User reviews

While the poor casting in "Golden Salamander" might surprise you, it it STILL worth seeing. It begins with a British man, David (Trevor Howard), driving along some very, very wet roads at night in Tunisia. Eventually, he pulls off the road--and stumbles on some guns that have fallen out of a crate. Soon, some folks return to retrieve the guns--and David runs, as he's pretty sure these are smugglers. However, he does NOT report this to the authorities.

His job in the town is to pack some antiquities for transport to a British museum. During the time he's in the town, he falls for Anna (Anouk Aimée). He also soon realizes that Anna's brother is one of the smugglers. What's he to do? And, just how deep does this conspiracy go?

This is a nice action-romance. As I mentioned above, the casting was odd, as Howard was almost two decades older than his love interest. I also was dumbfounded when there was the HUGE fight near the end...and Anna just stood there watching (even though if the wrong man wins, she will die!). Despite these problems, the film is exciting and has a very good plot...and it's well acted as well.

Not really poorly made, but more so mediocre, the film's biggest downfall is the lack of any solid plot. The darkness of the shots at the beginning of the film make it hard to see what is going, however one is able to make out that the protagonist has stumbled across some illegal activity. The first third of the film progresses along with the mystery of what they were doing being the only thing driving the plot. Soon after the mystery is revealed, a romance begins, and the rest of the films ties in the protagonist's love interest to how he deals with the crooks. In other words, it is a bit of a mess, and a bit of a predictable one too. Trevor Howard is a good choice for the lead, but the rest of the acting is merely adequate. To the film's virtue, Neame captures the intriguing nature of a foreign environment and atmosphere well, the locations are good, and close-ups are used well to tell certain parts of the tale. It is probably worth a look for fans of Neame and/or Howard.

Trevor Howard plays David Redfern, an archaeologist sent to Tunis to recover artifacts belonging to his English employer. However, he runs across a gun running operation headed up by Serafis (Walter Rilla). The suspense builds and a murder only adds to the danger for Redfern.

Herbert Lom is absolutely wonderful as the evil, dangerous henchman, Rankl, and Anouk Aimee is beautiful as Anna. A good movie is always characterised by the strength of its supporting cast and even those people with minor parts (such as Wilfrid Hyde-White) add depth and colour to the film.

The only negative for me was the fact that Trevor Howard and Anouk Aimee make an extremely unlikely romantic couple. In the scenes with Aimee, Howard, who was a very good actor, seems to play the part like a man with too much starch in his collar.

Leaving that minor detail aside, this is a good, suspenseful movie and well worth watching.

Rating: 7/10

Watchable British thriller about gun-running in Post-WWII Tunisia with faint echoes of THE MALTESE FALCON (1941; except that the title artifact bears little relation to the main plot!), TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944) and THE THIRD MAN (1949; not least the presence of two of its cast members), but is perhaps too low-key to be really memorable. Nonetheless, the film has a remarkable cast (Trevor Howard, Anouk Aimee', Herbert Lom, Walter Rilla, Miles Malleson, Jacques Sernas, Wilfrid Hyde-White) and nice, noir-ish atmosphere going for it - and is short enough (87 minutes, though some sources give this as 96!) to keep tedium at bay...which could result from its lack of incident (apart from a couple of confrontation scenes and a climactic fistfight between Howard and Lom) or the incongruous pairing of its two leads.

Trevor Howard, past his prime, is a plucky archaeologist matching wits against gunrunners in North Africa and falling in love with Anouk Aimee.

This post-war British thriller suffers from an almost terminal stiffness of the upper lip, but it offers an intelligent, no-nonsense script and several notable performances, particularly among the villains (Howard's principal adversary is a young and menacing Herbert Lom.

The story was adapted from a Victor Canning novel and filmed, to excellent advantage, on location in Tunisia.

In a movie that suffers from to many unanswered questions, too many loose ends, and far too much coincidence, there is one constant which merits mention: the acting of Anouk Aimee. From the moment she enters the as a bar maid she becomes a force in the film, since she is simply a more dominant presence on the screen. The other roles are pretty much clichés. In fact so much so that one expects Howard to really be a secret British agent. And the piano player in the bar drinks as much as he plays. The villains seem much too superficial. The problem stems from a seeming attempt to reproduce World War Two Bogart films, an attempt which is historically out of step with he Cold War of 1950. Does anyone really care about gun running in Tunisia?

