gridoon2024 Review of The Cape Town Affair

The Cape Town Affair (1967)

Lots of talk, very little action in dreary spy drama

[4/10 · 11 November 2012]

The opening sequence of "The Cape Town Affair", with James Brolin stealing the wallet of Jaqueline Bisset in a crowded bus and a little girl noticing what is happening but not quite understanding it, is a good one. And the film has a quintessentially 1960s music score. Unfortunately, that score is pretty much the only thing that places the film in the 1960s - production-wise, it looks like a cheap B-movie from the 1940s, when the actors simply moved from studio set to studio set, and huge chunks of dialogue had to try to cover up the almost complete lack of action. But the dialogue, even in the cheapest 1940s crime dramas, was usually witty, something that cannot be said for most of the dialogue in "The Cape Town Affair" (some of it cannot be heard in current DVD prints anyway). This is a dreary movie, with Brolin proving that it was a correct decision that he never got the James Bond role (despite coming close to it), Bisset looking beautiful (especially when she's wet with beer), and Claire Trevor chewing the scenery in a supporting part. *1/2 out of 4.