Though not quite a classic, director Michael Winner's Scorpio is still an underrated espionage thriller that was well attuned to the political cynicism of its time. Burt Lancaster plays Cross, a CIA operative who dates back to the agency's earliest days as the OSS. Scorpio (Alain Delon) is a protégé of Cross, and one of Cross's best friends in a netherworld where everyone's allegiances, personal and political, are in question. Higher-ups within the intelligence agency decide that Cross knows too much and is better off eliminated; at first, Scorpio refuses the job until... the CIA frames him on a phoney narcotics bust and coerces him into the assignment. The two men play a game of global cat-and-mouse as Cross consorts with his Russian counterparts--fellow ageing dinosaurs in a young man's game. Cross's links with the Russians go back to the days of the Spanish Civil War and the time when Cross was given the ironic label of "premature anti-Fascist" by the House Unamerican Activities Committee. The incredibly convoluted plot is rife with double-crosses and reverse double-crosses, in an environment in which nothing is quite as it seems and no one is to be trusted. Winner infuses enough energy and excitement into the film's many action segments to make Scorpio worthy of comparison to John Frankenheimer's best political thrillers. The director also throws in several curveballs, such as the zither music during a meeting in a Vienna café (shades of The Third Man) and the preposterous device of disguising Lancaster as an African-American priest. The best line must be "I want Cross, and I want him burned!" --Jerry Renshaw [show more]
We will publish your review of Scorpio [1973] on DVD within a few days as long as it meets our guidelines.
None of your personal details will be passed on to any other third party.
In a chilling scenario of international espionage and intrigue Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon star as two adversaries one a CIA agent the other a French assassin hired to kill him However through circumstances beyond their control both men find themselves fighting for their lives
A Michael Winner Cold-War thriller pre-dating his 'Death Wish' series. Agent Cross (Burt Lancaster) is a CIA operative who is ordered to hire French government assassin Jean Laurier (Alain Delon) to kill an Arab terrorist. The job done, the two men return to their lives, but Cross's boss, McLeod, arrests Laurier as he did not finish the job; he was also supposed to kill Cross. Cross finds out he has a price on his head and flees to Vienna but when his wife is murdered he returns to the US intent on killing both McLeod and Laurier using whatever means he can.
This site uses cookies.
More details in our privacy policy
