Kaleidoscope (1996) How could we not fall hopelessly in love with this movie?
It's got Swingin' England at the the height of its pop culture dominance of the entire world......the home of James Bond, the Beatles, and Carnaby Street mini-skirts and go go boots......
It's got Warren Beatty at the very peak of his young rakish charm.
It's got world-class British starlet Susannah York playing the most impossibly adorable Manic Pixie Dreamgirl.......
It's got a teeming roster of virtually every working British character actor available at the time.....including Eric Porter as 'Dominion' a reptilian Bond-ish baddie with a literal Napoleonic complex....(he's coiffed exactly like his favorite emperor......)
And finally, the movie slickly ties all these elements together with an incredulous but fun gimmick......with adventurous playboy Beatty finding a unique way to clean up at Baccarat games in all the posh European casinos......
How? He breaks into the warehouse of Kaleidoscope Playing Cards and marks the master plates used to print the decks. Hence with a powerful enough set of glasses to see the markings, he knows everybody's cards as they're about to play them........woo-hoo.
Manic Pixie York, however, is doing a favor for her Scotland Yard daddy (Clive Revill) by recruiting an unwitting Beatty into bankrupting the evil Porter via a high stakes poker game......(yes, kiddies, a genuine 'Casino Royale' showdown).....)
After all, with Beatty's pre-marked cards, how could he lose? And then the pseudo-Bond fun really begins, cause Porter's 'Dominion' is no one to mess with.......earlier in the film, he wipes out a betraying minion with a flamethrower......ouch.
We do realize that this movie's a trifling bauble and a relic of its time, but what an entertaining bauble it is, a perfect snapshot of the kind of fluffy, light than air stuff that permeated the swingin' 60's. It existed only to provide pure fun and did the job well.
Everything's in place here, the dazzling Maurice Binder main titles, a sprightly music score from Stanley Myers, and that killer British cast......(even First Official Bond Villain Anthony Dawson turns up for minute.....)
And when Susannah York goes dreamily starry-eyed when she suddenly realizes she and Beatty are love.......well, you had us at hello.
If you need to take a breather from this troubled world, you couldn't ask for a better escape. 4 stars (****)......a full house of capering hijinks.
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