter go? Was this a change of heart? Consistent?
9. How attractive was Fabienne? As a sympathetic wife? How conventional was her presentation and dialogue? Her relationship to Michelle? The importance of a teenage daughter for this particular thriller? The nature of their fear and the film's communication of fear? The reality of the threats, the desperate moving of time, especially when Ross was dying, the drama of the chase and the women's fear?
10. The significance of Moira for the plot? Joe's ingenuity in kidnapping and using her? In going for the doctor? As a balance for Fabienne and Michelle? How convincing were the sequences with Ross wounded? The irony of his being wounded?
11. The tension for the women in his being kept alive? The intercutting from the hut to the car and the holiday atmosphere? The desperate getting of the doctor? The dramatic impact of Ross's dying and loss of blood? The attempts of the women to keep him alive?
12. Was the final chase in the hills satisfyingly dramatic? Appropriate for this film? Cold sweat?
13. Why thrillers like this appeal to audiences? Desperate situations? Risk of life and death? Ingenuity for surviving?
