"THE LOST MAN".......POITIER'S LOST MOVIE.......

The Lost Man (1969)

              Given the upheavals, racial strife and murder of Martin Luther King, it's fitting that Sidney Poitier closed out the 1960's with "The Lost Man"......a 360 degree turnabout from his usual roles as noble, decent moral men...…(sometimes close to the angelic...)

               A remake of "Odd Man Out", urban-ized into Philadelphia slums, the film cast Poitier as Jason Higgs, a revolutionary militant battle hardened by years of police brutality and unjust prison stints...….

              Higgs, working for an unnamed 'organization', masterminds a payroll robbery to fund their cause...…..which goes horribly wrong when Higgs loses his steely resolve, ending in the death of a security guard and Higgs and his cohorts on the run from a massive police manhunt.....

              The film first sets itself up as an angry, passionate view of the malaise, racism, poverty and police repression in big city slums...….but halfway through, devolves into a routine, downbeat melodrama, with nothing for Poitier to do but sweat, run, hide and wince from gunshot wounds......aided by his pixie-ish white liberal girlfriend (Joanna Shimkus, who later married Poitier in real life....)

               Still watchable, even if it's the most little-seen and hard to find in Poitier's celebrated filmography. He's superbly intense as usual...…. but everyone expected much more of the film he found himself in......especially one that tapped in to the blazing hot issues of the moment (and still fester today, flames fanned by the racist-in-chief.....).

                 2 stars (**)…..one of those stars going entirely to Quincy Jones' memorable main title theme.....which uses children's nursery rhymes as a counterpoint to the ominous orchestral background. Brilliant.