BY FRED BLOSSER
A
naive but principled young guy from the sticks gets embroiled with outnumbered
and outgunned rebels in an uprising against a tyrannical empire, has his life
saved more than once by a roguish outlaw, is menaced by an older relative, and
goes on the run with a spirited young woman of royal lineage, all in a 1970s
movie featuring a talented cast of fresh newcomers and distinguished veteran
British actors. What, “Star Wars� Well . . . yeah, I suppose so . . . but
actually I was thinking of a substantially more obscure picture, Delbert Mann’s
1971 production “Kidnapped,†now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Mann’s movie was based on the Robert Louis
Stevenson novel, once widely read by teenage boys but now supplanted, I guess,
by “Minecraft†and Japanese Manga. I saw
the film in a nearly empty theater during its U.S. release in early 1972, a rare,
intelligent G-rated costume drama in a season otherwise dominated by the
cynical and hyper-violent likes of “Dirty Harry,†“Straw Dogs,†and “A
Clockwork Orange.†It hardly made a stir
then, nor is it much remembered today, even among fans of Michael Caine, who
starred as Stevenson’s dashing, 18th Century Scots firebrand Alan Breck
Stewart. If fans remember Caine for any
film from 1971, it’s undoubtedly “Get Carter.†Caine himself famously disowned “Kidnapped,†pissed because he had to
help bail it out financially when it ran out of money well into filming. “It was an absolute disaster,†he once
said. It’s difficult to fault Sir
Michael -- no actor likes to be stiffed after months of hard work, whatever the
circumstances -- but you have to wonder if some kind words from the popular
star might have given the film greater critical respect and commercial
visibility.
In
the movie’s tidy, thoughtful script by Jack Pulman, incidents from Stevenson’s
1886 novel are combined with others from its relatively obscure 1893 sequel
(titled “Catriona†in Britain and “David Balfour†here) and sieved through the
real-life social issues of the Vietnam and Bloody Sunday era. That doesn’t
particularly date the movie, since similar issues are still with us in today’s
arguments over Trump’s Border Wall, the Middle East, and Brexit. David Balfour (Lawrence Douglas), an orphan,
travels to Edinburgh in 1745 to claim his inheritance from his miserly uncle
(Donald Pleasence). The older man has
David abducted on board a ship to the Carolinas, where he’ll be dumped into
indentured servitude. Off the Scottish
coast, the ship acquires another passenger, the fugitive rebel Alan Breck
Stewart, who’s trying to keep insurgency against England alive after the Scots’
bloody defeat at the Battle of Culloden and the flight of Charles Stuart,
“Bonnie Prince Charlie,†the pretender to the British throne. (The Scots uprising may be familiar today
from Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander†series.) When the treacherous ship’s captain (Jack Hawkins) tries to have Alan murdered
for his money, David helps the rebel and the two are subsequently
shipwrecked. In a trek across the
Highlands, they’re given shelter by Alan’s cousin James (Jack Watson). Unlike the nearly fanatical Alan, James is
tired of throwing away Scottish lives to support Prince Charlie’s dubious
cause. In an attack against James‘s
farmhouse by a rival clan allied with England, the Campbells, their chief Mungo
(Terry Richards) is shot to death by an unknown assassin. James is felled and thought killed, and Alan
and David flee with James‘s daughter Catriona (Vivien Heilbron). Eventually reaching Edinburgh, they learn
that James is still alive and in prison, charged with Mungo’s murder. David knows that James is innocent, because
he was standing beside him when the shot was fired from somewhere else in the
house. He tells the family lawyer
(Gordon Jackson) that he intends to appear at the trial as a witness for the
defense, even if the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Lord Grant, the government’s prosecutor
(Trevor Howard), is sympathetic to David’s stubborn integrity, but he knows
that the Campbells demand a scapegoat, and Campbell support is essential for
preventing more bloodshed and anarchy, even at the cost of an innocent man’s
life. “You live in a simple world,
David,†Grant says, not unkindly. “And
who protects that world? I do.†Catriona seeks Alan’s help, but the rebel is
inclined to sail to France, raise further support for the Cause, and leave
James to his fate.
To
the extent that it received any marketing at all on its release, “Kidnappedâ€
was packaged as an adventure film. The
ads showing Michael Caine with sword and pistol suggested that it would be a
swashbuckler like Errol Flynn’s 1948 picture “The Master of Ballantrae,†based
on another Stevenson novel about Culloden and the Highland rebellion. But the action is pretty much restricted to a
scene where Alan and David fend off a shipboard attack. The lead-up to the fight gives Caine a great
line of dialogue out of Stevenson as he draws his sword and smiles in anticipation: “It’s a bit cramped in here. I’ll have to stick to the point -- more’s the
pity. My genius is the cut, slash, and
upper guard.†That’s almost poetry
compared with the lame one-liners that constitute most of the tough-guy talk in
today’s action films. Still, the
relative lack of swordplay would have disappointed Flynn fans, although the
movie never drags and it gives the viewer credit for having the interest and
intellectual capacity to ponder issues like honesty, morality, and political
expediency, in a medium that usually tries its best to avoid or trivialize
them. The arguments that swirl around
the characters offer no easy answers. “You raise questions that I never thought of,†confesses David
(well-played by Lawrence Douglas, who more than holds his own with the likes of
Caine, Howard, and Pleasance) as he’s confronted by Lord Grant. In that respect, the studios that released
the movie, Rank Film Distributors in the U.K. and American-International in the
U.S., might better have sold it as a thinking-person’s historical along the
lines of “A Man for All Seasons.â€
Fans of “Kidnappedâ€
will hope that the new Kino Lorber Blu-ray in a fresh 2K master will give it
wider if belated appreciation. Ruined in
TV viewings back in the day with cropped, washed-out prints, the hi-def,
widescreen landscapes in real Scottish locations are gorgeous. Although the disc comes up short on
supplementary extras (there is only a trailer), it includes SDH subtitles sure to be welcomed by viewers
of a certain age.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON