They really don’t make many like this anymore. We’re talking about high budget adventures in an international setting, combined with romance and a few laughs. Hollywood used to specialize in international glamour, but nowadays in big budget movies Americans go abroad mainly to slaughter or be slaughtered. Gambit, which starred Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine, and opened nationwide in the U.S. today in 1966, falls into the same category as Charade, To Catch a Thief, The Thomas Crown Affair, How To Steal a Million, Bedtime Story, and numerous other immensely pleasing cinematic excursions. Too bad those are far better films.
Caine plays a con man who has found in MacLaine the physical double of the dead wife of Ahmad Shahbandar, the richest man in the world. Shahbandar’s wife was in turn the virtual double of the ancient Burmese queen Li Szu. Shahbandar has an immensely valuable carved bust of this queen, which he bought for its resemblance to his wife. Caine hopes that once Shahbandar gets a look at MacLaine, he’ll let his guard down and invite them into his inner circle, setting himself up for a theft of the bust. If this plot premise seems a bit cluttered to you, we thought the same.
But it doesn’t matter because it’s not really the main gimmick in the flick. That would be Caine’s fantasy of his perfect crime, versus its reality. In his imagining, which makes up the first thirty minutes of the film, MacLaine goes through the motions of the heist like a mute automaton. Then the film restarts with the real MacLaine, and this one talks. Worse for Caine, she has questions, doubts, and, most upsetting of all, opinions. If half an hour of Caine imagining the perfect crime—especially when as a viewer you have no idea it’s a fantasy—seems overly long, we thought the same. Again. But we mention it specifically to keep you from turning the film off, which is definitely a possibility for any MacLaine fans dismayed that she’s trancewalking through her role. Stick with it and you’ll get the same lively star from The Apartment, Irma la Douce, and other hits.
Obviously, we wouldn’t have placed this movie in the same category as Charade et al unless there’s romance, and MacLaine and Caine—whose names, by the way, sound like a country band or a Vegas magic duo—duly fall in love. But you won’t buy it. The script says they fall in love, so okay, by the three-quarters mark they adore each other, but the love spark is never there. Luckily there’s also a heist, some comedy, and all the other trimmings of the adventure/romance genre, so despite the film’s shortcomings you may find it enjoyable. Then after you finish you can watch any of the movies we mentioned at top and note the difference when this formula is well executed.
Hi, I’m not Eurasian but I get to pretend I am in this movie.
What a coincidence. I get to pretend I’m Arab.
Hi, guess what? I’m white too, but Sikh and you shall find!
And me? I basically get to play myself, because, well, I’m Michael frickin’ Caine. Plus I can’t do accents.
