Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Skullduggery (1969)
Director: Gordon Douglas
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
An engagingly ramshackle adventure that gradually takes on a burden of messages as Reynolds and Carmel latch on to Susan Clark's archaeological expedition, which has permission to explore the New Guinea interior. The pair are secretly prospecting for phosphorus (highly profitable since the advent of colour TV), but instead find a tribe of ape-like, intelligent creatures (played by diminutive University of Djakarta students in gingery, hairy suits) who may be 'the missing link'. Dropouts one and all, they certainly believe in flower-power, which turns Reynolds all radical when the Establishment - in the shape of the archaeological expedition's financial backer - proposes to breed them like animals for cheap labour. Cue for a rousingly melodramatic courtroom finale, engineered in desperation by Reynolds, in which the definition of 'humanity' comes under hot debate from all sides (Black Panthers, apartheid apologists, et al). Naïve, uncertain in tone, but despite all faults, an appealing curiosity.Author: TM
Cast & crew
Director: Gordon Douglas
Producer: Saul David
Cast: Burt Reynolds, Susan Clark, Roger C Carmel, Paul Hubschmid, Chips Rafferty, Alexander Knox, Edward Fox, Wilfrid Hyde-White full cast
Genre(s): Action/Adventure
Duration: 105 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now