'Crime Broker' fails to close to deal

Crime Broker (aka "Corrupt Justice") (1993)
Starring: Jacqueline Bisset, Masaya Kato, John Bach, Ralph Cotterill, Justin Lewis, and Gary Day
Director: Ian Barry
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A bored legal genius who plans precision heists as a hobby (Bisset) is forced into taking part in violent crimes and murder by a psychopathic criminologist who uncovers her secret (Kato).

"Crime Broker" is an Australian made-for-TV movie that feels like a tawdry grocery store paperback thriller. It should appeal to those who like Jackie Collins novels (or whoever her more modern counterparts might be), but the rest of us might be a little bored with the predictable twists of the film and flat characters that never move beyond the state of stereotypes or cyphers.

I sat through the film primarily because I was hoping it was going to give me a fun finale with the crime-planning judge somehow turning the tables on the man who forced her into getting her hands dirty--her genius-level intellect was referred to over and over in the film, so it seemed like a perfect pay-off and a great fate for the vile, arrogant character played by Masaya Kato--but such was not to be. Although the "final job" the judge is forced to plan--one that involves robbing her own husband--is the perfect set-up for just the sort of finale this film desperately needed--the finale consists of a secondary character stepping in to more-or-less save the day... and ensuring that an already mediocre film slides into bad.

Jacqueline Bisset was pushing 50 when this movie was made, but she was still full of every bit of sex appeal as she exhibited in the 1970s. It's too bad the rest of the package wasn't as attractive and charged as she was.

Saturday Scream Queens: Barbara Parkins and Jacqueline Bisset

With the 31 Nights of Halloween coming to a close, we're ending it as it started, with a double-dose of Scream Queens!

Barbara Parkins

Canadian actress Barbara Parkins is best known for her long-time role role as Betty on the soap opera "Peyton Place" and for her starring turn in "Valley of the Dolls". However, she also appeared in some of the niftiest horror movies to come out of the early 1970s, such as British anthology film "Asylum" and the made-for-television chiller "Mephisto Waltz". By the 1980s, she mostly retired from acting, but she continues to accept the occasional role.

Jacqueline Bisset

British-born Jacqueline Bisset was a model-turned-actress who emerged as an international sex symbol during the 1960s and built a genre-spanning spanning, highly successful career from "window-dressing parts" into trend-setting leading lady roles. She starred in several horror and suspense films during the 1970s and 1980s, among which are "Murder on the Orient Express", "The Deep", "Mephisto Waltz" (where she co-starred with today's other Scream Queen), and "Crime Broker". As the 1990s gave way to the 2000s, Bisset made a successful transition from leading lady to character actress, and she continues to act in one or two movies every year.

'The Mephisto Waltz' oozes 1970s horror

The Mephisto Waltz (1971)
Starring: Jacqueline Bisset, Alan Alda, Barbara Parkins, Bradford Dillman, and Curt Jurgens
Director: Paul Wendkos
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A dying pianist (Curt Jurgins) makes a bargain with Satan to have his soul put into a younger man's body (Alan Alda). The younger man's wife (Jacqueline Bissett) realizes slowly something is different about her husband... and realizes something is seriously wrong people around them start dying mysterously.

"The Mephisto Waltz" is an unsettling little horror film from the 1970s (and it oozes '70s sensibilities from every frame, along with an unsettling sense of dread) that features a surprising twist as it enters the third act and an even more startling ending. It's not often that I am taken completely by surprise by a film's direction, but I was with this one. (And I've just taken three cracks at hinting at the twist while drafting this review, but each time I felt like I was revealing too much and possibly spoiling the film. I feel the surprsing story development here has to be witnessed "cold" to have its full impact.)

As impressed as I am with the ending of the film, it doesn't start out strong. The filmmakers make a tremendous mistake at the beginning of the film by revealing beyond doubt that Alda's character has been possessed by the old man, and that we are dealing with true Satanic magic. By showing us this up front, it removes a degree of mystery and uncertainty that could have make the movie even more suspenseful.

Still, the film does recover nicely from the early blunder, delivering lots of chilling moments, some suitably eerie dream sequences, and one of the best-handled summonings of Satan I've ever seen. It's a film that's worth seeing, and it's a film that doesn't deserve the obscurity it currently endures.