The Sell Out

Complicated Friendship Endurance Test
Warner Archive continues to uncover some rare titles from their library and here's a British/Israeli production from 1976 that's been kicked around budget VHS and DVD labels in sometimes shoddy transfers. Throw them all away for here we have a beautiful 1.85 transfer of Director Peter Collinson's Espionage caper 'THE SELL OUT'. Directed in a very straight forward manner resembling a TV movie of the week, it boasts a great cast and a tricky plot twist but takes a long time getting going. The endurance of friendship is put to the test along with the test of endurance on the audience's patience as we have both heads of the CIA and KGB deciding to eliminate their top operatives once they are no longer in the field. Unfortunately , they decide to get rid of Gabriel Lee played by Oliver Reed with a very good American accent who smells double cross and pays a visit to his old friend and mentor played intensely by Richard Widmark for aide in alluding his assassins. Thrown into the mix is...

Correct running time
This unusual little spy-vs.-spy-vs.-agency thriller is satisfactorily entertaining, thanks in large part to Richard Widmark's anchoring gravitas and a story that lulls you into a false sense of genre-weariness, then steps on the gas with some exciting turns-of-plot that pay unexpected dividends on your investment of time... and speaking of time, the Warner Archive release of 'The Sell-Out' (1976)-- an Israeli-Italian-British co-production that suffers often from its amateurish production values, including a score better suited to 'Shaft' than something trying to appeal to the international-espionage market-- features the full 101-minute version of the film rather than the 88 minutes described in Amazon's specs listed above (likely referring to the edited-for-television cut that has been circulating in the public domain for years). Anamorphic-widescreen picture is sharp, though apparently not restored (there are a couple sizeable tears in the source print), colors are vivid and sound...

'Twas only a payday for Widmark.
In this work filmed entirely in Israel, Richard Widmark gamely portrays Sam Lucas, a "retired" CIA operative who discovers that he is involuntarily back in action due to the sudden urging of his former initiate Gabriel Lee (Oliver Reed) who has been turned by the Soviet Union and now wants to come back into the American fold, not realizing that both players in the game have sent assassins to Israel to eliminate him, and Lucas as well. The direction is flabby with undue emphasis being placed upon silly and, naturally, superfluous stunts and car chases, with an inappropriate free hand being given to Gayle Hunnicut, playing the wife of Lucas and former lover of Lee, whose melodramatism proves distortive for what should be the critical scenes in this leaden affair, while the pudgy Englishman Reed, ill-advised to strip to the waist, has his lines dubbed in order to present an acceptable American accent.

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