Verdict
Summary
A globetrotting adventure in the red-blooded vein of the best men’s adventure novels, House of Cards is a pretty great action thriller with a wisecracking hero at the forefront. Peppard is so good in this, and I loved the script by James P. Bonner and the snappy direction by John Guillermin. I was never for one second bored or tired of this story, which kept twisting and leading to more action and an entirely satisfactory conclusion (at the Roman coliseum, no less). Solid and tight, this was a crackerjack film.
Plot:
An American boxer becomes a man on the run when a boy he’s in charge of disappears in Europe.
Review:
Reno Davis (George Peppard, never better) is a tough palooka taking professional fights in Europe, and when he wins a match in Paris, his next gig is uncertain … until a boy randomly shoots his car with live rounds, prompting him to pull over and grab the kid by the ear and reprimand his mother Anne (played by Inger Stevens), a snooty rich woman living in a mansion. The next day, Anne offers him a job: For $600 a week, Reno will be the boy’s tutor in all things America, including baseball, and having nothing better to do, Reno takes the gig, and even gets to live on site in the family mansion. This proves to be a disaster waiting to happen, as Anne’s family has deep pockets and deeper influence, with the possibility of kidnapping a constant concern for Anne and her son. When the boy is kidnapped in broad daylight and his best friend is brutally murdered right next to him, Reno is framed for both crimes (kidnapping and murder), but he’s not the type to just sit around and rot in a jail cell, no, he instead goes on the run in Europe, a complete fish out of water, but with all the strength and resilience of the fighter that he is. He ends up in Rome, where the boy’s father and a cult leader of sorts (played by a rotund Orson Welles) have the boy’s future all planned out (and indeed they are the kidnappers), but Reno is tough, and with Anne right next to him, breathless and just trying to keep pace with him, he’ll topple this nasty house of cards and come out on top.
A globetrotting adventure in the red-blooded vein of the best men’s adventure novels, House of Cards is a pretty great action thriller with a wisecracking hero at the forefront. Peppard is so good in this, and I loved the script by James P. Bonner and the snappy direction by John Guillermin. I was never for one second bored or tired of this story, which kept twisting and leading to more action and an entirely satisfactory conclusion (at the Roman coliseum, no less). Solid and tight, this was a crackerjack film.
Kino Lorber brings House of Cards to Blu-ray in a strong high definition transfer, and the disc comes with an audio commentary by a film historian, plus a trailer and a slipcover.
