MovieChat Forums > Mirage (1965) Discussion > Great Mid-Sixties Noir Thriller

Great Mid-Sixties Noir Thriller

posted 18 years ago by ecarle
22 replies | jump to latest

SPOILERS

Cheers to a screenwriter named Peter Stone, who in 1963 penned a clever and exciting Technicolor thriller set in Paris called "Charade" for Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, and in 1965 offered us its "flip side": "Mirage", a black-and-white thriller set in New York City. Gregory Peck is the star of this one, and he's not really given a female co-star on the level of Hepburn; rather, pretty brunette Diane Baker is on hand as a "woman of mystery."

As with "Charade," the spirit of Hitchcock floats over "Mirage," but in some ways this time, even more strongly. Gregory Peck has amnesia (shades of "Spellbound"), many men are chasing him and trying to kill him, and nobody will believe him.

The film opens with a wonderful mystery set-up: the Manhattan skyline at night, all skyscrapers and white lights against a black night sky. Then, one entire skyscraper goes dark (shades of the NYC blackout of '65.) Peck wanders down and down the skyscraper stairwell and ends up levels below the street before coming out ON the street.

Peck has a bunch of questions to answer: Why did the skyscraper go dark? How come later, there are no sub-level stairs there at all? Who's the dead guy who leaped off the skyscraper?

But most importantly: who is he?

Peck doesn't know. The cops can't help him. An ornery shrink doesn't believe him. The "woman of mystery" (Baker) knows...but won't tell him. And some thugs keep trying to kill him.

To Peck's rescue comes Walter Matthau (who was also in "Charade") as one Ted Casselle, a private eye whose first case, it turns out, this is, and who used to be a refrigerator repairman!

Walter Matthau was the top character actor of the early sixties, and "Mirage" offers us his last role AS a character actor. One year later, "The Fortune Cookie" would bring him an Oscar and make him a leading man. Here, Matthau dutifully adds a much-needed note of deadpan humor to the nightmarish proceedings. Peck doesn't treat Matthau too nicely, but Peck's under a lot of pressure. Matthau, for his part, proves pretty good as a private eye after all.

So good a private eye,in fact, that Matthau gets killed. Matthau told the filmmakers that if they killed him off, "Mirage" would lose money at the box office. He was probably right. Matthau is SO likeable in "Mirage" -- when virtually everybody else is not -- that losing him early hurts the movie.

Matthau's murder also plunges Gregory Peck further into a nightmare, without any help at all, which may be the point.

As the mystery clears up and the noose tightens around Peck's neck, we get a host of great subsidiary characters beyond Matthau: George Kennedy (also in from "Charade") is a big brutal thug. Jack Weston is an amiable, chubby little thug (with a psychotic streak; watch out!) Robert Harris is that unhelpful shrink, and Leif Erickson is a fine, upstanding representative of the "military-industrial complex" for whom a little torture and murder now and again is only a matter of good business and national security interest.

And Kevin McCarthy is wonderful as a "booby-boy" kind of New York corporate toady,and Peck's unintentional helper, who finds himself at film's end holding a gun and having to choose between the good guys and the bad guys. "Commit!" Peck yells at him.

(btw: A character having to choose was used by writer Peter Stone in some other movies: in "Charade," Hepburn must choose between shady Cary Grant and CIA man Walter Matthau; in "1776," a colonist legislator must choose between the U.S. and Britain in voting for the Declaration of Independence. Commit!)

"Mirage" feels like Hitchcock in some ways, but also plays like a mid-sixties update of 1940's noir. Greg Peck has to go down some pretty mean streets and we get to see New York before blackouts occurred regularly, and the World Trade Towers were built. Quincy Jones score is a nice mix of the scary, the hip, and the lushly romantic (for Peck really would like to have a relationship with the lovely Diane Baker, if she would just switch sides from the baddies.)

What sells "Mirage" for me are its very witty script (Gregory Peck is pretty funny in this movie) and its great array of character actors, led by Walter Matthau saying goodbye to below-the-title billing (though he gets that special billing: "And Walter Matthau as Ted Casselle.")

Find "Mirage." You'll enjoy it.

P.S. Writer Peter Stone and Walter Matthau would reunite one more time for a New York City thriller, this time with Matthau as the star: the great "Taking of Pelham 123" (1974.)

[–] rorysa 18 years ago

Stone co-wrote "Arabesque" right after this.

[–] ecarle 18 years ago

...and, I think, took his name off of it.

"Arabesque" is Stanley Donen's follow-up to "Charade," and follows Edward Dymtryk's "Mirage." Similar sounding names.

I liked "Arabesque" a lot, but Stone must have had some problems with how his script was treated.

That one's Gregory Peck (again) but matched with a female star (Sophia Loren) in a much more chase-oriented thriller than "Charade."

[–] rorysa 18 years ago

Maybe in part because I saw "Arabesque" in its initial theatrical release, unlike "Charade," I have always liked "Arabesque" a little more than "Charade." For one thing, I think Alan Badel in "Arabesque" is one of the all-time greatest screen villains.

[–] ecarle 18 years ago

"Charade" (1963)
"Mirage" (1965)
"Arabesque" (1966)

Three great thrillers from the sixties that put a lot of today's thrillers to shame, plot-wise. Each different in its own way, each threaded by Peter Stone's wit and construction skills.

Perhaps because Donen didn't have the older Cary Grant and the rather cerebral-sexy waif Audrey Hepburn, "Arabesque" relies more heavily on chases and fights and action. Peck and Loren are presented as a perfectly matched pair of tall, fit, sturdy beautiful people -- and Sophia rides a horse with great skill. The scene where a fully clothed Peck hides in Loren's shower is sexy and funny -- and suspenseful, what with the evil Alan Badel trying to woo Loren from the other side of the curtain.

Alan Badel is a great villain in "Arabesque," very ruthless and elegant.
Henry Mancini's opening theme for "Arabesque" is very thrilling, exotic and "muscular."

One interesting thing, I think, about "Mirage" and "Arabesque," (versus "Charade.") These two later films come later in the sixties and reflect less "formal" Hitchcockian techniques than those used in "Charade". The "new wave" of filmmaking was underway, James Bond was influential, and the counterculture was right around the corner.

"Mirage" uses tons of Gregory Peck's flashbacks -- both to things we don't understand and things we saw EARLIER in the movie -- to nicely capture how our minds work. Memories are always flashing up.

"Arabesque" finds Stanley Donen in a rather wild and psychedelic mood: crazy camera angles, distorted lens, Mod colors.

I like all three of these films. "Mirage" seems the least well-known and available; it is rather tight and grim. But its well worth seeing.

P.S. To help "Mirage" in its initial 1965 release, the movie was sent out with "Psycho" attached as a second feature in many theaters.

[–] rorysa 18 years ago

The only thriller in recent years I can think of off the top of my head that even approaches those three films is "Memento" (I am not counting this year's "United 93" and "World Trade Center," two good films, as thrillers).

You touched on something else that sets them apart: OUTSTANDING Main Title themes by Mancini, Jones, and Mancini, respectively.

Donen says he tricked-up the shots in "Arabesque" in an attempt to divert attention from the fact the story made no sense. It doesn't, but I watched it for many years without noticing, and though ordinarily that would severely detract from my approval of a thriller, "Arabesque" is the exception.

[–] ecarle 18 years ago

"Memento" is pretty ingenious, and does (as someone else has posted here) harken back to "Mirage" with its flash-cut flashbacks that are an on-going part of the movie: showing how the hero's mind is working all the time.

In some ways, we simply "cannot go back" to the thrillers like "Charade," "Arabesque," and "Mirage." They are designed as fairly light thriller entertainments, with the violence not-too-violent and romance the key center of the film (less so in the nightmarish "Mirage," but Greg gets the girl at the end of that one, too.)

That 60's music is long gone, too. Mancini wrote great thriller music: "Charade," "Arabesque," "Experiment in Terror," "Wait Until Dark." Incredibly, Alfred Hitchcock fired Mancini off of "Frenzy" (1972), and replaced Mancini's score with a most pedestrian substitute.

[–] rorysa 18 years ago

Similar to "Torn Curtain," when he ended his relationship with Benny Herrmann--a director/composer combo surpassed only by Spielberg/Williams.

