Assault on a Queen 
                                      
Director: Jack Donohue
Year: 1966
Rating: 5.0
This is one of those 1960 heist films which were very popular at the time. I guess they still are but films like Gambit, The Italian Job, Kaleidoscope, How to Steal a Million, Oceans 11, Topkapi and the 1971 film $ had a certain pop charm to them filled with popular actors. They were glossier with bigger budgets than the heist films of the 1950s which had noirish elements. Not these. But there was still an unwritten rule in place that they can't get away with it. A rule that goes way back. This one is probably the most outlandish of them using a submarine to rob the luxury liner, the Queen Mary. It stars Frank Sinatra, Tony Franciosa (who was popular then though I have no idea why) and the stunning Virna Lisi. The 60's were also the time of the fabulous imports from Italy - Sophia, Claudia, Lollobrigida, Vitti and Lisi. I had forgotten just how beautiful she was. Flawless. Of course, a woman that beautiful in a heist film just spells trouble with a capital T. She isn't the problem of the film though - far from it - but a script that takes forever to get to the heist and just isn't all that interesting getting there. It lollygags for 80 of its 100 minutes. They needed Frank to break into a song. Duke Ellington scores the film so that would have been perfect.



Franciosa, Lisi and a German ex-submarine commander (Alf Kjellin) are searching for a sunken ship with gold aboard. When their diver dies they go looking for another one and find him in a dive playing cards and drinking and looking like his last shower was in the last decade. He is with his friend Linc (Errol John), a black man. Sinatra agrees reluctantly to join them but Lisi's legs win him over. She is paired up with Franciosa but we all know she won't be able to resist old Blue-Eyes for long, shower or not. He doesn't find a treasure but finds a U-Boat. And the German thinks it would be a great idea to bring it to the surface, fix it up and steal money and bullion from the Queen Mary. I would have said - wait we have a submarine, let's find that treasure.



And it takes the film forever to get to the theft. There is the expected competition for Lisi and then getting the sub shipshape - they bring in Richard Conte for that part. And enmity within the group with Franciosa in particular being a jerk and showing his racist colors. The director is Jack Donohue who had primarily done TV - one show being The Frank Sinatra Show - which probably got him the gig. As a note - The RMS Queen Mary had been in service since 1936 and was about to be retired in the coming year - I expect that had something to do with them allowing it to be used. It was later converted to a hotel.