source: The Domino Principle

Trailer—The Domino Principle

The Domino Principle

The greatest games of Kasparov or Fischer can be a mess for a total rookie. This is a great movie. There is no special agency involved in the plot. This is the clue! This is a PRIVATE plot, built as a PRIVATE enterprise. This is a self-destructive and a self organized plot. As a conclusion, the scenario described the perfect professional plot: private, self –organized, self-destructive, with no trace at the end. Anyone can be behind the plot: a smart "director" with some money. All can be done just by delegation. The "director" must be just trigger. If the normal viewer cannot see the essence of the plot in the explicit sequences of the movie, a real plot has fewer chances to be discovered. All the actors' performances are well done , with some special mention for Gene Hackman and Mickey Rooney.

First, it takes a full half hour to get Hackman out of jail and to start doing the job. What a waste of time, we all know Hackman is getting out to do some job for his masters, why waste almost a third of the movie on these sequences. Then Hackman stays in a hotel and the story arc again goes nowhere, simply proving to us that Hackman is under close watch and anything he says or does is know by the masters. Again, another 20 minutes. Then more wasted time showing the reunion with his wife. All of this should have taken 10-15 minutes at most simply as a set-up for the real action, intrigue and plot twists. By the time the real action gets going, I was so bored that I just wanted the movie to end. Hackman is great as usual, and the other actors as well, but this is a dud of the first magnitude.

Not one of the classics of its subgenre (the political paranoia thriller), but still a solid film with a superb Hackman, a top-notch supporting cast (Richard Widmark exudes oily authority with just a smile), good cinematography, and plot twists (not all of them plausible). The scene where Hackman observes from a plane a bomb being planted inside Widmark's car is terrific. A very 1970s film - right down to its pessimistic ending. **1/2 out of 4.

i thought that this was a very intriguing movie to say the least. Gene Hackman, Eli Wallach, Richard Widmark, Candace Bergen so you have a cavalcade of stars. our story follows a man in prison with no real hope of ever seeing the light of day until he is approached by a mysterious man claiming to work for a government organization, he tells our prisoner he can be let go out of prison,, free to walk, he must only do one thing.... kill the President. for some reason our main character brings along his cellmate who he really despises.. our bad guys quickly eliminate the loose end. our prisoner is given a new identity but really doesn't change his looks that much. he reluctantly agrees to go ahead and carry out the mysterious mans orders. here's where i will leave it so you can watch it and tell me what you think.

With hindsight, "Mandchurian Candidate " was one of the most important movies of the sixties .It was made before the assassination of Kennedy and its screenplay seems stronger than ever. Many movies were influenced by Frankenheimer's masterpiece ,mainly in the seventies when the political movies were trendy;two movie mostly influenced by it were the excellent "parallax view" (AJ Pakula) and the rather good "Domino Principle " which came a little too late for its own good. Like "Parallax" ,"Domino" is almost abstract:we never know who is killing who ,who pulls the strings .Tagge (Widmark ) seems to know more than the other "conspirators" .Reser (Wallach) is a general (a maffia one?).Spinventa (Rooney )is an apparent victim (one of the plot holes concerns his character:how could they be so sure Tucker (Hackman) would demand his escape ?).Everybody seems to be manipulated ,even Ellie (Bergen).When the movie is over,you won't know anything about why it happened.

Heavy-handed action-melodrama from producer-director Stanley Kramer involves incarcerated war veteran Gene Hackman, doing 15 years for murder in San Quentin, who is freed from jail by the operatives of a mysterious organization; seems they need a hit-man to assassinate a national figure at his beach-side retreat, and are offering Hackman a second honeymoon with his wife in South America to complete the job. Globe-trotting pastiche of a number of hot topics from the 1970s has a good cast but no sting in the set-up; there's no suspense or sense of paranoia in this narrative, and some of the crass dialogue is downright vile--and for what purpose? The overstuffed plot culminates in a number of story twists, none of which seems credible. Hackman is assuredly skeptical and adept, holding some of this scattershot movie together, but Kramer eventually sinks it with his 'controversial' handling. The filmmaker proves to be all thumbs in the Kafkaesque arena. * from ****

People are being too hard on the film. Sometimes we should just sit back and enjoy the story without attempting to "review" it. The whole thing comes together when Hackman decides not to pull the trigger but his target still goes down. Then the fun begins as everyone about him also "go down". Just think JFK and all the people associated in any way with his assassination, who's lives ended abruptly and in questionable ways and you'll appreciate what is implied in this film. I think it's an excellent interpretation of what may well have occurred. Though the EXACT story line my not have been followed (hindsight here after reading Jim Maars "Crossfire") but it's what is implied that is of interest. I'd love to get a copy of it to view it again. In light of what is known today, The Domino Principle is right on.