To me, Anouk Aimee gives a more convincing performance than does Bergman in CASABLANCA or Bacall in TO HAVE OR HAVE NOT. Bergman seems out of place in Rick's, and Bacall's quips appear contrived. Aimee seems natural throughout, and her lines are appropriate. Her performance is reason enough to see this film.

There are three reasons for watching this movie: first Trevor Howard gives a performance of some conviction--he always seems to believe in what he's doing even when it's somewhat improbable. Then Anouk is ravishing, as she had been in Les Amants de Verone made when she was 16. Finally Wilfrid Hyde-White gives a very assured performance as Agno, the hotel pianist and factotum. Add to this the often stunning locations in North Africa, and Ronald Neame's assured direction, and this is a very pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. This was the last film from the British Noir box that I watched. It's not a noir, just a thriller.

When I saw the cast for this, I figured the movie would either be very good or awful. Luckily, it was the former. Good acting, great cinematography, editing and a convincing character path make this movie a real classic. Of course there are the "exotic" Arabs, but their depiction is not as offensive as in most films of its era. The somewhat dazed performance by Anouk Aimee leads one to believe that she either had a lot of trouble with the English language, or overplayed her depressive qualities. The boar hunt sequence brings to mind the conclusion of the book "The Alexandria Quartet." Aside from these minor quibbles, I recommend The Golden Salamander to anyone with an interest in character development, intrigue, and film noir that isn't about people unjustly accused of criminal action, innocent people led into same, and heists gone wrong.

This is a slightly confused smuggling mystery with an oddly cast Trevor Howard as "David", a British archaeologist sent to Tunisia to supervise the removal of some artefacts. He arrives at the inn run by "Anna" (Anouk Aimée) and a slightly sinister pianist Wilfred Hyde-White ("Anjo"). Next thing, he is involved in a gun-smuggling racket with local hoodlum Herbert Lom ("Rankl") and his lobster fisherman pal "Max" (Jacques Sernas) whilst slowly falling in love with the much younger "Anna". It's a good looking film, but the story has more holes than a Dutch cheese with just way too many co-incidences. Howard is fine, but Lom features all too rarely to build any sense of suspense. Sernas is positively smouldering so why Anouk would prefer the older man is slightly bewildering; and the casting of Miles Malleson - ordinarily the archetypical British vicar/train enthusiast as "Douvet" - the local policeman, is just a bit too baffling to make much sense of the really thinly spread story.

With her little-girl voice and arched eyebrows, a 17-year old Anouk (Aimee) is a real attention-getter. Having her fall for the much older and plainer Trevor Howard, however, is something of a stretch. Nonetheless, it's a fascinating movie to look at even if the basic plot is unexceptional. Archaeologist Howard travels to north Africa to retrieve shipwrecked treasures that include a golden salamander. There he stumbles across a network of gun- smugglers and hooks up with the exotic Anna (Anouk) in a seedy, atmospheric café. Just who is and who isn't a part of the network generates some suspense.

But the movie's strength is in the acting and the photography. Howard is superb, as usual, while Anouk manages to be both emotionally vulnerable and surprisingly accomplished in her first big part. Special mention should go to Walter Rilla for his super slick version of a gangster kingpin. He looks and acts the sinister role to a proverbial T.

However, what I liked best is what the pro's call "mise-en-scene", ie. the placing of a scene. Someone in production had the great idea of filming on location, along the north African coast line. This results in a number of visually stunning compositions made all the more so by the subtle tonalities that only black& white photography can produce. Catch the romantic scene on the beach with the setting sun in deep-focus background. Color is simply too literal to capture this kind of poetic effect.

The dialogue is spiced up nicely with several exotic pearls of wisdom, but what about that escape scene by the cliff which seems pretty implausible-- how did Hyde-Whyte know a sheep flock would pass at exactly the right time. Or the climax, which seems a little too tame for my liking. Nonetheless, it's one of those movies that's stayed with me over the years for reasons I can't quite pin down. I guess it's something about the authentic crowds along the Arab bazaar or the sheer poetry of that coast line stretching into the distance and beyond. Yes indeed, there's a lot to be said for the old black & white.

