Puppet on a Chain (1970) User Reviews

Worthy of a good DVD release

[Mitch-228 · 6/10 · 12 August 2006]

Back in the early 1970's the name "Alistair MacLean" meant "bums on seats ~ ticket sales" and the cinematic release of one of his most recent novels "Puppet on a Chain" was no exception.

It is wrong to compare this action movie (as with many, many others) with the on-going JB007 franchise: this was a formulaic movie in its own field. The action scenes are great, the storyline was then bang up-to-date and the general production (if marred a little by lack of budget) of a high standard.

Contrary to other views, in my opinion, the leading actor Sven Bertil-Taube was excellent in the role (a shame the script required him to be an American agent) and he was well supported by several character (if rather stock) actors. Pehaps Barbara Perkins was not the best choice as leading lady and her character lacked realism but then this was never meant to be anything other than entertainment.

Contains a superb score by the Maestro: Piero Piccioni.

Far from perfect but still very good and worthy of a decent DVD release.

Pure Seventies

[robertconnor · 6/10 · 3 June 2005]

Truly atmospheric Euro-thriller from the early seventies, boasting one of the best chase sequences ever, and a plot riddled with holes.

US Agent Paul Sherman (Taube) arrives in Amsterdam to investigate drug trafficking between Holland and the US. Together with undercover agent Maggie (Parkins) he begins to close in on the villains...

Given that Sherman and Maggie are working together, they don't seem to share much information. If they had debriefed each other a little more thoroughly, much of what eventually transpires could so easily have been avoided (e.g., how come Maggie fails to tell Paul about the dodgy nuns and the bibles she witnesses in church?). This (and the unexplained accents - a Swede playing a Dutch-American, a Brit and a Canadian playing Dutch) aside, it's action-packed, makes great use of its Dutch locations, and has a nice twisty ending.

Extra-groovy nightclub scene too!

Slightly Above Average MacLean Yarn About Heroin Smuggling

[zardoz-13 · 6/10 · 19 December 2009]

Historically, the 1946 Dick Powell movie "To The Ends of the Earth" kicked off the drug smuggling movie genre when the old Production Code Administration amended the infamous Motion Picture Code in 1946 to allow the depiction of narcotics traffic. Previously, the PCA refuses in most instants to let filmmakers name the narcotics in their movies, much less show people abusing these substances. "The French Connection" captured the most awards with a Best Picture Oscar in 1971, and then the Alistair MacLean heroin thriller "Puppet on a Chain" came out in 1972. The formulaic "Puppet on a Chain" is not half as exciting as either "The Satan Bug" or "When Eight Bells Toll," two superior MacLean sagas. This ranks one of the lesser MacLean melodramas.

Since Dutch authorities in Amsterdam cannot get a fix on the folks in their fair city who are smuggling tons of heroin to the United States, a dapper but divorced narcotics agent from Washington, Paul Sherman (Sven-Bertil Taube of "The Eagle Has Landed"), heads to the city of canals and barrel organs to see what he can do. Alistair MacLean astonished everybody with his dynamic "Where Eagles Dare" screenplay, but nobody will be astonished by this lethargic thriller that spins more time with talk instead of action. For example, sixty-four minutes elapses before director Geoffrey Reeves stages a decent hand-to-hand combat fight. Okay, the earlier fight scene at 21 minutes into the action in the hotel room where our hero stays qualified as a one-sided, disposable scuffle, even though the intruder died. Anyhow, this respectable mystery unfolds after three people are gunned down by a mustached hit-man wearing gloves and armed with a silenced automatic pistol. Dude drives up, walks in, and guns them down in the living room.

The next thing we see is our handsome hero aboard a jet landing in Amsterdam. A man is shot at the airport where Sherman was supposed to have made a rendezvous with him. Anyway, Amsterdam authorities are not happy with the arrival of Sherman and the interference of a Yankee narco man in their backyard. The only remnant of "Where Eagles Dare" here is the use of a back-up agent, Maggie (Barbara Perkins of "Valley of the Dolls"), who does a bit of her own snooping without arousing suspicion. Yes, like the Mary Ure character in "Where Eagles Dare," nobody is supposed to know that Maggie is a part of the plan. Maggie investigates a suspicious looking church where Bibles are passed out to nuns wearing fishnet hose. Naturally, Maggie and Sherman have an intimate moment to smooch before he proves his action hero chops against a thug who loves to strangle his victims.

