Darker than Amber **½ (1970, Rod Taylor, Suzy Kendall, Theodore Bikel, William Smith, Ahna Capri, James Booth, Jane Russell, Janet MacLachlan) – Classic Movie Review 14,003

The 1970 action thriller film Darker than Amber is the only cinema movie featuring John D MacDonald’s virile pulp private eye hero Travis McGee, played by Rod Taylor.

Director Robert Clouse’s 1970 film Darker than Amber is the only cinema movie featuring John D MacDonald’s pulp private eye hero Travis McGee, the main character in his 22 book sequence. It has a strong and attractive cast headed by Rod Taylor as Travis McGee, Suzy Kendall, Theodore Bikel, William Smith, Ahna Capri. James Booth, Jane Russell, and Janet MacLachlan, and is written for the screen by Ed Waters, based on MacDonald’s 1966 mystery suspense novel.

But John D MacDonald’s pulp private eye hero Travis McGee (Rod Taylor) is somewhat squandered in a mostly rather disappointingly ordinary action thriller, largely dispensing with mystery and suspense in favour of sex and violence, but with nevertheless many redeeming features.

After Suzy Kendall’s character Vangie is attacked in a deliberate hit and run, Taylor sets out to track down the bad guys and finds himself mixed up in a web of dirty tricks, involving crazed muscleman Terry Bartell (William Smith).

It starts excitingly when Bartell throws the weighted down Vangie off a bridge into a Florida river, but McGhee and his best friend Meyer (Theodore Bickell) are inconveniently night fishing from their boat under the bridge. Vangie is tied up and one foot is strapped to a dumbbell with an ankle adapter. So Travis dives in and rescues Vangie, retrieving the weights. McGhee is surprised when she insists he does not contact the police, but soon starts a loving thing with the lovely Vangie.

She tells McGee that Bartell tried to killed because of her involvement in a prostitution ring and murder scheme working on cruise ships after she objected to the murders. McGee and Meyer try to protect Vangie, but after a while she suddenly takes off to sort out some old business. Then Bartell and his equally vile accomplice locate Vangie with murderous intent.

Though Rod Taylor doesn’t seem too charismatic or a perfect fit for beach bum for hire Travis McGee, he gives a convincing virile, devil-may-care tough guy performance, holding the centre solid and firm. Taylor doesn’t twinkle, or suggest layers, but he is manly and powerful. William Smith is an impressive psychopath, a truly outstanding villain, hitting the spot exactly and not overdoing it, and the highlight of the film is the two men’s brutal extended climactic fight. Theodore Bikel keeps it low key as McGhee’s canny friend and sidekick Meyer, maybe too low key but effective anyway. Suzy Kendall’s character Vangie disappears too early to give the actress much of a chance to be more than decorative. But that’s the role, and she is there for it. She brings extraordinary Julie Christie-style allure to the scene.

The tone and pacing are very shaky, and some scenes are way better than others, and some of the dialogue is much better written than other lines. But the supporting actors compensate, especially Ahna Capri as Vangie’s attractive but sad and rather pathetic friend Del and Janet MacLachlan as the helpful Noreen. The story is steady and Robert Clouse directs purposefully, while Frank V Phillips’s nervously overly flashy cinematography, the Florida and Caribbean settings, and John Carl Parker’s brilliantly over-wrought score capturing the 1970 zeitgeist, all combine to add a great deal of interest and entertainment value.

Whatever happened to the presence of still sexy Jane Russell in her final theatrical feature, as the Alabama Tigress? She’s only there in the distance for a few moments over on another boat. She’s billed as a guest star and so is James Booth as Burk of Burk’s Landing, who has a bit more to do, none of it good, before he bites the dust.

John D MacDonald recalled: ‘I was so convinced it would be utterly rotten that I was pleased to find it only semi-rotten.’ OK, we can have sympathy for the author, but instead, let’s go with a verdict that the movie is semi-good. There are enough good ingredients to suggest that there really is a fine thriller trying to squeeze out of this moderate one. It may not be an entirely good film but it is an interesting one.

Bruce Lee admired the brutal fight between Rod Taylor and William Smith, and chose Robert Clouse to direct Enter the Dragon (1973).

Poor box office ended the plan for it to be the first of a film series with a new movie released every 18 months.

However, Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross starred in Travis McGee, a TV movie based on the 1978 McGee novel The Empty Copper Sea, released in 1983, with the Florida locations changed to California..

Among the striking locations is the under-pool hotel bar where Travis and Meyer (Theodore Bikel) recruit Merrima, the Wreck Bar in Fort Lauderdale.

It has a doomy mood and a nasty tone and plenty of Seventies-style violence. The UK cert A version is cut. TV and video versions censor the arm-breaking fight scene.

Cast: Rod Taylor as Travis McGee, Suzy Kendall as Vangie / Merrimay, Theodore Bikel as Meyer, William Smith as Terry, Ahna Capri as Del, James Booth as Burk, Jane Russell as Alabama Tigress, Janet MacLachlan as Noreen, Robert Phillips as Griff, Oswaldo Calvo as Manuel, Sherry Faber as Nina, Marcia Knight as landlady, James H Frysinger as Dewey Powell, Harry A Wood as Judson, Jack Nagle as Farnsworth, Judy Wallace as Ginny, Michael DeBeausset as doctor, Jeff Gillen as Morgue attendant, Chris Robinson as Roy.

John D MacDonald is the author of The Executioners, filmed twice for the cinema as Cape Fear (1962) and Cape Fear (1991), and again as a miniseries in 2026.

Ed Waters had previously written the screenplay for the 1961 American neo-noir film Man-Trap (with Jeffrey Hunter, David Janssen and Stella Stevens) based on John D MacDonald’s novel Soft Touch, which had previously been serialised in Cosmopolitan magazine in March 1958 as Taint of the Tiger.

© Derek Winnert 2026 – Classic Movie Review 14,003

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