[–] DowntonR1 18 years ago

Does the 1965 thriller 'Blindfold' fit in with the above three films? It stars Rock Hudson, it's on British TV tomorrow afternoon. It seems to be in the same territory as the above three.

[–] ecarle 18 years ago

Coming in late, but, yes "Blindfold" was part of this type of film in the mid-sixties, except it lacked something crucial: a Peter Stone script. The plot was not nearly as nifty or gripping as those other ones, IMHO. Nonetheless, Rock Hudson and Claudia Cardinale did what they could to uphold the tradition: a suave male star, a sexy female star, some thrills.

Still, it was part of the Univeral package of mid-sixties "imitation Hitchcock" thrillers. Oddly, Hitchcock's "Torn Curtain," (1966) also from Universal, DIDN'T fit the group. It was more dramatic and grisly than the group above. And Paul Newman and Julie Andrews were a mismatched couple versus Grant and Hepburn, Peck and Loren.

[–] PeterBlues 11 years ago

i'm always surprised whenever i see an old movie of someone watching wrestling on tv, because i thought that entertainment didn't break through big until the 80's. maybe its just me, but i thought matthau and peck had such weak chemistry between them it was like watching two different movies when they were together on the screen. i'm not fussy about picture quality and all that, but this seemed like pretty poor on that field for a 1965 flick with major stars in it.

in a world of steel,
you broke through and melted me,
and showed me the way,
to break out of the concrete clay,
and made me see,
through the eye of steel.

[–] bobbyf 17 years ago

What about "Manchurian Candidate?" (Frank's version, puhleease!)
Or "North by Northwest?"

Those definitely fit in with this genre.

Remember: no matter where you go, there you are. - Buckaroo Banzai

[–] ecarle 16 years ago

Absolutely.

"Mirage" is perhaps a bit closer to "The Manchurian Candidate" -- black-and-white, a generally bleak and nightmarish feeling, brutal.

"North by Northwest" is rather a nightmare for Cary Grant, but a FUN one for us.

[–] praxistens 17 years ago

"Mirage" is my favorite of them all, maybe because I saw it first: apparently, it didn't do so good @the box office, because NBC was running it on its "Saturday Night at the Movies" gig by '67 or '68. Seeing it 30 years later, I thought Robert ("I'm a consulting psychiatrist, not an analyst.") Harris's turn as the obsessive-compulsive psychiatr. (washing his hands when Peck enters, washing them when he leaves) was a masterstroke. George Kennedy was definitely spooky as the heavy, & I always thought Diane Baker was a fox (& remember, so did Hannibal Lecter in "Silence of the ...").

"Arabesque" was too disjointed for me: truly, looks like the crew lost interest mid-way thru the shooting. "Charade" had a popular theme, but maybe I'm the only one that doesn't think Grant & Hepburn worked well together; besides he was better @suspense in "North by N.W.," & she was better in "Wait Until ..."
51depasser

[–] miles_meservy 17 years ago

For those living in and around Los Angeles, MIRAGE is playing on Saturday, January 20 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood as part of their "Overlooked and Underappreciated" series.

[–] ecarle 17 years ago

Damn, I wish I could have seen that on the big screen with an audience looking to appreciate it.

Anybody go?

P.S. Trivia: a different thriller, "North by Northwest" opened and played quite awhile at the Egyptian in 1959.

[–] greenleafie 17 years ago

Peter Stone is also responsible for the scripts of Father Goose and 1776. They're not thrillers, but both very much worth seeing.

[–] ecarle 17 years ago

SPOILERS for Charade, Mirage, and 1776:

Stone won the Best Screenplay Oscar for "Father Goose," in which Cary Grant played against type as an unshaven drunk during WWII, and made a witty acceptance speech:

"I'd like to thank Cary Grant,who keeps winning these things for other people."

As for 1776, though it is not a thriller per se, it shares with the thrillers Charade and Mirage something very similar:

At the climax, a character has to CHOOSE between one side or the other.

In "Charade", Audrey Hepburn must choose between Cary Grant (who seems to be the villain) and Walter Matthau (who seems to be the hero.)

In "Mirage," corporate lackey Kevin McCarthy must choose to stay with the bad guys or switch sides to good guy Gregory Peck ("Commit!" Peck demands of the vacillating McCarthy.)

