Showtime – Mar 1965
Films Coming Your Way
THE HIGH BRIGHT SUN
DO NOT be confused by the title of this Betty Box-Ralph Thomas production; it is not a newspaper story. Magnificent scenes of olive groves, lemon trees and vineyards form the background for a tale in which Cypriot bullets are aimed at British backs, and the blood of both sides is spilt on the sunbaked earth.
The High Bright Sun is the biggest, most expensive film made by the Box-Thomas team, and it is very nearly their best. (Conspiracy Of Hearts will take a lot of beating.)
Major McGuire (Dirk Bogarde) is an Intelligence Officer in Cyprus in the 1950’s. He has fallen in love with Juno (Susan Strasberg), an American archeological student of Cypriot descent who is visiting wealthy friends, and fears that some hot-headed zealot will mistake her for British.
Juno is the only witness of an ambush, in which two British soldiers are killed, and she doesn’t realise her host’s lovely home is the hiding place of a terrorist guerrilla leader, and the meeting place for the Greek independence fanatics, led by Haghios (George Chakiris).
Then, unwittingly, she stumbles on the truth. Chakiris is all for shooting her, but her host persuades him to stay his hand.
Juno decides to return to America, but is ambushed on the way to the airport. After a most excitingly directed chase through the countryside (in which there are a number of violent deaths), she shakes off her pursuers. Then, thumbing a lift, she makes for Bogarde’s apartment.
However, there is more trouble waiting there, and they are only just saved by the intervention of an undercover agent (beautifully played by Denholm Elliott.) More excitement and thrills pack this story before what is literally, the last shot.
Dirk Bogarde plays McGuire with a whimsical air that, at times, is hardly in keeping with the tenseness of the situations. Nevertheless, he is exactly right.
Susan Strasberg is not required to do much acting, but she ‘certainly does a lot of running.
Chakiris, in his best role since West Side Story, gives a sensitive and impressive performance. You can sense his cold hatred of the British.
The acting honours, however, go to Denholm Elliott. As the deadly undercover agent he is superb.
Betty Box and Ralph Thomas have made an exciting adventure story in which the tense atmosphere of those terrible days has been magnificently captured. I applaud their effort.
