The Gypsy Moths ** (1969, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Gene Hackman, Scott Wilson, William Windom, Bonnie Bedelia, Sheree North) – Classic Movie Review 9713

Director John Frankenheimer’s 1969 drama The Gypsy Moths is a dull and dour action adventure-cum-soap opera about three skydivers, Mike Rettig, Joe Browdy and Malcolm Webson (Burt Lancaster, Gene Hackman, Scott Wilson), who arrive in a Kansas dead-end town, where young Malcolm Webson (Wilson)’s aunt Elizabeth Brandon (Deborah Kerr) and uncle V John Brandon (William Windom) put them up.

There seems to be somebody for everybody in Kansas: a student Annie Burke (Bonnie Bedelia) for the kid Malcolm Webson (Wilson), a waitress (Sheree North) for Joe Browdy (Hackman), and a bored wife (Kerr) for Mike Rettig (Lancaster).

It might have worked either as a tale of disillusioned people or as a grand action yarn, but both halves of the movie nosedive. William Hanley’s turgid screenplay is based on a novel by James Drought.

The Gypsy Moths is a particular disappointment from this cast and director, who is taking a nosedive himself, especially as it is a film reuniting Kerr and Lancaster from From Here to Eternity. Alas, Hackman apart, most everybody’s great days were over.

However, the aerial sequences (photographed by Carl Boenisch) are the big plus and Kerr is good enough to make you regret how this film and The Arrangement (also 1969) put her out of the cinema for 16 years, her final feature The Assam Garden (1985).

Also in the cast are Carl Reindel, Ford Rainey, and John Napier.

It is the film debut of Bonnie Bedelia.

Gene Hackman, who retired after Welcome to Mooseport in 2004, turned 90 on 30 January 2020.

Scott Wilson died on 6 October 2018, aged 76. His career started spectacularly with In the Heat of the Night (1967), In Cold Blood (1967), Castle Keep (1969), The Gypsy Moths (1969) and The Grissom Gang (1971).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9713

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