In "1776," some final delegate must choose between America and England in the vote on the Declaration of Independence.

In all three climactic sequences, Peter Stone demonstrates the pressures and responsibilities of making a decision, and "going with your heart."

[–] rorysa 17 years ago

The goofy Academy struck again. The screenplays for "Charade," "Mirage," and yes, "Arabesque" were quite superior to "Father Goose."

[–] ecarle 17 years ago

True. But just to know Peter Stone got SOMETHING is solace enough. (I think he shared co-writer credit on "Father Goose" with some old-timer who had buddies at the Academy.)

And Stone gave that great speech about Cary Grant.

And...a lot of Grant's banter with Trevor Howard is pretty funny stuff.

[–] movieghoul 13 years ago

I attended an interview with Peter Stone where Arabesque came up. According to Stone, he was not the original scriptwriter, and the original script was considered unfilmmable and he was called in to do a complete rewrite. This had to be done on a tight deadline, and he needed to incorporate the original charcters (since actors had been contracted for), as well as the already produced sets and costumes. Stanley Donen told him not to worry much about cohesiveness.

I also agree that the CharadeMirageArabesque style can't be duplicated today, although at least they're still trying in Europe, from which we've gotten recently Tell No One and The Double Hour, both well worth seeing.

[–] ecarle 13 years ago

I'll have to look for those foreign films.

The mainstream thriller simply got too violent and grisly to duplicate the tone of "Charade" and "Mirage" (and of most of Hitchcock's less violent output.)

I always see 1976's "Marathon Man" as the turning point. Big budget, starry cast(Hoffman, Olivier, Scheider), nifty thriller plot about an innocent man versus professional spies -- but downright gruelling and horror-movieish in its violence.

One little-known attempt -- with an actual Peter Stone script -- to duplicate "Charade" in the 70's was "Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?"(1978) from a novel called "Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe"(or was it vice versa?).

Attempting to fill the shoes of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn were...George Segal and Jacqueline Bisset. And in 1978, they almost COULD. Both were major stars, Bisset had just hit big with "The Deep," and Segal had a VERY Cary Grantish way with a suave wisecrack and a frustrated reaction shot.

As a big fan of George Segal(for his persona) and Jackie Bisset(for her babeness) at that time, not to mention as a fan of Peter Stone, I rushed to see "Great Chefs" and I recall that it just couldn't bring that "Charade" feeling back. The 70's were not the sixties; the film stock and cinematography were grittier than what the early sixties plushness had been. The lines were good but I can't really remember the movie today at all. Other than it being a good but not good enough "Charade charade."

---

"Arabesque" is entertaining in its own way -- I think the Henry Mancini score is far more exciting and "big" in this one than in "Charade" -- but Peter Stone was probably right to use a fake name as screenwriter. It rarely plays as well as "Charade" or "Mirage." Gregory Peck kept saying to Donen "I'm not Cary Grant" and even though Grant personally recommended Peck when Grant turned down this role...Peck ISN'T Cary Grant. Peck had a streak of "iron righteousness" to his persona that worked for his kind of role, but not this one.

I might add: I don't think Cary Grant would have been good for the lead of "Mirage." "Mirage" is a rather serious and grim nightmare thriller leavened by the humor of the script and the supporting characters. But the nightmare NEEDED someone of Greg Peck's "gravitas" to carry the nastiness of the tale. For instance, I can't see Cary Grant grabbing Diane Baker, holding her head between his hands in a vice grip, and forcing her to look at the murdered body of Joe Turtle("Look! LoooooooooooK!!"). Peck could do that because his righteous and angry persona worked for the action; Grant would not have seemed right in this moment.

[–] jglapin 10 years ago

Agreed!
I have seen this movie about four times since it was released, about every ten years. One of my favorites. Each time I have forgotten most of the plot so it is like watching it anew.

Walter Matthau is just wonderful. The humor his character brings is just what is needed to keep the story from becoming too dark. I cannot imagine any other actor in this role. He was always a pleasure throughout his movie career.

Jack Weston's character is a nice counterpoint to George Kennedy's "heavy" role. Weston was an under appreciated actor during his career.

I cannot wait to forget about this movie in order to watch it one more time in another ten years... should I live so long!