'BLINDFOLD'.........CLAUDIA AND ROCK DRAIN THE SWAMP......

Blindfold (1966)  BQ desperately needed a break from hearing about the horrors overseas and the ongoing horror occupying the White House.......so we turned the clock back 51 years to this fluffy little comedy thriller that rolled off the Universal studios assembly line.....

                "Blindfold", fun as it is, never really finds a tone to settle on, veering from low grade sitcom slapstick to fights and shootouts........visually it's all over the place, starting with beautiful on location filming in New York's Central Park, then back to standard backlot sets. Unlike Universal's crisply serious black-and-white Gregory Peck thriller "Mirage" from a year earlier, "Blindfold" simply wants to make you smile and tries throwing anything up on the screen to do it,  It constantly shifts gears whenever it wants you to take it seriously.....but our advice: don't bother to worry about these characters....nothing bad's going to happen to them, so sit back and enjoy the ride.....

                 Rock Hudson plays a philandering New York shrink recruited by a mysterious NSA officer  (Jack Warden)  to go back to treating one of Hudson's old patients, a depressed scientist. Since the science guy has been targeted by international kidnappers, the NSA has him squirreled away somewhere in a top secret safe house, deep in a Southern swamp. Warden, obsessed with security, keeps Hudson on a strictly need-not-to-know agenda,  blindfolding the shrink as he's spirited down south by plane and car to treat his patient.....

                 Further complicating Rock's life.....the sick scientist's worried sister, played by world-class bombshell Claudia Cardinale, off-the-charts sexy, funny and with that deep throaty voice to die for....

                After we stop drooling over Claudia, let's take minute to staunchly praise the under-appreciated Rock Hudson.  In the history of deeply closeted gay leading men, none of them excelled as a well as Hudson in striking heterosexual sparks and chemistry with his leading ladies. Hudson and Cardinale alternately bicker and cuddle like a true romantic comedy odd couple....the tall over-confident American Hunk up against the feisty Italian firecracker. (In fact, they teamed again for an obscure, little seen Italian made heist caper, "A Fine Pair" in the 70's, which we promise to re-visit if we can ever find a copy....maybe we'll have to raid Claudia's basement to find one....)

                 The plot finally transports our lovebirds down to Swampyville, or whatever it's called.....and all the expected sight gags roll out, involving alligators, kicking mules and quicksand.....(in Hollywood fashion, the gators show no interest in Hudson and Cardinale, preferring to munch on the bad guys....)

                In case you haven't guessed already, all ends well......and as "The End" comes up on the screen, we wistfully sigh again, longing for the days when studios were in the business of making plentiful supplies of entertaining movies of all varieties......unlike every weekend today, where each studio steps up like a drunken Vegas high roller, placing 200 million dollar bets on a single movie.  The BQ'll take the simple pleasures of "Bllindfold" over any 165 minute CG-Eyesore......4 stars (****) especially for Claudia Cardinale, who's our kind of Special Effect.....