I never saw The Key to Rebecca, but I seem to remember a preview of it on television in which a guy is tied up to a post and is getting his face carved up with a fork. Does this happen in the movie, or am I imagining things?
shareIt's in a bar, he's not tied up, just held, and the item used to carve his face is a broken liquor bottle.
shareSince I am a huge fan of Cliff Robertson (an Academy Award winner: Best Actor 1968 for Charly), a fan of David Soul (who in addition to the fabulous series Starsky and Hutch, also starred in a disastrous 1983 television remake of Casablanca), and enjoyed the beautiful Season Hubley when she played Priscilla Presley opposite Kurt Russell's Elvis in 1979, I felt I could not miss this.
At the time this aired on the local network affiliate in 1985, the viewers were forewarned with repeated (and highly appropriate) Viewer Discretion Advised suggestions. This, however, did not prevent a storm of protests from some mothers who were outraged that the belly-dancing villainess (mistress of the Nazi played by Soul) decided to slide between the sheets with the villain (Soul) and the heroine (Hubley).
The acting was great, and it was an adaption equal to the screen version of Follett's other gem Eye of the Needle. However, the book was far better, and much more romantic and thrilling. The love scenes in the movie never matched the exquisite intimacy between the hero and heroine on its juicier pages. But David Soul's nasty villain more than matched the evil treachery of the half-German/half-Arab character in the novel. My guess is that because Soul had botched his rendition of Rick Blaine he didn't want to ruin this part. Since this is the only Ken Follett novel that was modeled on Casablanca, it is an astonishingly good (and regrettably long forgotten, underrated) performance, but then again I have never seen a great actor give a bad performance playing a Nazi. Too bad the talented David Soul was never given another great part he could sink his teeth into.