screenman 'Where Eagles Dare' and 'Guns Of Navarone' have proved to be enduring benchmark hokum. Even today, you can't resist a watch. But what both of these Alistair MacLean derived movies have in common is a top-drawer cast, or at least A-list stars in the leading roles. However, this isn't the only issue upon which 'Puppet On A Chain' fails. Apart from the much-vaunted speedboat chase, low budget seems to be written into every take. Nothing actually stands out in my mind, but I just seem to sense economy. With more money and a MacLean script, all manner of Hollywood heavyweights should have been tempted out to play. And let's face it; in 1971 there was no shortage.Instead, the starring role was given to someone who was little more than a wooden-faced extra, with a name most ordinary movie buffs are unlikely to ever have heard. And the rest of the cast appear to have been drawn from the same pool. Only Patrick Allen stands out, but he hardly counts as a movie star. There are one or two unexpected little twists like the lynching of the femme-fatale, but otherwise it's a pretty humdrum affair with very limited and stagy action, an unexceptional script, and TV-movie standard acting and directing. There's also some very hokey sequences like the arch-villain leaving the agent to 'die slowly and nastily' and thereby allowing him a chance to escape in the classic style so eloquently spoofed by 'Dr Evil'. At another time, Patrick Allen shoots this same agent, apparently wounding him. But instead of walking over and putting a bullet through his head just to make sure, he busies himself with an electric loading-winch and chain allowing him time to recover. And if that isn't daft enough; he unwinds the chain all the way to the ground(he's on the 4th floor) and then attempts to clamber down it, instead of using its hook-end as a foot platform and letting the electric motor simply lower him effortlessly to the street. It's gaffs like these that leave you feeling seriously short-changed.Most viewers remember the boat chase, and that is definitely a cinematic high-point. In fact it is so superior in its execution compared to the rest of the movie as to emphasise the other shortcomings. Not surprisingly; a different director handled it. Even so, it could have been a lot better. For example; when one boat crashes heavily into a lock-gate badly damaging the starboard bow, in a later sequence we see the vessel apparently unscathed. And just check-out the crowds of fans gathered along the canal banks and on the bridges. Didn't anybody think to keep them at bay? However; although this sequence is well worth a watch, the rest simply fails to deliver in any regard, be it suspense, story, directing, lighting, or whatever.Generally, not recommended.

Paul Andrews Puppet on a Chain starts in L.A. where three people are killed by a professional hit-man after stealing some imported heroin... American narcotics cop Paul Sherman (Sven-Bertil Taube) is sent to Amsterdam to investigate their murders & the illegal importation of heroin from Holland into the US, a sort of kill two birds with one stone operation. Sherman's contact in Amsterdam Jimmy Duclos (Drewe Henley) is assassinated at Schipol Airport before they even meet so he's on the back foot straight away, then he realises he is being followed so the bad guy's know he's there. He meets his other contact undercover officer Maggie (Barbara Parkins) who says Jimmy's girlfriend might know something & so begins Sherman's dangerous investigation into one of Amsterdam's biggest drug smuggling operations & the people behind it...This British production was directed by Geoffrey Reeve although the end credits say that Don Sharp directed the boat sequence & 'additional scenes' which never sounds great & is a low rent James Bond sort of thing, it's an OK time waster but fairly forgettable when all said & done. The script by Alistair MacLean again with 'additional material' by Don Sharp & Paul Wheeler doesn't quite know what it wants to be & the influence of three different writers all pulling in opposite directions occasionally show's, is it an action film? Well not really because there are only two or three sequences you could describe as action orientated. Is it a thriller? Well again not really as it's not that thrilling or gritty or tough enough. In truth it's somewhere between the two & never quite succeeds at being either, I must admit that Puppet on a Chain has one of the most predictable plot twists I've ever seen. I guessed it within twenty minutes & I was absolutely right, I just thought about how a writer would try & 'surprise' the audience by making the person least likely to be the bad guy turn out to be the bad guy & it's just far too obvious & as a plot device was way past it's sell by date even in 1971! To be fair the writing & lack of decent character's really don't help matters, there is also a strangely out of place moralistic sequence in which Sherman takes a trip around an Amsterdam morgue to look at dead drug addicts for no real reason which I suppose was a message to anyone watching that drugs are bad!Director's Reeve & Sharp do OK, I must admit I love the Amsterdam location as it's unusual & I've been there myself on a few occasions. To be brutally honest it's not the safest place in the world & I speak from personal experience but it can be a pretty cool place all the same, it's just a shame about all the drunks, the people high on drugs & the prostitution the three of which can make for volatile situations... The action is brief here & not really worth mentioning apart from a 10 minute long boat chase through the canal's of Amsterdam, this may initially sound exciting but when you have one boat in front & another one behind chasing it it becomes tedious quickly as there's not much else happening. The violence is tame & the best scene in the film the opening long continuous shot of the assassin driving up to a house, entering it & killing three people inside in one swift camera movement. There's also a silly James Bond moment when a villain instead of just killing Sherman there & then he rigs an elaborate trap for Sherman in which he is going to die from the high pitched sounds made by chiming clocks! Sherman manages to escape James Bond fashion too.Technically the film is alright, the locations are nice enough & it has reasonable production values throughout. It's filmed in a bland sort of way, it's watchable but forgettable. The acting is alright by a largely unknown, by me anyway, cast.Puppet on a Chain is an OK James Bond type action thriller that doesn't quite come off as exciting or thrilling & it is one of the most predictable films I've ever seen with one of the most obvious twists. Nothing special.

Mitch-228 Back in the early 1970's the name "Alistair MacLean" meant "bums on seats ~ ticket sales" and the cinematic release of one of his most recent novels "Puppet on a Chain" was no exception.It is wrong to compare this action movie (as with many, many others) with the on-going JB007 franchise: this was a formulaic movie in its own field. The action scenes are great, the storyline was then bang up-to-date and the general production (if marred a little by lack of budget) of a high standard.Contrary to other views, in my opinion, the leading actor Sven Bertil-Taube was excellent in the role (a shame the script required him to be an American agent) and he was well supported by several character (if rather stock) actors. Pehaps Barbara Perkins was not the best choice as leading lady and her character lacked realism but then this was never meant to be anything other than entertainment.Contains a superb score by the Maestro: Piero Piccioni.Far from perfect but still very good and worthy of a decent DVD release.

Garber Why - with the notable exceptions of 'Where Eagles Dare' and 'The Guns of Naverone' - are most films of McClean books so bad?I can only assume that Alistair didn't really care about how the films turned out, because for some reason the producers manage to cut out all the best bits of his books. They did it with 'Ice Station Zebra' and they do it here. They turn one of his darkest and most brutal thrillers into a slow and uninvolving 'action' film. The ominous and sinister Island of drug smugglers totally lacks suspense, and the removal of the scene where the girl is pitchforked (one of the most disturbing and frightening scenes I've ever read) is inexplicable.The guy playing Sherman has all the charisma of Al Gore, and as for the famous boat chase, it is woefull compared with 'Live and let die' or 'Face/Off'.In short, read the book, which is much more exciting, and imagine how good this film could have been.