An extremely convoluted plot that somehow makes for a very entertaining movie. Mark Robson, not the most imaginative director, whips up a Hitchcockian thriller starring Paul Newman as a Nobel Prize winner (for literature!) who slowly unravels a bizarre plot involving murder, kidnapping, two Edward G. Robinsons and a couple of silent killers. Newman is terrific, giving it his all as a drunken womanizer with a wicked sense of humor. Elke Sommer, in what may very well be her finest performance, is well-matched with Newman. She's very sexy and, as the film is set in Sweden, her accent does not get in her way. Diane Baker plays an unlikely bad girl and she steals the scenes she's in. Written by Ernest Lehman and featuring some direct lifts from his previous NORTH BY NORTHWEST.
Review of The Prize