Meegeren (Vladek Sheybal of "From Russia with Love") serves as the minister but you know that he is up to no good. Hmm! Meanwhile, Amsterdam Police Chief Colonel De Graaf (Alexander Knox of "You Only Live Twice") resents the cooperation that he has to extend to the troublesome Sherman. Things grow more interesting after the heroine is murdered by the evil villain who wraps a chain around her neck and strangles her. Of course, we are not shown the entire strangulation, but Barbara Parkins does a great job of begging for mercy before she winds up dangling next to a doll whose facial features resemble her. Eventually, our hero shows up at the castle where the villains hide out. Not only does Sherman discover a heroin laboratory with dolls neatly arranged for packing, but he also stumbles into Maggie hanging from the ceiling. The villain tries to dispose of him initially by piping the deafening sounds of clocks chiming into his ears via a headset. Fifteen minutes of this will drive a man crazy, the villain warns, but twenty will kill him. Lenser Jack Hildyard does a good job of enhancing the agony that our hero feels by photographing him with wide-angle lens. The resourceful Sherman escapes.

Eight-one minutes into the action, Don Sharp takes over from Reeve and helms an outstanding power boat speed chase through the canals of Amsterdam that concludes with the villain smashing into a gate. The villain wearing a white suit and fedora is a nice touch. Anyway, Sherman tracks down the villains behind the villain and a neat revelation occurs when they surprise our hero. Yes, there is a dirty cop involved in these hijinks. The chief villain explains that each doll can pack up to $60-thousand dollars in heroin. The finale includes a brief gunfight at a shadowy warehouse where the hero takes a slug in the shoulder and the villain takes a fatal plunge.

A toughened version of James Bond!

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 7/10 · 1 September 2001]

'Puppet On A Chain,' is a sadistic adventure thriller, a toughened version of James Bond... In it, the Swedish actor Sven-Bertil Taube plays an American Interpol agent hunting down drug smugglers in Amsterdam...

Comes the inevitable chase sequence... Only this time it takes place with speedboats through the maze of the Amsterdam canals, in which two boats race along the canals, make unbelievably sharp turns and even jump out of the water...

For boating enthusiasts: The yellow boat driven by Taube was a Shakespeare Sportsman ski boat, thirteen and a half feet long, built in fiber glass and driven by a fifty horsepower Mercury motor... The blue boat handled by villain Vladek Sheybal was a Euro-craft, also with Mercury engine...

Chain Reaction

[Lejink · 7/10 · 10 December 2018]

On paper, this movie had potboiler written all over it. A fledgling director, forced to share the task, an almost unknown cast, low budget and a presumed ho-hum adaptation of yet another Alistair McLean adventure story. But don't be misled, this is actually an entertaining, even exciting thriller, with a credible story, well acted with good location work in Amsterdam and featuring as its highlight an action-packed motor-boat chase through the city's tight maze of canals.

It starts arrestingly with a callous triple murder with the killer casually and noiselessly walking into a house and silently executing his three defenceless victims and follows it up with another surprise murder at Amsterdam airport, this time of an Interpol agent meeting up with a colleague. Said colleague is the film's principal man-hunter, played with Scandinavian stoicism (although he's supposed to be American), by Sven-Bertl Taube, who accompanied by his English, female contact in the city, former lover (as we learn) Barbara Parkins, tracks his quarry to a ruthless drug-smuggling ring, whose base appears to be of all things a monastery, which sidelines in manufacturing and dispensing toy dolls and bibles for the tourist trade, but which secretly contain packages of heroin. This gang thinks nothing of executing suspected informants or suspicious investigators and signifies their deaths with a symbolic "puppet on a chain", one of the toy dolls hung by a chain.

Being Alistair McLean, there's a major plot twist at the end when the gang-leaders are revealed which I admit I didn't see coming for once, itself following on from the aforementioned hair-raising pursuit through the waterways as Taube a chases the baddie more for personal revenge than for the ends of justice.

Like I said, there was a lot to like about this movie. The direction, although shared, I found to be pacy and engrossing, the acting above average, besides Taube and Parkins, I enjoyed seeing Mr "Voice of a thousand adverts", Patrick Allen in a cinema role for once and who ironically for a man famous for extolling the benefits of newly-built houses in the U.K. from a helicopter, finds himself in a life or death situation outside a building where a chopper might have been of benefit to him.

Sure the fashions, a cheesy disco sequence and an intrusive Euro-electric soundtrack date it somewhat but this on the whole was a gritty, low-key thriller which I really enjoyed. And trust me, I'm not yanking your chain when I say that.

OK spy thriller thing.

