By the time John Frankenhimer made "The Holcroft Covenant" his star had already waned. It's a terrible picture and it's hard to believe it was directed by the same man who made "The Manchurian Candidate". It's another Nazi conspiracy thriller adapted from a Robert Ludlum novel by three of the best writers in the business, (George Axelrod, Edward Anhalt and John Hopkins), so what went wrong? Well for starters it could be a case of too many cooks for there isn't a believable line of dialogue in the entire film which zooms all over the place at great speed but goes absolutely nowhere; the budget obviously allowed for some nifty location shooting and Gerry Fisher's cinematography is one of the film's few saving graces.It's also preposterously plotted and atrociously acted. Michael Caine, (dreadful), is the lead and Anthony Andrews, Victoria Tennant, Michael Lonsdale and Lilli Palmer are among the others who are wasted in this rubbish. That fine British character actor Bernard Hepton manages to come out of it smelling of roses which is really something of a miracle. Of course, perhaps it was meant to be a comedy but if it was it isn't a particularly funny one.

The book by Robert Ludlum, on which this movie is supposed to be based is a brilliant book with lots of twists and turns that keep you guessing.In the book the intrigue is guessing what has gone on, in this movie you find yourself guessing what on earth IS going on but for all the wrong reasons.The characters are nothing like they appear in the book and in one notable instance, 2 women characters get merged into one. why? Michael Caine is, as usual Michael Caine, (one of the most over rated actors of all time, he is always the same character in every film he has ever been in since Alfie) but no actor could have saved this movie with it's awful script and bad direction.I do hope that one day they make a decent movie of 'The Holcroft Covenant'

Based on Robert Ludlum's novel, this film features Michael Caine as Noel Holcroft, an architect living in New York who is contacted by a Swiss banker and told that his late father(who had been a financial adviser to Hitler, but diverted funds to a Swiss Bank) has made him the executor of a vast trust worth over 4 billion dollars to be used to make reparations to Holocaust survivors. Noel accepts the position, but then finds himself the target of assassins who want that fortune for a different purpose altogether...a fourth Reich, and return of Nazi power.Intriguing and compelling thriller may be far-fetched at times, but is well acted by all, and features good direction by John Frankenheimer, who creates a whirlwind feel to this international conspiracy tale.

Michael Caine as a German-American? Gimme a break! This whole project is so desperately flawed that even Lilli Palmer cannot save it, though her performance as Caine's mother is the best in the film. You know something is wrong when you see the opening credits: there are just too many screenwriters, and even Edward Anhalt is in there. How many rewrites can a succession of people do to save a doomed script? Clearly not enough. This is an excellent yarn, taken from a Robert Ludlum book which must have been a gripping story. But what a mess they have made of it. John Frankenheimer was an excellent director who was what one could call 'uneven'. In other words, he did not always deliver an acceptable result, and here he fails. He tries and tries, but it is no use. Anthony Andrews gives a better than expected performance, manages to avoid being arch, and with his blonde appearance convinces us that he is a German with an Iron Cross for a heart. Victoria Tennant, such an under-valued actress, does a fine job. Michael Lonsdale is wholly convincing as a quietly dominant Swiss banker who never needs to raise his voice because money speaks for him. It all could have been so good, but when you decide to cast a London cockney as an American architect whose father was a Nazi general, well please ... Michael Caine has never been anything other than Michael Caine. You could call that being true to himself or you could call it lack of talent. Certainly when he is called upon in this film to cry, you know it is glycerine drops, and the idea of a barrow boy crying, come on. The trouble was that in the 1970s Michael Caine was the only 'bankable' British star, which certainly gave too much power to his agent, Dennis Sellinger. And I guess this carried over into the eighties. But by then he was a shadow of the chirpy cricket of the East End that rode the wave of the revolution in class consciousness right to the top. Talk about perfect timing, Caine became the icon of a social movement. But somebody forgot to tell him how to act. Later in life, Caine finally picked up the skills along the way, and dozens of movies were his RADA, so he ended up a good actor in the end. But this was 1985, when he was still hopeless at being anyone but the same Michael Caine we saw last time, and the time before, and the time before. And that is a bore. Yes, tis a pity.