Innocent Bystanders

The Last Time Into The Breach
Director Peter Collinson's production of 'INNOCENT BYSTANDERS'-1972 arrived at the wane of the Spy Film genre as fans were seeing Sean Connery leave the James Bond franchise and awaiting Roger Moore to attain the mantle. This film owes alot to that particular time frame even down to the ludicrous music score by John Keating trying to emulate the sound and themes of John Barry. It does, however, succeed by having a clever script by James Mitchell which is based on the novel by James Munro and a stellar cast. Stanley Baker who's career was largely forgotten at this time plays John Craig, a washed up psychologically scarred Department K agent who's given one last job to redeem himself by his boss, Looms, played magnificently cold and calculating by the great Donald Pleasence. Dana Andrews ,in one of his last appearances , plays the head of the CIA and Cec Linder who played Felix Lieter in Director Guy Hamilton's classic Bond opus 'GOLDFINGER'- 1964 plays his shrink. We also have...

GREAT MOVIE BUT BLU-RAY IS REGION A ONLY
DOES NOT APEAR TO BE STATED ON THE PRODUCT ITSELF, BUT AMAZON IS CORRECT FOR THIS BLU-RAY'S REGION CODING. SADLY, IT WILL NOT PLAY ON REGION B PLAYERS, AN UNFORTUNATE SITUATION WHEN THERE HAS BEEN NO SEPARATE RELEASE FOR REGION B.

Secret agent capor for those tired of the Bond gimmicks
I was pleased to discover that Amazon carried the DVD of this 1972 British spy film.

I had only seen (in part) one other version and that was a version shown on network television years ago. For some reason, the TV version in the USA included additional scenes, apparently filmed in New York. I know that it has been a trend lately to release DVD versions (and even theatrical versions) of films called the extended cut, the director's cut, or a version with an alternate ending.

The early version of INNOCENT BYSTANDERS was, I believe, one of those theatrical films with new scenes added to the televised version to pad it out to fit into a network time slot that could include commercials. The most shameless example of this is the Hammer film KISS OF EVIL or KISS OF THE VAMPIRE which has newly (and insipid) scenes filmed for the televised showing. In some cases, scenes in the original theatrical films are often expurgated because they include footage (usually violent)...

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