Written by James M. Tate / 7/26/2022 / No comments / british , crime , dark comedy , david warner , heist , neo noir , quirky , seventies , stanley baker , ursula andress
STANLEY BAKER AND DAVID WARNER HEIST IN 'PERFECT FRIDAY'
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| Title: PERFECT FRIDAY Year: 1970 Rating: ***1/2 |
In the stylish and quirky British bank-heist comedy PERFECT FRIDAY the most offbeat aspect is the editing, providing non-linear time sequences where uptight banker Stanley Baker meets with a flaky Lord played by David Warner in a museum... a single conversation randomly spliced throughout the first twenty-minutes as we get to know Baker's dull banking desk job... until Ursula Andress walks in...
Visually Baker's proper/classy role is to the tough guy actor what THE THOMAS CROWNE AFFAIR was to Steve McQueen, only his Mr. Graham has very little money,.. as does a perpetually-broke Warner in an almost sexless marriage to Andress, making for the usual "who'll backstab who?" criminal trio, common in this genre...
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| Ursula Andress and Stanley Baker in PERFECT FRIDAY |
The problem is also what works throughout the first half as director Peter Hall provides a creatively choppy rhythm that deletes any superfluous moments... none of the conversations between the three members (always two at a time) lasts longer than needed to provide just-enough exposition to move the story forward...
But the idiosyncrasies eventually exhaust the heist-at-hand, making Andress's potential fatale, Baker's Henry Higgins-type and Warner's odd-man-out get lost in the director's frantic process, ultimately feeling more like an overlong (though nicely constructed) movie trailer than a sparse 90-minute caper.
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| David Warner and Stanley Baker in PERFECT FRIDAY |
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| David Warner and Stanley Baker in PERFECT FRIDAY |
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| Ursula Andress and Stanley Baker in PERFECT FRIDAY |
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| Stanley Baker in PERFECT FRIDAY |
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| Ursula Andress in PERFECT FRIDAY |
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| Ursula Andress in PERFECT FRIDAY |
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| Stanley Baker and David Warner in PERFECT FRIDAY |
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| David Warner in PERFECT FRIDAY |
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| from PERFECT FRIDAY |
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| Ursula Andress in PERFECT FRIDAY |
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