Review of Darker Than Amber (1970) by Christopher L — 02 Jul 2016
A classic hardboiled thriller based on John D. MacDonald's outstanding series crime fiction novels about houseboat dwelling troubleshooter Travis McGee. This film got short shrift from critics, poor marketing from the studio and faded into undeserved obscurity.
Renowned mainly for one of the most best fight scenes in screen history (Rod Taylor and William Smith actually came to blows while filming the climactic fight), this film also has gorgeous on location scenery in southeastern Florida and a groovy jazz soundtrack by John Parker.
How this film has not been given a decent release on DVD and Blu-Ray is beyond me, especially when you consider some of the truly awful films that have been treated much better than this one. This is a film that definitely deserves to be ranked up there with other great crime dramas of the 1970's like Get Carter, Dirty Harry, Across 110th St, Charley Varrick and others.
There is a poor quality video of this film on You Tube and some equally poor quality bootleg DVD's out there, but we need to get this film re-mastered on DVD.
This review of Darker Than Amber (1970) was written by Christopher L on 02 Jul 2016.
Darker Than Amber has generally received mixed reviews.
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