'DARKER THAN AMBER'.....JOHN D. MACDONALD'S HOUSEBOAT KNIGHT-ERRANT GETS A BRUTAL BUT SKIMPY FILM DEBUT....

 Darker Than Amber (1970)  

     A damn shame......that so far, this is the only film adaptation of John D. MacDonald's mystery-adventure series featuring his weathered, two fisted Florida houseboat hero, Travis McGee. 

        McGee, a freelance tracer of missing people and possessions takes on cases that usually pit him against the scariest, most threatening villains MacDonald could imagine......(and remember, this is the writer who dreamed up the dreaded Max Cady of "Cape Fear", played in two film versions by Robert Mitchum and Robert DeNiro)

       MacDonald famously hated this adaptation of one of his 21 McGee novels and though we can see why, we also found some good stuff in this one to talk about.

        Primarily, the film benefits no end from the excellent casting of McGee and his nemesis, the hulking psychotic weightlifter/murderer Terry.  Australian actor Rod Taylor came across as the perfect incarnation of Travis McGee.....rough, tough, but with a soft spot for people in danger and distress. And as Terry, the heavily muscled, towering William Smith ("Conan The Barbarian", "Red Dawn") was a villain straight up from the depths of hell........

       Terry recruits beautiful call girls to hook up with lonely male tourists on cruise ships, after which the girls rob them and Terry the Terrifying tosses the poor saps overboard. Should the girls cross him, they end up in the drink too, usually tied to a block of cement.

       McGee and his accountant/sidekick Meyer(Theodore Bikel) rescue one of the girls (Suzy Kendall, taking a break from her busy career in Euro Horror like "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage"). But Terry offs her leading McGee to an ultimate, wildly brutal brawl with the Incredible Bulk that set a new high bar for movie punch-ups. 

       While not offensively awful, the film's bare bones script by Ed Waters, skimps on everything - dialogue, characterization, dramatic weight. We got the feeling the actors weren't working with a script at all, just a hastily written outline scrawled by a hack who skimmed through the book while waiting for his pizza delivery.

        Given the depth and skilled plotting that John D. McDonald brought to the Travis McGee series, the wasted, botched opportunity here is sad to behold. (more recently, misfired attempts were made to develop the first book in the series "The Deep Blue Goodbye" with Christian Bale as McGee, but nothing came to fruition.)

           We still hope Travis , Meyer and that houseboat, 'The Busted Flush' can make their way back to the movies one day......and done way, way, way better than 'Darker Than Amber'.

           2 stars (**).