Making his way across Europe and countless cities, Barney Lincoln (Warren Beatty) is taking down one casino after another, and his riches are growing quickly. While he's in London, Barney meets Angel (Susannah York) on the streets and quickly falls for her. Angel, on the other hand, isn't interested at all in the smooth American....at first. After a chance encounter at a casino, Angel starts to tag along as Barney visits one casino after another. Only then does she start to question how he keeps winning and never loses. The young couple are falling for each other, but Angel has other plans, calling her father, McGinnis (Clive Revill), a Scotland Yard investigator, to look into things. What exactly has Barney gotten himself into?
So go figure, but heist-caper meets romantic comedy works surprisingly well. No, this is absolutely nothing new or innovative. An upper class, suave, well-to-do man has the hots for a woman who is perfect, but she wants nothing to do with him? I, for one, did not see that coming. (That was sarcasm by the way). It works because of Susannah York and a pre-Bonnie and Clyde Warren Beatty, their chemistry evident from the first scene. It's fun to see them go back and forth, always trying to one up the other as they start to realize they have genuine feelings toward each other. It's good, but not great, the first 30-40 minutes a little slow going. Never bad, just could have been better and more entertaining in the first half of the flick.
Overall, it's got a lot of little things going for it. Like several recent reviews -- Jack of Diamonds, Danger: Diabolik -- I've posted, Kaleidoscope has that always fun, always interesting 1960s style. With its lightly toned story (the "danger" is never really in question), Kaleidoscope globe trots around Europe. England is used as the backdrop for a majority of the story with some green-screen shots inserted here and there to show Barney's other stops. The score from composer Stanley Myers is solid and light without being too light-hearted. Give it a listen HERE. Even the scene to scene transitions are cool, the visual of a spinning kaleidoscope helping make the jumps.
While this is obviously Beatty and York's movie, I was more drawn to a handful of supporting players. Revill as Inspector MacGinnis is especially good. He's recruiting Barney for a dangerous mission that any James Bond fan will surely appreciate. Have you read Casino Royale? Seen the movie? Then you've seen this thinly veiled duplicate of the original Ian Fleming story for 007. McGinnis needs Barney to break the bank of a narcotics supplier, Dominion (Eric Porter), who's fallen on difficult times financially. His trick? Barney snuck into Kaleidoscope, a playing card company and marked the card plates so he can read the cards where no one else can. Those cards happen to be at casinos and clubs across Europe, including Dominion's club. Revill brings some much-needed drama, Porter has some fun as the smooth, underplayed villain, and Murray Melvin plays Aimes, McGinnis' goofy assistant and dead-shot with a rifle.
It's in the last half of the movie that Kaleidoscope finds its rhythm in its James Bond-knock-off. There is something inherently simple and tense about a card game with hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars resting on one hand of cards. Director Jack Smight has some cool techniques with his camera, following the action around in long, unedited cuts, then zooming in for extreme close-ups. Watch some of the poker scenes HERE (SPOILERS). Generally underplayed and understated, the energy gets ratcheted up in the final act as Barney has it out with Dominion and his henchmen at a huge English countryside manor. I didn't love this movie early on, but I really liked the second half. Surprisingly good stuff. Worth checking out.
Kaleidoscope (1966): ***/****
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