This story of a suave ad exec (Roger Moore) getting caught up in an assassination plot never reaches great heights. As well, the film is blighted by cheap special effects, especially the regular use of obvious rear projection that makes scenes like the death of the chief villain in the action finale laughable instead of captivating.Despite all that, the film is a fun timewaster. This is partly because the film's plot is fast-paced and inventive enough to keep one interested and the location footage of London (when they're not using rear projection) right at the end of the Swinging Sixties is fascinating to see.But the film's main asset is Moore. While he was never perceived as a great actor, he always had plenty of charisma and charm and he utilises that to be a likable roguish hero who helps keep one interested throughout.While no classic, 'Crossplot' is a pleasant diversion and especially interesting to see why the producers of James Bond thought Moore would be a good fit for the role.

Crossplot is certainly a product of it's time, a movie that grabs onto the coat tails of Swinging London, just before London threw that colourful coat in the bin. It's also a movie of many faces. 'Hitchcockian' in the thriller elements and conventional in the screwball Comedy elements. Dare I say it, many plot elements are lifted straight from North by Northwest, however, star Sir Roger Moore is called upon to be a lot more physical than Cary Grant had been in that movie.Sir Roger Moore, straight from his 7 years in his iconic TV role as Simon Templar in The Saint, plays an advertising man, duped into finding a particular model for an Ad campaign he's trying to secure. The photo of this model has been 'planted' in his file by people with their own nefarious motives, who want to silence her for what she may or may not know, about a forthcoming assassination attempt on a visiting world leader and Moore's character is dragged further into this web of intrigue when he meets the girl and is wrongfully accused of Murder. Now on the run, he's determined to clear his name and unravel the mystery that has led to this mess. Throw in a few hippies, because after all, it's the sixities, you're left with a quite entertaining caper.The plot, (or crossplot, if I may be allowed drop a pun or two), has a number of obvious holes. For instance, the whole scheme of the bad guys, relied solely on Moore not looking at the file with the planted photo, before he presented it to his advertising client (Bernard Lee), who turns out to be in it up to his neck anyway. That's pretty thin for starters.The movie was designed to reinvent Roger Moore as something other than The Saint. Firstly, his image has been updated, (for the time anyway), the hair is slightly longer as are the sideburns and worn without the slick quiff the Saint had been known for. Secondly, the character Moore plays is not as cool under fire as Simon Templar had been and Moore's character is like Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill. This is where the comparisons to North by Northwest can be made.A) An innocent ad man in the wrong place at the wrong time B) wrongfully accused of a murder must now clear his name whilst trying to stay alive C) uses an attention seeking obnoxious way to escape from would be assassins in a public place. D) There is also a Mcguffin, in North by Northwest, it was the fictional George Kaplan, here it is the Hungarian model.I can only bring myself to give this a 7 because it is so obviously filmed on a shoestring budget, that the movie fails to be convincing. Poor and obvious back projection shots, blatant set constructions. It has all the hallmarks and feel of a Saint TV episode, which is not surprising given that almost to a man, the entire production crew that had worked on The Saint worked on this movie. In fact, had it not been for the different character name and the fact he was an Ad man, this would have made a great feature length Saint story.The real thrill, as always is watching the great Sir Roger Moore in the lead role, However, if you want to see Moore at his best when he wasn't Ivanhoe, The Saint, Lord Brett Sinclair or James Bond, then you need to watch Moore's next movie, the darker, more serious, The Man Who Haunted Himself, made the following year. This is a great example of a TV crew on a TV budget trying to make a theatrical movie and for the most part, they succeed admirably. Very entertaining.Enjoy!

Everything is bad in this film, from beginning to end. The music is very annoying, preferably to be seen on mute (like this at least gets a little funnier). The whole scenario is not worth a damn, it has no sense. All the actors are bad. Everything is awkward and intrusive. You want to finish as soon as possible, to look for something better to watch. When I was little, I was somewhat fascinated by Roger Moore in The Saint (it was more because of the musical theme...). As James Bond, he is the least convincing of all the actors who have played it (well, tied with Daniel Craig). Here is downright poop. There's no plot in the movie, it's an annoying waste of time. All those who have written or will write the contrary, they need injections of liquid brain.

While this has been likened to a James Bond adventure (which star Roger Moore was still four years away from first tackling), it actually plays more like a tenth-rate copy of an Alfred Hitchcock suspenser – and, specifically, NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)-meets-THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956).In fact, Moore is an advertising executive who unwittingly runs into a person involved in deadly political games – model Claudie Lange (who, amusingly, is depicted as being constantly famished!). Incidentally, her equally attractive aunt (Martha Hyer) is revealed to be the chief villainess of the piece (along with Bond-Moore's future superior 'M' himself, Bernard Lee!) intent on assassinating a visiting South African leader – as always in the most public of places (in this case, Hyde Park) and synchronized to take place during the customary 21-gun salute. Two other very obvious borrowings from NORTH BY NORTHWEST are a helicopter chase (imitating the legendary crop-dusting sequence) and the rather funny disruption of a church wedding recalling the auction scene in the Hitchcock classic where Cary Grant was similarly drawing attention to himself in order to stall his pursuers! Also in the cast are Alexis Kanner as a would-be decadent lord who actually advocates peace and ultimately emerges to be on the side of the good guys, as well as Hammer regular Francis Matthews playing a hit-man for Hyer {sic}. Moore having just come off "The Saint" (a series in which director Rakoff was also involved), this still has that bland TV look to it – despite the rather incongruous Swinging London backdrop. The film includes mild dollops of style, wit, sexiness, action and suspense – all of which were prime features of NORTH BY NORTHWEST in particular, but which were also part and parcel of the Bond saga. In the long run, taken on its own merits, CROSSPLOT is a harmless time-waster but one that has added value if seen as a transition between Moore's trademark personae i.e. Simon Templar aka "The Saint" and James Bond aka 007.