assignment to kill 1968

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Assignment to Kill (1968)

102min - English

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A private eye is hired by an insurance company to investigate a shipping magnate suspected of deliberately sinking his own ships for the insurance money. He finds himself involved in a web of deception, double-crossing and murder.

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Assignment to kill.

Directed by Sheldon Reynolds

Poor Dominique...she was always in hot water. Now she was in over her head - in the middle of a $15,000,000 international conspiracy. Richard Cutting's dead girl friend triggers this assignment to kill.

A private eye is hired by an insurance company to investigate a shipping magnate suspected of deliberately sinking his own ships for the insurance money. He finds himself involved in a web of deception, double-crossing and murder.

Patrick O'Neal Joan Hackett John Gielgud Herbert Lom Eric Portman Peter van Eyck Oskar Homolka Leon Greene Kent Smith Philip Ober Fifi D'Orsay Éva Szörényi Cynthia O'Neal Martin Miller Charles H. Radilak Erik Sorenson Betty Bresler Joanne Ludden Walter Friedel Karl Bruck Walter Janovitz Albert D'Arno Ann Prentiss

Director Director

Sheldon Reynolds

Producer Producer

Jimmy Lydon

Writer Writer

Editor editor.

George R. Rohrs

Cinematography Cinematography

Harold Lipstein Enzo Barboni

Assistant Director Asst. Director

Executive producer exec. producer.

William Conrad

Art Direction Art Direction

John Beckman

Set Decoration Set Decoration

George James Hopkins

Stunts Stunts

Richard Farnsworth Fred Carson

Sound Sound

Stanley Jones

Makeup Makeup

William Conrad Productions

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

German English

Releases by Date

01 may 1968, 16 aug 1968, 16 sep 1968, 30 sep 1968, 21 oct 1968, 01 dec 1968, releases by country.

• Theatrical 16 West Germany
• Theatrical NR

102 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by mattstechel ★★

Too low key to really generate suspense but it's kind of an interesting mishmash of 60s era spy movie cliches here put to use in a murky murder mystery where there's not all that much mystery cause there's only like four characters given actual screentime so you know it's gotta be one of them....if you look at the cast you can probably figure out who the killer is pretty quickly too...but it's watchable enough in that "guy hired to figure out who murdered this other guy but has to figure out whom he can trust as well as people's possible motives" kinda way. Also a lot of dark alleys at night. There's one fight scene in here towards the end that's not bad. (Shrugs) I kinda felt like they were partly making it up as they went along.

Review by Goodwin ★★★ 4

Considering the scorn this movie seems to elicit I probably enjoyed it quite a bit more than most and for those not raised with this sort of thing, but instead on the ADD films of the post- Jaws and Star Wars , blockbuster era it’s probably a little dull, but it suited my mood admirably. I don’t need the world to hang in the balance to be engaged and I don’t mind a bit of poorly staged fisticuffs every now and then; not every fight can, or should, be the rail compartment scene in From Russia, With Love . Patrick O’Neal is a freelance insurance investigator whose inquiry leads to Switzerland and primary villain Herbert Lom, fetching ex-pat Joan Hackett, and eventually secondary…

Review by 🥀 e m m é 🇵🇸 ★★

JOAN HACKETT REALIZING THAT SHE REALLY JUST DOESN’T LIKE MEN HALFWAY THROUGH THIS FILM.

I had no idea what was happening for most of the runtime. Sort of insurance investigation by way of the Eurospy genre? Joan was incredibly cool while she was around and I love her slightly nervous energy, but everyone else? BORING. And I hate violence against women. Ugh.

Review by Bob Cashill ★★

Save for a third-act fight and St. Moritz scenery this talky spy movie is basically TV in a Panavision frame (the poster gives away its biggest surprise) but eventually it gets a sneering John Gielgud and Herbert Lot into the same room together, and throws in the likes of Eric Portman and Oscar Homolka as guest stars. Joan Hackett adds a little eccentricity but I prefer star Patrick O'Neal in John Huston's byzantine THE KREMLIN LETTER (70).

Review by pirateneckbeard ★★★

this was a movie with a lot of issues. I want to start out with saying I enjoyed it but here are some of it's foibles. Why was The folly sounds so much louder than the dialogue and I realize spy movies are not like whodunit thrillers because the stakes are more questionable interpretations of what others might perceive of ones actions and then bring action against you or said person you are setting up with a maybe paper tiger situation.phew! Spy movies are hard because you need a clear through line to be good but twisty to be enjoyable. Anyhow this kinda failed on some story structure but it did have a charm with some decent dialogue with some solid stakes. Worth a look if you like 60's spy movies but not top tier.

