Cold Sweat

Cold Sweat (De La Part Des Copains) (1970)

Runtime: 94 minutes

Directed by: Terence Young

Starring: Charles Bronson, Liv Ullmann, James Mason, Jill Ireland, Luigi Pistilli, Jean Topart

From: A few Italian and French companies

A 70’s Bronson I saw more due to me knowing the film for many years rather than critical/viewer opinion. About 1/6 of his films I’ve talked about here on Letterboxd yet I’m always happy for more. Long ago I first heard of this movie and for all this time it was a very easy movie to track down and view; it’s just that the copies were usually of poor quality. Finally, last night I went to YouTube and checked out an upload which was obviously from the Kino Lorber Blu-ray so it did look nice. I know, it’s also available for purchase on the streaming sites…

A Bronson movie directed by Terence Young which also has Liv Ullmann (!), Jill Ireland, Luigi Pistilli & James Mason, a story from Richard Mathison AND has Remy Julienne car chases… sign me the F up! Old Chuck is married to Ullmann, has a 12 year old stepdaughter and his own boat in France so live sounds good for him, right? Well, the chickens have come home to roost as the shady things he was involved with back in the military has those associates looking for payback once they were released from prison. Sounds exciting, right? About that…

The first half was rather enjoyable to me as we get to know all the main players and we see what the scheme is from the villains. The second half, yes it does have some sweet car action courtesy of Julienne as an Opel Commodore zooms all around the city then the rocky French countryside. Regrettably, the film made some narrative decisions which I did not particularly enjoy; of course that’s personal preference but for me the movie lost its way and despite various moments, overall I can “only” say that this was good. I shouldn’t carp too loudly yet with all the talent involved, the pangs of disappointment are still present.