The Salzburg Connection (1972)

The Age of Commercialism

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Did you people see the same film I saw?

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

What I thought I'd see was a tight spy thriller. What I got was something like a step barely above a Barry Newman TV show. It is all shot in Salzberg, Austria and the scenery is perhaps this films most impressive asset. The script and story are slow and plodding.Anna Karina is here a lot, but the script gives her little to make an impression. Of course, Newman does not get a lot from it either. Karen Jensen does not get a lot of script, but the camera makes her figure look like it was ready for prime time in 1972. Amazingly this beauty did not get a lot of exposure.The plot is a box of Nazi papers naming people responsible for some of the horrible things Nazis did during the war. The information is not easy to get, and there are a lot of curves and people after this box. Not a great film, very dull, and it should have been done better.

Although filmed entirely in and around Salzburg, this is a disappointing adaptation of the novel by Helen MacInnes which I read and thoroughly enjoyed around the time the movie went into production. Yes, I am aware of the conventional wisdom to the effect that a movie should NOT be compared to the book on which it is based. They are two different art forms and it's therefore considered that a movie should not necessarily be a faithful transcription of the book. But that is precisely what is wrong with this adaptation. It is indeed a mirror of the book and as a result is less suspenseful, less intriguing, and far less entertaining.Director Katzin is seemingly unaware of this problem and does absolutely nothing to improve the movie's pace. Instead, he directs the action highlights in a slow-motion, stop-frame manner that admittedly makes then run longer – but with far less impact.However, the ineffective way Katzin handles what should have been the action highlights, is nothing compared to the downright incompetent way he attempts to ram the dialogue scenes down our throats. Mr Katzin is obviously a recruit from TV who knows nothing – but absolutely nothing! – about film-making, I don't know why the producer wasted his money hiring Lambert Hofer to design Karina and Jensen's wardrobe. We never see it. Any shots below shoulder level are rare – and this applies to the whole cast, not just Anna Karina and Karen Jensen.The movie also cries out for reverse shots to relieve the monotonous cutting, but the cutter, John Woodcock, evidently had no choice. Katzin apparently didn't shoot any reverse angles at all.The end result of Katzin's incompetence is a totally boring movie that, whilst certainly faithful to the book, is a real turn-off. Although Helen MacInnes can't be blamed for this unwise adaptation, I've never read any of her novels since.

The Salzburg Connection is based on a novel by Helen MacInnes, and is a rather unoriginal spy thriller with the usual ingredients that characterise practically all early '70s movies within the genre: a convoluted plot, double-crosses, triple-crosses, characters with secrets, and attractive European settings. Barry Newman is actually rather good in the leading role, and is nicely supported by the gorgeous Anna Karina.American lawyer William Mathison (Barry Newman) is vacationing in Switzerland when he is asked by an American publishing firm to go to Salzburg, Austria, to contact a photographer who has written a book about Austrian lakes. Mathison immediately realises that something is amiss when he reaches the photographer's small Salzburg shop and finds the photographer missing, and his anxious wife Anna Bryant (Anna Karina) being protected with near-claustrophobic zeal by her brother Johann (Klaus Maria Brandeur). Johann initially suspects that Mathison is a secret agent and refuses to give him any information. Gradually, though, Mathison realises that Anna's husband has been murdered, having found a chest in an Austrian lake containing a list of Nazi collaborators from WWII. Agents from all over the world, including Russia, Israel, Germany, Austria and America, want to get hold of the chest. Mathison finds himself playing a delicate game of cat-and-mouse, in which he can trust virtually no-one, such as KGB sex-pot Elisa Lang (Karen Jensen) who attempts to seduce him by posing as a free-wheeling American tourist, and elderly Austrian Felix Zauner (Wolfgang Preiss), whose name is on the list because he collaborated with the Nazis during the war in order to save the life of his wife.The film could've been pretty good, but it misses rather too many opportunities. Newman and Karina, as I've already said, are quite good, and Jensen as the KGB lady-spy also registers well. Furthermore, the locations are pleasing to the eye. But other than these scant positives, the film is a somewhat poor affair. Lee H. Katzin directs sloppily, far too frequently punctuating his movie with gimmicky editing techniques such as meaningless freeze-frames and unnecessary slow motion sequences. Katzin also ruins several key scenes by failing to make it clear quite what's going on (e.g. the finale, in which Newman and Preiss approach an abandoned gunnery post on a mountainside, is terribly rushed and seems to make little sense). At a mere 93 minutes, the film tries to cram in a heck of a lot of plotting and counter-plotting, yet too many of the characters are so hurriedly introduced that it's hard to remember who they are or what agency they work for. One scene that I DID like, however, involved Karina being kidnapped by spies and whisked away in their car. Newman - a veteran of earlier car chase movies - takes a shortcut in his own car and manages to get in front of the baddies. In a clever twist on the traditional concept of a car chase, he slows down their getaway by driving so SLOWLY that the police eventually turn up to find out who's holding up the traffic! A rare ingenious moment in an otherwise dull potboiler.

After 'Vanishing Point' and 'Fear Is the Key,' Barry Newman is involved in another auto-chase, but this time with a distinct difference... The baddies, not strictly gangsters but hoodlums with Nazi connections, have kidnapped Anna Karina for some dirty purpose and are driving away with her through busy city streets...Newman, an American lawyer on holiday in Salzburg, finds himself suspected by spies of both sides... He chases the kidnap-car by continually managing to get in front of it (the high speed scenes), then slowing down to cause a traffic jam and attract the attention of the police...Klaus Maria Brandauer makes his film debut here, before his appearance in 'Mephisto,' Oscar Winner for Best Foreign Film in 1981...