The Assassination Bureau Limited (also known as The Assassination Bureau in the United States) is a 1969 British Technicolor bawdy black comedy adventure film, produced by Michael Relph, directed by Basil Dearden, and starring Oliver Reed, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas, and Curd Jürgens. It was released in the U.S. by Paramount Pictures and is based on Jack London's unfinished novel, The Assassination Bureau, Ltd, posthumously published in 1963. Unlike the novel, which is set in the United States, the film is set in Europe.
The Assassination Bureau Limited | |
---|---|
Directed by | Basil Dearden |
Written by | Michael Relph Wolf Mankowitz (screenplay) |
Based on | The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. 1963 novel by Jack London Robert L. Fish |
Produced by | Michael Relph |
Starring | Oliver Reed Diana Rigg Telly Savalas Curd Jürgens |
Cinematography | Geoffrey Unsworth |
Edited by | Teddy Darvas |
Music by | Ron Grainer |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date | 10 March 1969 |
Running time | 110 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The Assassination Bureau Limited was the penultimate film of Basil Dearden.[1]
Plot
In London, during the early 1900s, aspiring journalist and women's rights campaigner Sonia Winter (Diana Rigg) uncovers an organisation that specialises in killing for money, the Assassination Bureau Limited. To bring about its destruction, she commissions the assassination of the bureau's own chairman, Ivan Dragomiroff (Oliver Reed).
Far from being outraged or angry, Dragomiloff is amused and delighted and decides to turn the situation to his own advantage. The guiding principle of his bureau, founded by his father, has always been that there was a moral reason why their victims should be killed; these have included despots and tyrants. More recently, though, his elder colleagues have tended to kill more for financial gain than for moral reasons. Dragomiroff, therefore, decides to accept the commission of his own death and challenge the other board members: Kill him or he will kill them!
He meets Miss Winter at the Albert Memorial and with her in tow, Dragomiroff sets off on a tour of Edwardian Europe, challenging and systematically purging the bureau's senior members. Their first stop is Paris where Dragomiroff disguises himself as Le Comte and goes to a brothel. Miss Winters materialises and they hide in a laundry room. The staff outside put a gas pipe into the room but there is a police raid. They escape down the laundry chute but leave a booby trap which blows the room up when the door is eventually smashed in. Miss Winters is arrested while Dragomiroff sneaks off.
She catches him on a train to Zurich but Popescu also appears disguised as a train waiter serving cognac and cigars. He pulls a gun but Dragomiroff sprays him with fiery brandy, lit by the cigar, burning his face and he jumps off the train and is killed. In Zurich the bank manager Weiss pulls a gun on a suspicious looking customer and throws his bag into the street, thinking it is a bomb.
Next, in Vienna the couple watch a military prade. A man behind pulls a pistol, but he is trying to assassinat the Arch Duke watching the parade from a balcony opposite.
Little do they realise that this is a plot by Miss Winter's sponsor, newspaper publisher Lord Bostwick (Telly Savalas), to take over the bureau (Bostwick is the bureau's vice-chairman and is bitter for having been passed over in favour of the founder's son). Bostwick and the other surviving members of the Bureau plan to get rich quick by the "biggest killing" of them all: buying stocks in arms companies and then propelling Europe into a world war. Their plan is to assassinate all the European heads of state. They attend a secret peace conference where the kings, emperors, and prime ministers of Europe are trying to avoid a possible war over the assassination of a Balkan prince (accidentally killed by a bomb intended for Dragomiroff).
Dragomiroff and Miss Winter uncover the plot, which is to drop a large aerial bomb from a hijacked Zeppelin airship directly onto the Ruthenia castle where the peace conference is being held. Dragomiroff steals aboard the airship and successfully destroys the bomb, while also disposing of Lord Bostwick and all the remaining members of his board of directors. He is heralded as a hero and later decorated by the heads of state that he has saved. (It is implied that Dragoriloff may now wed Miss Winter since he has been redeemed by his actions.)
Cast
- Oliver Reed as Ivan Dragomiroff, chairman of the bureau
- Diana Rigg as Sonya Winter
- Telly Savalas as Lord Bostwick vice chairman of the bureau
- Curd Jürgens as General von Pinck
- Philippe Noiret as Monsieur Lucoville
- Warren Mitchell as Herr Weiss the Swiss bureau member
- Beryl Reid as Madame Otero the brothel owner
- Clive Revill as Cesare Spado
- Vernon Dobtcheff as Baron Muntzof
- Annabella Incontrera as Eleanora Spado
- Kenneth Griffith as Monsieur Popescu
- Jess Conrad as Angelo
- George Coulouris as Swiss Peasant
- Katherine Kath as Mme. Lucoville
- Olaf Pooley as Swiss Cashier
- Rudolf Jelinek
- Jiri Lir
- Maggie Wright as Exquisite Girl
Original novel
The film was based on the Jack London novel, The Assassination Bureau. London purchased a storyline from Sinclair Lewis in 1910 and used it as the basis of two short stories and a novel. He was two-thirds of the way through finishing the novel (having written 40,000 words) when he died in 1916. The novel was later completed by Robert L. Fish and finally published in 1963.[2] The New York Times called it "delightfully ridiculous".[3]
Development
Film rights were bought and in May 1966. United Artists announced that Burt Lancaster would star in a film.[4] Lancaster, however, pulled out and film rights reverted to Paramount, where it was made by the team of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph; it was their 25th film together.[5]
Filming
Filming took place in April 1968.[6]
Michael Flint of Paramount later said the film wound up costing a lot of money "because it was decided that it must be a locomotive", namely, a sort of film which "would really carry weight with exhibitors and eventually television networks buying batches of our films, by virtue of stars or production value". He added that in the case of Assassination Bureau "we laboured under the delusion that this could be ensured by spending more on 'production value'".[7]
By February 1969, the film had not been released. According to Diana Rigg, "the film company is stuck with the rather awkward - for America - title and hasn't made up its mind what to do".[8]
Home video
This film was issued on LaserDisc in the mid-1990s. It was also released on VHS at the same time and later on Region 1 DVD.
See also
- Assassinations in fiction
- Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
References
- ^ Basil Dearden The Guardian 25 Mar 1971: 5
- ^ Books Authors New York Times 29 Oct 1963: 32.
- ^ Ethical Killers By ANTHONY BOUCHER. New York Times 8 Dec 1963: 451.
- ^ 'Assassination Bureau' Dossier: More About Movie Matters By A.H. WEILER. New York Times 1 May 1966: 133.
- ^ The survival bureau Malcolm, Derek. The Guardian 19 Mar 1969: 8.
- ^ GOOD-BY MRS. PEEL. HELLO, UH. MARY POPPINS?: The transition may be painful for her fans--but let's let Diana Rigg tell it. Rohrbach, Ed. Chicago Tribune 14 Apr 1968: h48.
- ^ Backing Britain Taylor, John Russell. Sight and Sound; London Vol. 38, Iss. 3, (Summer 1969): 112.
- ^ Will Diana Ever Get Together? By MARK SHIVAS. New York Times 2 Feb 1969: D19.
External links
- The Assassination Bureau at IMDb
- The Assassination Bureau at AllMovie
- The Assassination Bureau at the TCM Movie Database
- The Assassination Bureau at the American Film Institute Catalog