[poolandrews · 5/10 · 14 July 2007]

Puppet on a Chain starts in L.A. where three people are killed by a professional hit-man after stealing some imported heroin... American narcotics cop Paul Sherman (Sven-Bertil Taube) is sent to Amsterdam to investigate their murders & the illegal importation of heroin from Holland into the US, a sort of kill two birds with one stone operation. Sherman's contact in Amsterdam Jimmy Duclos (Drewe Henley) is assassinated at Schipol Airport before they even meet so he's on the back foot straight away, then he realises he is being followed so the bad guy's know he's there. He meets his other contact undercover officer Maggie (Barbara Parkins) who says Jimmy's girlfriend might know something & so begins Sherman's dangerous investigation into one of Amsterdam's biggest drug smuggling operations & the people behind it...

This British production was directed by Geoffrey Reeve although the end credits say that Don Sharp directed the boat sequence & 'additional scenes' which never sounds great & is a low rent James Bond sort of thing, it's an OK time waster but fairly forgettable when all said & done. The script by Alistair MacLean again with 'additional material' by Don Sharp & Paul Wheeler doesn't quite know what it wants to be & the influence of three different writers all pulling in opposite directions occasionally show's, is it an action film? Well not really because there are only two or three sequences you could describe as action orientated. Is it a thriller? Well again not really as it's not that thrilling or gritty or tough enough. In truth it's somewhere between the two & never quite succeeds at being either, I must admit that Puppet on a Chain has one of the most predictable plot twists I've ever seen. I guessed it within twenty minutes & I was absolutely right, I just thought about how a writer would try & 'surprise' the audience by making the person least likely to be the bad guy turn out to be the bad guy & it's just far too obvious & as a plot device was way past it's sell by date even in 1971! To be fair the writing & lack of decent character's really don't help matters, there is also a strangely out of place moralistic sequence in which Sherman takes a trip around an Amsterdam morgue to look at dead drug addicts for no real reason which I suppose was a message to anyone watching that drugs are bad!

Director's Reeve & Sharp do OK, I must admit I love the Amsterdam location as it's unusual & I've been there myself on a few occasions. To be brutally honest it's not the safest place in the world & I speak from personal experience but it can be a pretty cool place all the same, it's just a shame about all the drunks, the people high on drugs & the prostitution the three of which can make for volatile situations... The action is brief here & not really worth mentioning apart from a 10 minute long boat chase through the canal's of Amsterdam, this may initially sound exciting but when you have one boat in front & another one behind chasing it it becomes tedious quickly as there's not much else happening. The violence is tame & the best scene in the film the opening long continuous shot of the assassin driving up to a house, entering it & killing three people inside in one swift camera movement. There's also a silly James Bond moment when a villain instead of just killing Sherman there & then he rigs an elaborate trap for Sherman in which he is going to die from the high pitched sounds made by chiming clocks! Sherman manages to escape James Bond fashion too.

Technically the film is alright, the locations are nice enough & it has reasonable production values throughout. It's filmed in a bland sort of way, it's watchable but forgettable. The acting is alright by a largely unknown, by me anyway, cast.

Puppet on a Chain is an OK James Bond type action thriller that doesn't quite come off as exciting or thrilling & it is one of the most predictable films I've ever seen with one of the most obvious twists. Nothing special.

Should Have Been Better

[screenman · 6/10 · 7 August 2008]

'Where Eagles Dare' and 'Guns Of Navarone' have proved to be enduring benchmark hokum. Even today, you can't resist a watch. But what both of these Alistair MacLean derived movies have in common is a top-drawer cast, or at least A-list stars in the leading roles.

However, this isn't the only issue upon which 'Puppet On A Chain' fails. Apart from the much-vaunted speedboat chase, low budget seems to be written into every take. Nothing actually stands out in my mind, but I just seem to sense economy. With more money and a MacLean script, all manner of Hollywood heavyweights should have been tempted out to play. And let's face it; in 1971 there was no shortage.

Instead, the starring role was given to someone who was little more than a wooden-faced extra, with a name most ordinary movie buffs are unlikely to ever have heard. And the rest of the cast appear to have been drawn from the same pool. Only Patrick Allen stands out, but he hardly counts as a movie star. There are one or two unexpected little twists like the lynching of the femme-fatale, but otherwise it's a pretty humdrum affair with very limited and stagy action, an unexceptional script, and TV-movie standard acting and directing. There's also some very hokey sequences like the arch-villain leaving the agent to 'die slowly and nastily' and thereby allowing him a chance to escape in the classic style so eloquently spoofed by 'Dr Evil'. At another time, Patrick Allen shoots this same agent, apparently wounding him. But instead of walking over and putting a bullet through his head just to make sure, he busies himself with an electric loading-winch and chain allowing him time to recover. And if that isn't daft enough; he unwinds the chain all the way to the ground(he's on the 4th floor) and then attempts to clamber down it, instead of using its hook-end as a foot platform and letting the electric motor simply lower him effortlessly to the street. It's gaffs like these that leave you feeling seriously short-changed.

