It's a complicated plot. David Kelly, as Frank Kovak, is an ancient and brilliant scientist who has invented a kind of chip that can be implanted in an unsuspecting victim's neck. He's had this done more than a hundred times and all these unknowing subjects are walking around on Mallorca, the tourist mecca in Spain's Balearic Islands. The chips can be activated when the subject hears Billy Holiday singing "Gloomy Sunday." When they are activated, the subject commits suicide. Any attempt to tinker with the chips sets them off. De rigeur in these kinds of stories.
This happens to the bride of David Norton (Timothy Hutton). She jumps from a hotel balcony and splashes. In fact, there is a rash of similarly motivated suicides on Mallorca and the despondent Hutton runs into another jumper (Lucia Jimenez) who survives only because her fall was broken by an awning.
The two join forces and Hutton, a successful science fiction writer, finally tracks down the malefactor, Kelly, who nevertheless succeeds in prompting about a hundred people to leap to their deaths in The Caves of Hell on the island. Kelly is dying of a brain tumor and tries to blackmail Hutton into shooting him. He succeeds after threatening to reactivate Jimenez's chip so that she'll off herself successfully.
It's a perplexing movie. A good deal of imagination has obviously gone into the plot, which hangs together nicely. Except, I suppose, once the conundrum is clarified, all the potential victims need to do is to make sure they're never in a position to listen to Billy Sunday again. (Jimenez, when hearing the tuneful trigger, manages to stay under water long enough to escape the consequences.) It's slow and there's little in the way of action but I rather liked it. Frank Kovac is the evildoer, of course, but he's so wizened and he sounds so sweet that it's difficult to categorize him as thoroughly evil. He is, after all, a sick and dying human being who is facing what remains of his bleak future with dignity and without complaint. It's so much better than casting some tattooed moron as the heavy.
Timothy Hutton gives a subdued performance, projecting the presence of a man whose would-be wife has recently done a nose dive off a hotel balcony. Lucia Jimenez is there primarily to provide a threatened female. (She and Hutton both know she's sporting one of those chips in her neck.) She does a professional job, though, and she has sensual features and a nice figure, so we'll let her stay in the picture and be threatened. She does NOT wind up in bed with Hutton, or together with him on the departing airplane either, which is a blessing because the alternative is a terrible cliché.
The spare musical score by Roque Banos is mysterioso -- somber and spooky. The director may need a little seasoning. The movie has no touches that anyone would consider out of the ordinary. Not that every film MUST be full of directorial razzle-dazzle. But let me give one example of what I mean.
Hutton and Jimenez have discovered the secret to the rash of suicides and have come into possession of records that support their conclusion. They take them to the American embassy. The men on the other side of the desk do what these movies always require of them -- they don't believe a word of it. So how does the director handle this formulaic situation? Not like Hitchcock did in "The Man Who Knew Too Much", and not like Roman Polanski in "Frantic." Instead, after the evidence is presented, the Consul shakes his head and smirks while denying that it constitutes proof or, indeed, anything suggestive enough to be worth pursuing. It's as if Hutton and Jimenez were two nuts. The stereotypic template is followed down to the last millimeter.
But you can easily get over these occasional directorial vacations -- the cross-cutting between the people about to leap to their doom and the car speeding to their rescue. The plot's the thing. And it's not bad.
This happens to the bride of David Norton (Timothy Hutton). She jumps from a hotel balcony and splashes. In fact, there is a rash of similarly motivated suicides on Mallorca and the despondent Hutton runs into another jumper (Lucia Jimenez) who survives only because her fall was broken by an awning.
The two join forces and Hutton, a successful science fiction writer, finally tracks down the malefactor, Kelly, who nevertheless succeeds in prompting about a hundred people to leap to their deaths in The Caves of Hell on the island. Kelly is dying of a brain tumor and tries to blackmail Hutton into shooting him. He succeeds after threatening to reactivate Jimenez's chip so that she'll off herself successfully.
It's a perplexing movie. A good deal of imagination has obviously gone into the plot, which hangs together nicely. Except, I suppose, once the conundrum is clarified, all the potential victims need to do is to make sure they're never in a position to listen to Billy Sunday again. (Jimenez, when hearing the tuneful trigger, manages to stay under water long enough to escape the consequences.) It's slow and there's little in the way of action but I rather liked it. Frank Kovac is the evildoer, of course, but he's so wizened and he sounds so sweet that it's difficult to categorize him as thoroughly evil. He is, after all, a sick and dying human being who is facing what remains of his bleak future with dignity and without complaint. It's so much better than casting some tattooed moron as the heavy.
Timothy Hutton gives a subdued performance, projecting the presence of a man whose would-be wife has recently done a nose dive off a hotel balcony. Lucia Jimenez is there primarily to provide a threatened female. (She and Hutton both know she's sporting one of those chips in her neck.) She does a professional job, though, and she has sensual features and a nice figure, so we'll let her stay in the picture and be threatened. She does NOT wind up in bed with Hutton, or together with him on the departing airplane either, which is a blessing because the alternative is a terrible cliché.
The spare musical score by Roque Banos is mysterioso -- somber and spooky. The director may need a little seasoning. The movie has no touches that anyone would consider out of the ordinary. Not that every film MUST be full of directorial razzle-dazzle. But let me give one example of what I mean.
Hutton and Jimenez have discovered the secret to the rash of suicides and have come into possession of records that support their conclusion. They take them to the American embassy. The men on the other side of the desk do what these movies always require of them -- they don't believe a word of it. So how does the director handle this formulaic situation? Not like Hitchcock did in "The Man Who Knew Too Much", and not like Roman Polanski in "Frantic." Instead, after the evidence is presented, the Consul shakes his head and smirks while denying that it constitutes proof or, indeed, anything suggestive enough to be worth pursuing. It's as if Hutton and Jimenez were two nuts. The stereotypic template is followed down to the last millimeter.
But you can easily get over these occasional directorial vacations -- the cross-cutting between the people about to leap to their doom and the car speeding to their rescue. The plot's the thing. And it's not bad.