Three huge stars get an all expense paid trip to France. The audience gets beautiful Parisian scenery and a ton of action. There's also a bit of comedy, romance and Beethoven. What is missing is a solid mood that keeps this flowing sensibly. Another element that they get are pieces of recent hits jumbled together in a film that can be entertaining, but lacks in structure that makes memorable cinema.As head of an American agency involved in investigating drug trafficking, Anthony Quinn must find a hit man to knock off powerful drug cartel leader James Mason, and ironically he hires old pal Michael Caine who utilizes his wiles with women to break into Mason's circle. That's through his daughter with whom he has an impromptu drag race with on the mountain roads heading into Marseille. The scene is almost erotic, and just one sequence where this feels like a cartoon.Finding out that Caine is wanted allegedly in Paris for murder and bank robbery, Mason has him do an impromptu hit that is beyond comical. An architect standing on a skyscraper under construction gets a simple push off the roof, and when Caine encounters his body, he's face first in dirt. The way this is filmed you half expect them to remove the corpse yo leave the man shaped hole in the ground exposed. But wait...there's more! By this point the film just falters in its obvious attempt to emulate "The French Connection" where it fails miserably.I was more interested in the scenery than the plot, although these are three of my favorite actors. But the veteran stars were showing up in the 1970's in all kinds of trash, and it's obvious that this was not made with artistic integrity in mind. Still, the opportunity to see real streets of Paris and the parks and rivers surrounding the Eifel Tower and the train system (where Quinn jumps off and fools several of Mason's men) is fascinating. There are certainly memorable single sequences than the ones I mention, including one with Quinn being chased by Mason's men through the underground after they abduct him that concludes with them in a lavish but abandoned train station. Even at only 90 minutes, however, I was hoping for more than just moments, particularly a story with structure, character and real motivations, not just the thought design that "If it's written down on paper, then people will believe it."

My main reason for tracking this poorly rated 70s flick was Roy Budd's score. Unfortunately there is almost nothing from his beautiful work in the final soundtrack, so don't lose time with this very bad movie, get Budd's score instead! Or if you're looking for a better euro gritty 70s crime movie starring Michael Caine and making good use of a Budd score, try The Black Windmill.Mostly The Marseille Contract suffers from a story that succeeds in being both pedestrian and erratic. (Routine) Action happens and just doesn't add up. Michael Caine is barely guest-starring, getting his buoyant gig while Anthony Quinn's main/gloomy story is suddenly demoted to the background. James Mason simply says his uninteresting lines as requested, and the girls are great.Too bad Roy Budd didn't get to unleash his talent for excellent movies. For me Get Carter is just OK-cool thanks to Budd + Caine, but they are both underused in The Marseille Contract.François de Roubaix also wrote magnificent scores for lame movies but you can watch them just to enjoy the music in context; and often his scores inflated movies above their mediocre boilerplate qualities. And he also scored fine movies, even during the seventies.

As a fan of Micheal Caine and of action thrillers from the seventies I was looking forward to watching this film. I'd listened to the wickedly funky soundtrack by Roy "Get Carter" Budd, and spent a while tracking down a copy of the film on VHS.Firstly i'll deal with the good points. Marseille is a good location to film a thriller, think of French Connection 2 for example, and it is well used. I'm in love with the Citroen DS, especially in black, so I was pleased to see them used throughout the film. There's a playful "cat and mouse" car scene, which was later copied in a more OTT style by John Woo in MI:2! There are a few interesting killings. Caine looks very seventies cool.Now for the not so good points. Budds soundtrack although is efficient, it is too efficient for my liking, i'd like to hear more of it in the film. The music never really gets going. There are a couple more chase scenes thrown in for good measure, but they are boring. The acting is very very average, as is the film.In my opinion I think that the director should have made a decision to go with either A) A gritty, hard hitting thriller. Or B) A more tongue in cheek, stylish caper movie. This film has both qualities at certain points within the movie, but it doesn't have the mix right. This is a shame because it could have been much better, perhaps a bigger budget was needed, who knows.So to sum up, if Michael Caine in various seventies fashions such as roll neck sweaters, giant aviator sunglasses, a smoking jacket with cravat and the odd kipper tie floats your boat, this is the move for you!

Police officer Steve Ventura has tried and failed to catch Jacques Brizard – a respectable businessman who deals drugs. In his frustration he hires a hitman to kill Brizard – the hitman turning out to be old friend John Deray. As Deray starts to get close to Brizard, Ventura strengthens his case.I watched this back to back with another Michael Caine movie – Without a Clue. In that his presence lifted an average film into something better….however here he can't manage it. In fact, three big names can't do it. The plot is straightforward and is similar to many other 1970's thrillers. The action and the characters could also be in any other of hundreds of cheap thrillers. There are few scenes that make the film interesting – Deray showing how ruthless he is on top of a building site is one of the highlights, the car chase/romance is also interesting as it was copied (but extended) for Mission: Impossible 2.Caine appears to be in a different movie from Quinn – he's happy go lucky, enjoying romantic dinners etc while Quinn is gritting it out on the streets with informers etc. It creates a split feel to the movie – but it's better when the two come together. Neither are good enough to make the film better than average – nor is James `The Voice' Mason, who looks like he's asleep for most of it.Overall, there are plenty of good 1970's thrillers out there that contain these actors separately (Quinn in Across 110th Street for one) – here the three can't manage to lift this out of being average and a bit dull.