Wednesday, April 17, 2019

HOUSE OF CARDS - "A War Of Intrique" (1968)

It's Orson Welles Wednesday" in The Dungeon and a very odd film from 1968 titled 
"House Of Cards."

Besides this movie, the title "House Of Cards" has been used multiple times in movies with various plots, once in 1990, once in 1993, once in 2001, and twice in 2013 culminating with the Kevin Spacey TV series!

If I had to describe "House Of Cards," I'd say it was kind of like a Jesse Franco movie, but one that made sense!

The star of the movie is George Peppard as the washed up prize fighter Reno Taylor who has to throw in his own towel!

Probably better known for his TV role as "Banacek" and for being the Captain of "The A-Team" John "Hannibal" Smith, George Peppard smokes and wisecracks his way through this film like a poor man's Joachim Fuchsberger!

The main reason I watched "House Of Cards" was because Orson Welles was in it, but honestly, that wasn't quite enough!

Orson plays a pompous ass, and is very good at it, but his on screen time is very limited!

While Joachim, I mean George, smokes another cigarette, it gives me an opportunity to tell you about the female lead in this film, Inger Stevens as the neurotic rich alcoholic Anne de Villemont!

Admittedly Inger is very attractive, but I always preferred Connie and/or Stella, if I were to have a choice of 60's Stevens' gold!

Reno Taylor is a pretty classy dude, and he refuses to take advantage of a lady in a drunken stupor!

Reno Taylor got hired to watch this rich brat! The kid disappears, and the next thing you know, everybody's trying to kill poor Reno!

Reno has to go on the run, and his mug is plastered all over the front pages of the newspaper, so let the chase begin!

"House Of Cards" is not a bad movie, and actually has a lot of very scenic scenes like this, but is pretty confusing, and it just never really hits on all eight cylinders!

"House Of Cards" is such a popular movie, you can find this whole five page press book for five bucks online! 
As far as real estate goes, if I had to do it again, I'd rather go back and watch "House Of A 1,000 Dolls," "House Of Dracula," or "House Of The Damned" again, but then, that's just me!

1 comment:

Grant said...

The one Inger Stevens role that I know WELL is in THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL, about the last three (known) people on earth. She, Mel Ferrer and Harry Belafonte are all very good in it (even though Belafonte has to "carry" it in SOME ways).

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