Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

bkoganbing If Golden Salamander had been made in the USA some studio back-lot would have sufficed for Tunisia. But this being post World War II in Europe, the British film adventure was made on the actual location with interiors shot in the UK. That's more than could be said for the great Casablanca.In 1950 when this made the French were busy trying to hang on to their colonial empire and not making much of a go at it. Which brings us to the plot of Golden Salamander and how archaeologist Trevor Howard, in Tunisia to retrieve some salvaged Etruscan works gets himself mixed up in arms smuggling. The guy who has his archaeological treasures is Walter Rilla, the same man who is running the arms smuggling. He's also the local big shot in the coastal town where this is all taking place and owns just about everyone.Who to trust is Howard's problem, he's not even sure about the lovely Anouk Aimee, a refugee with brother Jacques Serna from the Nazis who has settled down there, but would like to get back to Paris once she can afford to. Because of the lack of trust involved in our hero's part, Golden Salamander is an action adventure that plays a whole lot like film noir.Herbert Lom is on hand as Rilla's nasty henchmen. No mystery where he's concerned. Until he got to play Inspector Dreyfys in the Pink Panther series, Lom was as reliable a villain as you could find in film. Wilfrid Hyde-White has an interesting part, if this had been done in America, Hoagy Carmichael would have been cast.The title refers to a particular valuable piece of Etruscan art that is the centerpiece of the collection that Rilla is turning over to Howard. Golden Salamander is a nicely packaged action film with a twist of noir that should satisfy anyone.

dougdoepke With her little-girl voice and arched eyebrows, a 17-year old Anouk (Aimee) is a real attention-getter. Having her fall for the much older and plainer Trevor Howard, however, is something of a stretch. Nonetheless, it's a fascinating movie to look at even if the basic plot is unexceptional. Archaeologist Howard travels to north Africa to retrieve shipwrecked treasures that include a golden salamander. There he stumbles across a network of gun- smugglers and hooks up with the exotic Anna (Anouk) in a seedy, atmospheric café. Just who is and who isn't a part of the network generates some suspense.But the movie's strength is in the acting and the photography. Howard is superb, as usual, while Anouk manages to be both emotionally vulnerable and surprisingly accomplished in her first big part. Special mention should go to Walter Rilla for his super slick version of a gangster kingpin. He looks and acts the sinister role to a proverbial T.However, what I liked best is what the pro's call "mise-en-scene", ie. the placing of a scene. Someone in production had the great idea of filming on location, along the north African coast line. This results in a number of visually stunning compositions made all the more so by the subtle tonalities that only black& white photography can produce. Catch the romantic scene on the beach with the setting sun in deep-focus background. Color is simply too literal to capture this kind of poetic effect.The dialogue is spiced up nicely with several exotic pearls of wisdom, but what about that escape scene by the cliff which seems pretty implausible-- how did Hyde-Whyte know a sheep flock would pass at exactly the right time. Or the climax, which seems a little too tame for my liking. Nonetheless, it's one of those movies that's stayed with me over the years for reasons I can't quite pin down. I guess it's something about the authentic crowds along the Arab bazaar or the sheer poetry of that coast line stretching into the distance and beyond. Yes indeed, there's a lot to be said for the old black & white.

MARIO GAUCI Watchable British thriller about gun-running in Post-WWII Tunisia with faint echoes of THE MALTESE FALCON (1941; except that the title artifact bears little relation to the main plot!), TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944) and THE THIRD MAN (1949; not least the presence of two of its cast members), but is perhaps too low-key to be really memorable. Nonetheless, the film has a remarkable cast (Trevor Howard, Anouk Aimee', Herbert Lom, Walter Rilla, Miles Malleson, Jacques Sernas, Wilfrid Hyde-White) and nice, noir-ish atmosphere going for it - and is short enough (87 minutes, though some sources give this as 96!) to keep tedium at bay...which could result from its lack of incident (apart from a couple of confrontation scenes and a climactic fistfight between Howard and Lom) or the incongruous pairing of its two leads.

JaQaL Trevor Howard plays David Redfern, an archaeologist sent to Tunis to recover artifacts belonging to his English employer. However, he runs across a gun running operation headed up by Serafis (Walter Rilla). The suspense builds and a murder only adds to the danger for Redfern.Herbert Lom is absolutely wonderful as the evil, dangerous henchman, Rankl, and Anouk Aimee is beautiful as Anna. A good movie is always characterised by the strength of its supporting cast and even those people with minor parts (such as Wilfrid Hyde-White) add depth and colour to the film.The only negative for me was the fact that Trevor Howard and Anouk Aimee make an extremely unlikely romantic couple. In the scenes with Aimee, Howard, who was a very good actor, seems to play the part like a man with too much starch in his collar.Leaving that minor detail aside, this is a good, suspenseful movie and well worth watching.Rating: 7/10