Review by Brian Burkart ★★★

While "Assignment to Kill" is a serviceable thriller that follows a detective as he investigates the reason for a number of ships sinking, there is a feeling that it could have been a better movie with a more capable director.

Writer/director Sheldon Reynolds fails to bring any excitement or tension to most scenes. His script is solid, but he doesn't show any visual flair for the material. The few action scenes are pretty limp especially compared to the contemporary James Bond films.

The cast is solid. Patrick O'Neal is fine as the lead character. His stoic persona is used to good effect. Joan Hackett delightfully delivers her playful dialogue. Her character brings a welcome outsider's perspective. It's not unusual to see Herbert Lom as a villian and here he provides more than enough menace. John Gielgud's part is a glorified cameo which he nails. He is John Gielgud after all.

Review by BaronofHam ★★★½

One of those crude, seedy post-007 espionage romps in Europe. Not as good as Michael Caine's Harry Palmer series, but certainly not as drab or tedious as other offerings of the period. Patrick O'Neal slurs his way through the proceedings, with all of his co-stars showing him up- yet there is something about him here that just works in spite of his shortcomings. Joan Hackett is hilarious in this, Herbet Lom does his shtick and Gielgud appears at the end as the big bad and he's pretty decent- he does a really good urbane evil laugh.

Review by Havac ★★★½

I’m calling this one a hidden gem. A late-sixties detective story set in Switzerland, with the international edge of a spy film, it feels like it prefigures the conspiracy movies of the seventies a bit. Its tone is knowing, cynical, its atmosphere paranoid and tense, its characters dark and confident, its plot twisty and deliberately obscure — the end plays quite a bit with the audience’s, and even the characters’, uncertainty about what exactly is going on. It features Patrick O’Neal, one of those guys who got few shots to play a leading man and was clearly enjoying it, as a private eye hired by an insurance company to look into the mysterious sinkings of ships owned by shadowy magnate…

Review by Harvey

Stately, tweedy, Zurich-set detective procedural feels more like a spy film.

Cigarettes and Mercedes sedans, train tracks and cable cars, raincoats and foggy cobblestones all abound.

O’Neal is suave but seems bored and who can blame him?

Joan Hackett is a mild New Hollywood breeze blowing through an otherwise stuffy mid-60s Bond wishitwas.

Thumbs down on the poster for betraying a huge spoiler. Look away.

Review by Beautifulkiller ★★★

"Assignment to Kill" from 1968 is one of those foreign espionage films that flourished in the '60s, complete with that jazzy, screechy music that seemed to be in every film. Never my favorite.

The cast here includes Patrick O'Neal, Joan Hackett, Herbert Lom, John Gielgud, and Oscar Homolka.

O'Neal plays a private investigator hired by an insurance company to investigate a shipping magnate who seems to be sinking his own ships for insurance money.

It turns out to be more complicated than that, but I'm afraid this film moved so slowly that I lost the thread of the plot and started daydreaming. I always liked O'Neal, Hackett, Lom, and of course, Gielgud, but this script didn't serve them well.

Review by Phil Bernstein

Baffling movie. Clearly wants to be a Bond riff (even appropriates the music for a moment) but is far less glamorous, has far less action and sex, and also has something resembling an actual consciousness of geopolitics? And there's no sense of tension or pace, and characters seem remarkably casual even when they're talking about how freaked out they are? And also the sound mix is so whacked out that it's almost impossible to hear a large portion of the dialogue over the music and foley? Everything about the production values (and resumes of the cast and crew) screams TV movie, except for the fact that it was shot on anamorphic? But the scope frame is used very lackadaisically and…

Review by PatrickFeeble ★★★½

I'm going to cut-and-paste an email I just sent to my friend Megan about this movie. I guess for context you should know that we recently read William Redfield's book of letters from when he was playing Guildenstern in a production of Hamlet directed by John Gielgud. In the book Redfield craps on the movies as an art form quite often. Here's the email: "A couple of weeks ago I recorded a movie called ASSIGNMENT TO KILL off of TCM, just because it has Gielgud in it. Anyway, I just watched it. Joan Hackett is the female lead, and I could only keep thinking about how Redfield said she thought exquisite taste was the number one quality for an artiste,…

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Assignment to Kill

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Rent Assignment to Kill on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

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Cast & crew.

Sheldon Reynolds

Patrick O'Neal

Richard Cutting

Joan Hackett

Dominique Laurant

John Gielgud

Curt Valayan

Herbert Lom

Matt Wilson

Eric Portman

Assignment to Kill (1968)

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Assignment to Kill

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Patrick O'Neal

Richard Cutting

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Eric Portman

Peter van Eyck

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© 1969 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

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