robert-temple-1 This is a good 'rainy afternoon film'. It is harmless, entertaining and well made. It was directed by old pro Richard Thorpe. Robert Taylor plays an independent sailboat owner based on the southern coast of England (with the script explaining why he is an American) who 'takes people where they want to go'. One day a mysterious man with a briefcase who calls himself Mr. Anselm books his boat for a coastal tour. After setting out, he says he wants instead to go to a port in the Netherlands. Taylor is not supposed to do foreign trips without permission from his harbour master, but as he is offered a substantial amount of money by the man (whose briefcase is stuffed with cash), he agrees. The man says he is Dutch and hence does not normally get seasick, but on this occasion he says he does not feel well at all, and goes to lie down in his cabin. Later when Taylor takes him a cup of tea, he finds the man lying dead on his bed. We later discover that he has been murdered by someone tampering with his insulin supply before boarding, as he was a diabetic. Taylor uses the little key hanging round the man's neck on a chain to open the briefcase, and takes the cash owing to him, leaving the rest intact and shutting the briefcase. In using the key, he accidentally discovers that the man has taped to his chest, under his shirt, a small envelope containing a little hand-drawn map. He puts it back and goes back on deck, to steer into the Dutch harbour. Before he can get there, however, a pretty girl comes up in a small motorboat saying that she is the dead man's daughter. Taylor breaks the news to her and she says she wants to look at her father, and goes down below. Taylor follows her after a while and finds her ransacking the cabin, looking urgently for something. She has pried open the briefcase and is searching everywhere. She runs away, gets back in her boat and goes back into the harbour. Taylor looks and sees that the map is still taped to the man's chest, and that she has missed it. He takes it and hides it in his private stowaway with his gun. He later discovers that the girl was an impostor and was not the dead man's daughter at all. The intrigue deepens as Taylor is taken into custody by the Dutch police and removed to the Hague, where a senior Dutch police inspector is played by a gruff Donald Wolfit. He informs Taylor that the dead man was really a Mr Sluiter, who was head of the Hague Police Force. He had made a secret trip to England as part of a confidential investigation. The plot thickens and thickens and thickens, with villains turning up, some unctuous and rich, some thuggish. The fake daughter gets murdered, and there is menace all around. David Kossof is particularly brilliant as a supporting actor, playing a character named Willem Dekker. He adds a great deal of liveliness to the film. This is all good fun and well recommended.

mrMagik3805 I enjoyed watching this film as I am a big fan of film moire. It is what in a book I would call a page turner. The actors are good their craft, the setting in beautiful. It contains sailing and captains, I am a sailor. My father grew up in Holland and I have visited there just love the country. I like the number of twists in the plot, it kept me wanting to see what's next, then what's next and the double of a role of one of the character was a good technique. The only slightly negative thing I noticed about the film was the plot seemed to be a bit of a veiled cover of "The Maltese Falcon". That movie came out in 1946, and this one in 1959. I don't why that was. Since it is set "across the pond" perhaps the author sold the rights twice. Or the movie producers used their rights twice. Or it is just a remake. Otherwise, bottom line, I enjoyed it and would recommend checking it out.

bkoganbing The year before this film came out Robert Taylor's long term contract came to an end with MGM. His was the longest contract to a studio in film history. There was a clause in his release which gave MGM the option for two more films. With The House Of The Seven Hawks, Taylor did the first of his two films to fulfill that commitment.It was a film like The House Of The Seven Hawks that probably made Robert Taylor think about television as a venue. It's a routine mystery adventure film that would have been done years earlier by MGM's B picture unit.The House Of The Seven Hawks casts Taylor as an American expatriate running a charter schooner service over in Great Britain. A man charters Taylor's boat and asks him to take him to the Netherlands. On the way the man collapses and dies and upon identifying him through his ID as a Dutch police inspector, Taylor feels he's stepped in a nice bucket of fertilizer. Especially since he had no clearance to leave English waters.Now the film would have been over if Taylor had simply left things untouched, but did his duty as a citizen and just reported the death. But no, he finds some cryptic directions taped to the dead man's abdomen and thinks there might be something in it for him. That got him into even a bigger mess involving a gang of former Nazis and a pair of beautiful women.The villains in this film are taken right out of the Maltese Falcon with Eric Pohlman and David Kossoff doing their best as a pair of continental Greenstreet and Lorres. As for beautiful woman number one, Linda Christian is a gal working her own agenda the same way Mary Astor was doing. There are some elements in the story line that could have come from The Maltese Falcon.Beautiful woman number two is Nicole Maurey, daughter of the dead police inspector who thinks Taylor might have done her father in for a while. Donald Wolfit is the Dutch police inspector who takes the case over from Nicole's dad and keeps a close tab on Taylor.Stealing every scene he's in is professional informer Philo Hauser who makes a living at the art of the doublecross.MGM did not even bother to invest The House Of The Seven Hawks with color cinematography. Certainly that would have captured some nice Dutch countryside. The film was the sixth of seven films Robert Taylor did for director Richard Thorpe and the last one for they did for MGM. Seven films with the same director might normally qualify them as a screen team. Thorpe did three of Taylor's best heroic films, Ivanhoe, Knights Of The Round Table, and Quentin Durward. He also did from Taylor's halcyon days at MGM, The Crowd Roars and Tip On A Dead Jockey. They would team up again for Killers of Kilimanjaro, Taylor's next film which was released by Columbia. My guess is that Thorpe and Taylor were a compatible pair and that's why MGM assigned him Taylor's pictures.Not even Robert Taylor's devoted fans would say this was one of his best roles. MGM was simply trying to work out a commitment and didn't invest much in The House Of The Seven Hawks. I'll bet the inducement of shooting in Europe and maybe taking along Ursula Thiess to visit her family on the continent was reason enough to do this film. And Taylor never balked too much at doing anything.A European trip was a good enough reason for accepting any film offer. Still The House Of The Seven Hawks will never be ranked by anyone as one of Robert Taylor's top ten.

saintsday Very disappointing.Taylor was a very good looking man which netted him a good career in Hollywood and this film at least showed that he could swim! His acting ability did'nt amount to much but this film made no demands in that department.