Ronald Neame is one of a handful of cinematographers who have tried their hand at directing, with decidedly mixed and uneven results. Neame does a pretty good job however with this rather routine thriller based upon the novel by the prolific Victor Canning. Trevor Howard plays David Redfern, an archaeologist who stumbles across a gun-running operation and is undecided as to whether or not to expose it. He develops a soft spot for the sister of one of the gang members and when the brother is bumped off he realises that he cannot remain impartial. At the start of the film he approaches a small hotel and one hears from within the sound of a piano playing 'Clopin Clopante'. Imagine our surprise when the actor at the keyboard turns out to be Wilfred Hyde-White! Even more bizarre casting is to follow. Peter Copley plays an Arab and if you can believe Miles Malleson as a member of the Gendarmerie...! The casting of the villians is spot on however with Walter Rilla as the reptilian Serafis and the always mesmerising Herbert Lom as his henchman. Howard of course is wonderfully watchable. His persona is that of a gentleman with 'an edge' which always makes his performances interesting and one seldom catches him 'acting'. The object of his affections here is the enchanting Anouk(without the 'Aimee') in a very early role. Most reviewers have remarked upon the disparity in their ages. That may be true but there is a chemistry there and after all, it's only a movie. Mr. Neame's direction is solid and there are some 'noirish' touches from cinematographer Oswald Morris. This film will not exactly have you on the edge of your seat but is guaranteed to wile away an hour and a half.

Several reviews have mentioned the age difference (20 years) between Trevor Howard and Anouk, as she was known then. Like I suppose that has never happened. Sabrina, Love in the Afternoon, anyone? Twenty years is nothing.

Howard plays a British archaeologist, David, who comes to Tunisia to catalog artifacts (one of which is the golden salamander) for shipment.

On his way, he runs into what he is sure is a gun-smuggling ring, but he keeps this information to himself.

He meets and falls for Anna (Anouk) and becomes aware of the man in charge of the smuggling (Herbert Lom). Then he finds the dead body of someone who was involved in the gun running but decided to leave the country.

David at that point tries going to the authorities and reaching his consulate but learns very quickly all roads are closed to him, and that his knowledge has put him in danger.

Good film with solid performances, including a nice job by Wilfred Hyde-White.

Someone mentioned the huge fight at the end and that Anna just watched. Actually I am not sure what she could have done.

Worth seeing, and it was filmed on location.

No matter how low budget a British movie is, there's usually great acting being filled with great actors... of the British or neighboring-European kind... here from 1950 with night-passage stranded archaeologist Trevor Howard in a Tunisian town, consisting of a noirish tavern that includes wispy ingenue Anouk Aimée and where usual-lead-villain Herbert Lom only seems in charge of the impending darkness...

Turns out being a more sophisticated, monologue-spouting Walter Rilla while Howard's distracted in a beachy romance with the extremely vulnerable Aimée... while Lom's and handsome partner Jacques Sernas are keeping something chillingly secret: the only real nice person is bartender Wilfrid Hyde-White while Howard, in the midst of a lean, economic thriller without much suspense yet high on atmospheric tension, seems to kind of stand around and... wait for the outcome, which is actually pretty tight and pulpy, and worth re-watching.

The most curious asset of this film is a very young and irresistible Anouk Aimée ("Anouk") as the innocent girl who is totally unaware of what is going on although her boyfriend is deeply mixed up in it, which makes her worried without knowing for what. As it happens, the archaeologist Trevor Howard enters and makes things happen in this off-side village in Tunisia where corruption flourishes, in which everyone is involved. It is therefore a rather unpleasant film, with Herbert Lom as villainous as ever, and Miles Malleson as inimtable as ever as the local chief of police, who isn't quite as innocent as he should be either. It all amounts to a bloody mess of troubles mainly for Trevord Howard himself, and it might seem objectionable that he falls for la belle Anouk while he knows the truth about her boyfriend, in whose case his meddling didn't quite work oui as he had intended. A key figure is Wilfred Hyde-White, constantly sitting drunk by the piano playing the wonderful "Clopin Clopant" and saying very little but in the end doing what is needed to resolve a hopeless situation just by a very small hint. He was never better, although he always was a crown jewel in every film he was in.

When I first heard of Ronald Neame's name, it was for POSEIDON' S ADVENTURE, back in 1972, the same for his pal John Guillermin, in 1975, it was this time concerning TOWERING INFERNO, both disaster seventies films, commercial, and not "author" features. I really discovered the authentic, genuine filmographies of those British movie makers much much later, and it was far more interesting, with not necessarily gross intentions, at least not as much as for the seventies Hollywood stuff. This one GOLDEN SALAMANDER, is pretty good, exciting, with a terrific Herb Lom in a character that suits him like a glove. The plot is unfortunately predictable but the directing, and photography purely stunning.