Director Don Siegel has a reputation for having done a number of slam-bang crime stories, such as "Dirty Harry," although he hasn't limited himself to that genre. (I don't know what to call "The Beguiled." Southern Gothic?) But this one ranks up there with his better examples.
Two hoods arrive in San Francisco to retrieve packages of heroin from three unwitting carriers arriving on a ship. The smack is hidden in various objects, like statues. The hoods are the psychopathic Eli Wallach and the suave Robert Keith. They've been hired to get the dope and leave it at a drop point in the now-defunct Sutro's Baths on a cliff overlooking the beach. The local big wig who controls the dope traffic is known to them, and to just about everyone else, simply as "the man." Nobody seems to know who he is.
Roughly the first half of the film is about the police gradually catching on to the smuggling scheme and tracking down the carriers, innocent though the carriers may be. It's not dull. It's just familiar. We've all seen police procedurals. And there's nothing particularly interesting about either Warner Baxter or Emile Meyer as the two cops grimly carrying out their investigation.
The two hoods, shortly joined by local wheel man Richard Jaekel, are a different matter. The soft-spoken elderly ("almost 50") Robert Keith seems to be in charge. He teaches the younger Wallach to use the subjunctive mood when speaking. "If I were to do that..." instead of, "If I was to do that ..." Some have found a homoerotic subtext in their relationship but, if it's there, it slipped by my apperceptive apparatus. Keith also reins in Wallach, who has a propensity for using the silenced .38 Smith and Wesson he carries around. A silencer was a novelty at the time and some attention is given to it in inserts and in dialog. The director was to move on to bigger silencers in "The Killers" (1964), and monumental weapons in "Dirty Harry."
The first carrier, the one who was paid to smuggle in a statue, has accidentally stumbled across the stash and he tries to extort an additional thousand dollars from Wallach. That was a big mistake.
Wallach shows up at the mansion of the second innocent and tells the Chinese house boy that there's been an error in the luggage department and he, Wallach, must now retrieve the cutlery set that the mansion's owner picked up. The houseboy objects strenuously. Another mistake.
The third stash has been hidden away in a Japanese doll and brought in by a mother and her little daughter. Keith and Wallach insinuate themselves into the mother's good graces and get into her apartment at the Mark Hopkins, only to find that the girl has used the heroin to powder her dollie's pure white face.
The mother and daughter don't get killed. They're taken hostage and driven to the drop site where Wallach will try to explain to "the man" that the third stash is gone for good. And if the man doesn't believe Wallach, he can check with the mother and daughter who are being held in the car outside.
Wallach's confrontation with the man is splendidly staged. The man, in a bit of wildly imaginative casting, is Vaughn Taylor, a non-offensive character actor who is usually seen as a postman or office clerk or some young lady's father. He slowly rolls to the drop site in a wheelchair. There are multiple close ups of Taylor's impassive face staring dead ahead as Wallach leans on his shoulder and tries desperately to explain the situation. Taylor sits silently until finally, when Wallach is finished, he has a couple of lines. The first is, "You're dead." And the second includes, "Nobody sees me." This failure to grasp the significance of events outrages Wallach. You may have seen Richard Widmark push an old lady down the stairs in "Kiss of Death." Here you have the opportunity to watch Wallach shove a man in a wheelchair off a balcony and see him drop fifty feet to his death.
There's a problem with the casting though. Eli Wallach is a decent enough actor but he's best when he's part of an ensemble or in an ancillary role. Here he's forced to pretty much carry the last third of the film but his pockmarked face and chipmunk teeth fall just short of being interesting enough for the job. A few close shots of Wallach go a long way.
The ending involves another car chase around the streets of San Francisco. It's a beautiful little city, only sixty-four square miles, and even its seedier parts are colorful. But this pursuit is in accelerated motion and, after "Bullet", all car chases in the city look a little insignificant.
Two hoods arrive in San Francisco to retrieve packages of heroin from three unwitting carriers arriving on a ship. The smack is hidden in various objects, like statues. The hoods are the psychopathic Eli Wallach and the suave Robert Keith. They've been hired to get the dope and leave it at a drop point in the now-defunct Sutro's Baths on a cliff overlooking the beach. The local big wig who controls the dope traffic is known to them, and to just about everyone else, simply as "the man." Nobody seems to know who he is.
Roughly the first half of the film is about the police gradually catching on to the smuggling scheme and tracking down the carriers, innocent though the carriers may be. It's not dull. It's just familiar. We've all seen police procedurals. And there's nothing particularly interesting about either Warner Baxter or Emile Meyer as the two cops grimly carrying out their investigation.
The two hoods, shortly joined by local wheel man Richard Jaekel, are a different matter. The soft-spoken elderly ("almost 50") Robert Keith seems to be in charge. He teaches the younger Wallach to use the subjunctive mood when speaking. "If I were to do that..." instead of, "If I was to do that ..." Some have found a homoerotic subtext in their relationship but, if it's there, it slipped by my apperceptive apparatus. Keith also reins in Wallach, who has a propensity for using the silenced .38 Smith and Wesson he carries around. A silencer was a novelty at the time and some attention is given to it in inserts and in dialog. The director was to move on to bigger silencers in "The Killers" (1964), and monumental weapons in "Dirty Harry."
The first carrier, the one who was paid to smuggle in a statue, has accidentally stumbled across the stash and he tries to extort an additional thousand dollars from Wallach. That was a big mistake.
Wallach shows up at the mansion of the second innocent and tells the Chinese house boy that there's been an error in the luggage department and he, Wallach, must now retrieve the cutlery set that the mansion's owner picked up. The houseboy objects strenuously. Another mistake.
The third stash has been hidden away in a Japanese doll and brought in by a mother and her little daughter. Keith and Wallach insinuate themselves into the mother's good graces and get into her apartment at the Mark Hopkins, only to find that the girl has used the heroin to powder her dollie's pure white face.
The mother and daughter don't get killed. They're taken hostage and driven to the drop site where Wallach will try to explain to "the man" that the third stash is gone for good. And if the man doesn't believe Wallach, he can check with the mother and daughter who are being held in the car outside.
Wallach's confrontation with the man is splendidly staged. The man, in a bit of wildly imaginative casting, is Vaughn Taylor, a non-offensive character actor who is usually seen as a postman or office clerk or some young lady's father. He slowly rolls to the drop site in a wheelchair. There are multiple close ups of Taylor's impassive face staring dead ahead as Wallach leans on his shoulder and tries desperately to explain the situation. Taylor sits silently until finally, when Wallach is finished, he has a couple of lines. The first is, "You're dead." And the second includes, "Nobody sees me." This failure to grasp the significance of events outrages Wallach. You may have seen Richard Widmark push an old lady down the stairs in "Kiss of Death." Here you have the opportunity to watch Wallach shove a man in a wheelchair off a balcony and see him drop fifty feet to his death.
There's a problem with the casting though. Eli Wallach is a decent enough actor but he's best when he's part of an ensemble or in an ancillary role. Here he's forced to pretty much carry the last third of the film but his pockmarked face and chipmunk teeth fall just short of being interesting enough for the job. A few close shots of Wallach go a long way.
The ending involves another car chase around the streets of San Francisco. It's a beautiful little city, only sixty-four square miles, and even its seedier parts are colorful. But this pursuit is in accelerated motion and, after "Bullet", all car chases in the city look a little insignificant.