Target: Harry is right in my wheelhouse–a bunch of actors trundled off to Europe to have a nice vacation and shoot a movie–but I got here indirectly. Target: Harry, also known as How to Make It and What’s in It for Harry?, was directed by Roger Corman and released in the United States in 1969. In 1979, for reasons that aren’t clear, it was released in eastern England on a double bill with Foes, an American science fiction film.[1][2] Even after getting a proper Kino Lorber Blu-Ray in 2019 (2K remaster), it’s still pretty rare, with 209 ratings on Letterboxd as of writing.
As with so many of these films the production history is a little muddled. Roger Corman shot almost all of it in 1969, either as a made-for-TV-movie or a TV pilot that wasn’t picked up. The former feels more likely; the movie is feature length and it’s hard to envision a TV series from that era having the budget required. Gene Corman added two completely gratuitous nude scenes later, which apparently accounts for Roger taking his name off and getting credited as “Henry Neill.” They add nothing except running time; they’re even more gratuitous than the alternate-take nude scenes in The Beast of Yucca Flats.
Leonard Maltin dismissed Target: Harry as a “humdrum redoing of The Maltese Falcon.”[3] That’s true to the extent that they’re both plot-optional, running strictly on vibes, and concerning a man who finds himself in the center of a criminal conspiracy. Where they part is tone and quality: The Maltese Falcon is a classic noir, set entirely in San Francisco. It’s also a superior movie. Target: Harry, like Harry in your Pocket or Silver Bears, invites you to go hang out with its actors in some location for an hour or two, and promises that you’ll have a good time. John Huston himself made an early, superior example with 1953’s Beat the Devil, which followed Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, and Peter Lorre to the Amalfi Coast.
This time around it’s Vic Morrow, Suzanne Pleshette, Victor Buono, Michael Ansara, and Milton Reid in Monte Carlo and Istanbul. We open with a father and daughter (Jason and Ruth Carlyle, played by Stanley Holloway and Charlotte Rampling) in Monte Carlo, at an auto-race. The inclusion of Holloway, in what amounts to an extended cameo, feels like a nod to his turn in The Lavender Hill Mob. Watching them is Milos (Michael Ansara). Milos attempts to shoot one of them but is foiled by the boisterous crowd. They flee, and we cut to a prison, where Harry Black (Vic Morrow) is getting bailed out of prison for unspecified crimes. Lieutenant Duval (Cesar Romero!) warns him to stay out of trouble.
Harry’s a freelance pilot with Grumman G-73 Mallard. He flies Jason to Istanbul, no questions asked, leaving Ruth in Monte Carlo. Jason is murdered a short time later, plunging Harry into the middle of a conspiracy he doesn’t even understand (shades of Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon). Mosul Rashi is this film’s “Fat Man,” played with a jolly ruthlessness by Victor Buono. His lieutenants are Milos and Kemal (the inevitable Milton Reid). Also in Istanbul is the mysterious Diane Reed (Suzanne Pleshette), who may or may not be working on her own. Everyone’s looking for some counterfeiting plates that were in Jason’s possession but weren’t found on his body.
A club scene in Istanbul reminded me of similar scenes in The Return of the Pink Panther and The Spy Who Loved Me, and perhaps this is what it would look like if you took Plummer’s half of the former film and expanded it to feature length. Harry flees back to Monte Carlo and tracks down Ruth, who has the plates and is in way over her head. In turns out Diane has suborned Kemal, and Kemal murders Ruth to obtain the plates. The subsequent fight between Harry and Kemal is pretty good, and ends in Kemal’s accidental death.
The action the shifts to Corfu, with Rashi and Harry working together. Milos turns out to be a member of the Albanian secret service planning to buy the plates from Diane. Harry and Rashi hide in a tour group, daring Milos to shoot into a crowd. He does, killing several bystanders. Harry obtains a gun and shoots Milos. Back in Monte Carlo, Harry rejects Diane’s advances and turns her over to Lieutenant Duval.
I take Leonard Maltin’s point that this is a lesser film, but lesser films are my stock-in-trade. Vic Morrow’s fun as a Mediterranean Han Solo, and Victor Buono goes cheerfully over the top as what one reviewer called a “fem Sydney Greenstreet.” I enjoyed hanging out with this film and I’ll happily watch it again.
“Cine-guide,” Lynn Advertiser, May 22, 1979. ↩︎
“Film,” Suffolk and Essex Free Press, May 31, 1979 ↩︎
Leonard Maltin, Leonard Maltin’s 2014 Movie Guide (2013). ↩︎