Maroc 7 (1967)

Film: Maroc 7 (1967)
Stars: Gene Barry, Elsa Martinelli, Leslie Phillips, Cyd Charisse, Denholm Elliott, Alexandra Stewart
Director: Gerry O'Hara
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Cyd Charisse-click here to learn more about Ms. Charisse (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Throughout the month of March, we have looked at four of the seminal films from the career of Cyd Charisse.  While I have questioned her abilities as an actress on occasion, there's no denying that all four of the movies we've profiled for Charisse are considered classics, and correctly so-there's much to lend to all of them.  Charisse, however, is our first actress (of four this year) to recieve 5 Saturdays in the same month, and so we get to continue on in her career past the MGM years.  I considered doing one of her final straight dramas like Party Girl or Twilight of the Gods, but on the advice of my brother, I went further into her filmography, into the 1960's, and found one of the most bizarre spy knockoffs I've seen in a while.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Simon Grant (Barry, best known today for either his series of B-movies at Paramount in the early 50's or his stoic dramatic work in the 1960's in shows like Bat Masterson and Burke's Law depending on your genre preference), an undercover detective who seems to be a bit shaky on the law.  He's hired to infiltrate the jewel thief ring that is run by Louise (Charisse), a fashion editor by day and an impeccably-coiffed criminal by night.  In the process of his investigation into Louise, Simon begins to fall for Claudia (Martinelli), one of the fashion models working within Louise's ring, one whom he thinks could be persuadable to his own side.  Along the way, we see an increasingly ridiculous series of chase sequences interrupting ornate, gaudy modeling shoots with about a dozen women that somehow all look like Lois Chiles (even though none of them are in fact Lois Chiles).

The movie is clearly borrowing from the Sean-Connery style Bond films that were popular at the time, with pictures like the James Coburn Flint series being a huge coup for FOX.  Maroc 7, however, doesn't have the cheekiness of the Coburn films, and also doesn't have the budget, and is clearly more a way to make a quick buck off of a series of scantily clad women and a recognizable name (though she deserves above-the-title billing, this is very much a supporting role for Charisse) to make a buck for Paramount.  There's so much camp potential here (one of Charisse's henchman is an irritable, likely gay, photographer, for crying out loud), but only Denholm Elliott seems to realize that they aren't making an important film.  Instead, we have actors actually trying to land their parts without any irony, and none of them (save, again, Elliott) probably have the actorly heft to be able to pull off an A-picture to begin with.  As a result, it's kind of boring, and the characters are almost interchangeable.  You'd be forgiven for not even distinguishing key characters in the film, which is a problem because the film's final third, which involves two different actresses betraying our main character, plays flat because you honestly would struggle to even remember which characters they were playing.

The movie took place at the end of Charisse's filmography, and was the last movie in her career that she'd get star billing.  At this point, she'd been out of dancing for over a decade (MGM largely abandoning musicals to make action movies like Maroc 7, albeit higher-quality), and other than a part in the uncompleted Marilyn Monroe picture Something's Gotta Give, hadn't really done anything of note since the 60's began.  She's fine in this role, even though it's easy to see someone like Anne Bancroft having more fun with the part; Louise is meant to be effortlessly glamorous, and Charisse, now in her mid-40's, certainly still could do this in a series of elegant suits.  I leave Charisse's filmography weirdly conflicted about her as a performer-she's a great dancer, but not a particularly compelling actress.  However, either her studio or her agent or Charisse herself had impeccable taste in scripts, making her a star with iconic hit after hit (Maroc 7 notwithstanding) during the waning days of the Golden Age.  Monday we'll unveil our next star, someone who came before Charisse but has a rather cheeky connection to the actress that I'm hoping you enjoy, but in the meantime please sound off in the comments on your favorite Charisse films we've profiled, and if there's a really great one that might change my mind about her.