BY NICHOLAS ANEZ
The 1970 film Darker Than Amber should have been a huge commercial success. It
should have been the start of a major film franchise. It should have elevated
Rod Taylor to the ranks of the era’s top action stars. None of these expectations
were realized despite the fact that the movie expertly combines mystery,
action, drama and romance with a unique protagonist.
The movie is based on the seventh in a series
of 21 novels written by John D. MacDonald between 1964 and 1985 featuring Travis
McGee, a self-described beach bum who lives on a houseboat called The Busted Flush in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida. When not enjoying his sporadic retirement, he works as a “salvage
consultant†in return for half of the value of whatever he retrieves for
clients. Though he is not an official detective, he possesses intrinsic investigative
skills and is an enemy to evildoers. On occasion, he may offer his services pro
bono because he is also a knight-errant, though one with sullied armor. His
best friend is Meyer Meyer, an economist who lives in a nearby cabin cruiser
and who provides him with periodic philosophical advice.
Darker
Than Amber
was the first and last appearance of Travis McGee on cinema screens. The film’s
box office failure may have been due in part to the inexperience of the
relatively new studios that produced and distributed it. National General
Pictures began distributing films in 1967, including their own productions as
well as movies from Cinema Center Films, the recently-formed subsidiary of the
CBS Television Network. NGP released McGee’s film debut, which was produced by
CCF, with meagre publicity and it disappeared quickly from theaters. (CCF
ceased production in 1972 and NGP stopped distributing films in 1973; Warner
Bros. subsequently acquired the rights to all of NGP’s movies.)
As Darker
Than Amber begins, McGee and Meyer are fishing in a skiff underneath a
bridge when his line gets snagged by a woman who has been thrown over with
weights tied to her feet. Travis saves her life and brings her back to his
houseboat. Her name is Evangeline Bellemer and she is consumed with shame and
guilt due to a shady past. Her despair combined with her stoic acceptance of
pain intrigues McGee who becomes romantically involved with her. Unwisely, she
makes the fatal mistake of leaving the houseboat to retrieve money from her
apartment. McGee is infuriated by her fate as well as that of his friend, Burk,
from whom he rented the skiff. His ensuing investigation leads him to Terry,
Griff and Adele, a trio of crooks who used Vangie in a scam that victimized men
on cruise ships. McGee hatches a plan of revenge with the help of Meyer and
Merrimay, an actress who resembles Vangie. The plan will take him to Miami, to
Nassau and back to Florida. But he underestimates his adversaries who will kill
anyone that stands in their way. After Griff outfoxes him, he is only saved
from a shallow grave by the appearance of a stray pup. And when his plan to
manipulate Adele fails, he finds that he is no match for the ferociously demented
Terry who proceeds to beat the living daylights out of him.
This was the first movie that Robert Clouse
directed and it is an auspicious debut. Unlike many films in which the location
photography serves as a travelogue, Clouse and cinematographer Frank Phillips authentically
capture Florida’s leisurely sleaze along with its stunning splendor. He also utilizes
peripheral characters to good effect, a good example being the diner scene with
the maid Nicole. However, Clouse excels with the action sequences which are further
enhanced by the credible exposition of the principle characters. Not only are McGee
and Vangie well-defined but Terry and Griff also emerge as atypical villains courtesy
of brief vignettes. Because of this, the inevitable clashes are not just
exercises in wanton violence. While McGee’s bout with Griff is exciting, it is
only a prelude to his eagerly-anticipated fracas with Terry. This bareknuckle brutal
fight, which begins on the cruise ship and ends on the pier, is a thrillingly
staged, bone-breaking, blood-splattering, vessel-bursting battle between two
equally-pitiless antagonists whose only desire is to pummel the life out of one
another.
In the screenplay credited to Ed Waters, the
novel’s title loses its source. In the novel, Vangie is Eurasian and has dark
hair and dark eyes with “irises a strange yellow-brown, just a little darker
than amber.†In the movie, Vangie is blonde and no mention is made of her eyes.
Then again, the title could pertain to the movie if it refers to something that
is quite prominent in the fight sequence: blood. (According to the biography of
John D. MacDonald, The Red Hot Typewriter,
MacDonald disliked the script and contributed to major uncredited revisions
with executive producer Jack Reeves.) Basically, the script follows the novel’s
plotline fairly closely, one exception being McGee’s affair with Vangie, who elicits
more sympathy than the novel’s callous prostitute. The ending of the film is also
more poignant than that of the novel in which McGee is relatively unchanged by
his experiences. In the film, the bruised and battered McGee looks sadly out to
the sea, unable to forget the woman whose life he saved but whose death he was
unable to prevent.
Rod Taylor began his Hollywood career in the
1950s and paid his dues with numerous supporting roles. He achieved fame in the
early 1960s with The Time Machine and
The Birds. By mid-decade, starring
roles in movies like Young Cassidy
and Hotel solidified his star status.
As Travis McGee, he doesn’t match MacDonald’s description of McGee’s 6-feet 4-inch
height or have his sandy hair but he skillfully transmits his weather-beaten
look and laid-back attitude. Similarly, he fully captures McGee’s indisputable virility
tinged with a hint of vulnerability. He is equally convincing when he is gentle
with friends and when he is violent with enemies. Taylor’s performance is on
the mark but was unable to prevent the downward course of his career. After the
box office disappointment of many of his movies, including such worthy films as
Dark of the Sun aka The Mercenaries and The High Commissioner aka Nobody
Runs Forever, his star diminished. The failure of Darker Than Amber propelled him into secondary roles and
television.
Suzy Kendall as both Vangie and Merrimay creates
two distinct characters, the former crushed by life, the latter embracing life.
Theodore Bikel precisely conveys Meyer’s personal warmth as well as his detached
intellectualism. James Booth as McGee’s loyal but ill-fated friend Burk (who is
not in the novel) and Jane Russell as the Alabama Tigress (her late husband Tiger
was a character in other McGee novels) make brief but effective appearances. Robert
Phillips is so nastily menacing as the narcissistic Griff that it is
regrettable that he exits the movie relatively early. Janet MacLachlan as
Nicole and Anna Capri as Adele add different types of spice to the story. But
it is William Smith who is chillingly memorable as Terry; with his bleached
blonde hair, he deftly projects an icy façade that is clearly on the verge of
exploding at any moment into bursts of murderous rage, which are terrifying to
see when they do occur. Incidentally, the McGee/Terry fight reportedly turned
into an actual brawl. After one actor accidentally hit the other actor (it is
not known who struck first), Taylor and Smith began really slugging it out.
Smith reports that he broke Taylor’s nose and Taylor broke three of Smith’s
ribs.
Darker
Than Amber
appeared at the midpoint between the 1960s and 1970s and is one of that era’s many
unheralded but notable genre films. It should have been the equivalent of Dr. No. National General Pictures and
Cinema Center Films lacked the commitment and the resources to provide Travis
McGee with a second effort to connect with the public. Many of the McGee novels
would have made terrific movies and it is unfortunate that Rod Taylor never
starred in Dress Her in Indigo, Free Fall in Crimson (this novel’s
villain, Dirty Bob, defines evil) and The
Green Ripper.
Adding insult to injury, Darker Than Amber has never been officially released on DVD. After
its initial appearance in theaters, National
General re-edited the film for television viewings and removed excessive violence,
especially pertaining to the McGee/Terry fight. This television version was
later released on VHS. There is a DVD on the market which is derived from the
edited video cassette tape and should be avoided. However, DVD-R versions of
the uncensored film derived from European prints and of varying quality are
available from several websites.
Darker
Than Amber
deserves full restoration to its original glory and an official DVD release.