Most viewers remember the boat chase, and that is definitely a cinematic high-point. In fact it is so superior in its execution compared to the rest of the movie as to emphasise the other shortcomings. Not surprisingly; a different director handled it. Even so, it could have been a lot better. For example; when one boat crashes heavily into a lock-gate badly damaging the starboard bow, in a later sequence we see the vessel apparently unscathed. And just check-out the crowds of fans gathered along the canal banks and on the bridges. Didn't anybody think to keep them at bay?

However; although this sequence is well worth a watch, the rest simply fails to deliver in any regard, be it suspense, story, directing, lighting, or whatever.

Generally, not recommended.

Waste of a great Alistair MacLean book.

[jckruize · 22 October 2002]

Soulless, silly international co-production boasts picture postcard cinematography in Amsterdam and other locales but is too generic and clichéd otherwise to drum up much excitement. The nominal hero is as stiff and expressionless as a Ken doll, and the vaunted boat chase -- staple of the trailer and TV commercials of the time -- is technically well-executed but out of place in what was supposed to be an adaptation of MacLean's dark, complex tale of drug smuggling, murder and espionage.

This is one of those many cases where producers obtained rights to a valuable property and then jettisoned 90% of what made it memorable or effective; particularly inexplicable in this case, as MacLean is listed as one of the screenwriters! A good (or bad) example of those infamous multi-national 'tax shelter' film productions of the 60's/early 70's.

For better MacLean, look to THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, BREAKHEART PASS or WHERE EAGLES DARE.

Best boat chase on film.

[jeff-91 · 3/10 · 24 September 1998]

Storyline drags. Drug smugglers a Beautiful women and a determined cop. Nothing not already done a hundred times before. The boat sceen will be well worth the wait Amsterdam is the perfect city to pull it off. The canals and waterways put you on the edge of your seat. I would say the same as did the car chase in Bullitt, very intense!.

Comparason of the speedboat chase in the Amsterdam canals in the English film 'Puppet on a Chain' and Dutch film 'Amsterdamned'.

[edwardtop · 6/10 · 28 June 2006]

The speedboat chase in the Amsterdam canals in this film is actually being copied by Dutch director Dick Maas in his 1988 film 'Amsterdamned'. I always thought how original it was to have such an out of the ordinary, yet in Amsterdam obvious chase, but apparently it is less original as I thought. In the 18 year older 'Puppet on a Chain' the chase is as vivid and dynamic as in Maas' film, although one detail in Amsterdamned should catch the viewer's attention. Just like in Puppet on a Chain, the villain almost crashes his boat into an oncoming barge, a thrilling moment. In 'Amsterdamned' this barge has a fanfare band, conducted by 'actor', and Holland's famous Oscar-winning documentary director Bert Haanstra. It makes the already exhilarating scene more colourful, and provides it with a light touch. This detail encapsulates an often noticeable and important difference between English and Dutch film-making if you ask me; It seems that in Dutch films a doses of ridiculing of a serious action or scene is indispensable. Fact of the matter is that the 'original' film, Puppet on a Chain, is more believable because of its absence of this ridiculing. I also find it very interesting to see sceneries of my home country (Holland) in such a serious crime intrigue, where BTW everybody speaks British English!

Amsterdamned

[Prismark10 · 3/10 · 25 March 2017]

Puppet on a Chain is a tedious hard boiled Euro thriller shot in Amsterdam. It could had done with some actual American stars and some more thrilling action. By the time we get to the end speedboat chase scene the damage has been done.

After a hit-man has killed some people and stole some heroin, cop Paul Sherman (Sven-Bertil Taube) is sent to Amsterdam to investigate the murders and the drugs trade. As soon as he sets foot he is being followed and his contact is killed at the airport. Sherman doggedly pursues his investigation in a city where drugs has inflicted a great deal of damage.

Taube is an uncharismatic lead, the film goes at a lethargic pace, the mystery person with drug dealing nuns and who goes about dressed as a minister is easy to identify as a bad guy, it lacks thrills until the boat chase scene which then leads to a few twists but we expected those given someone tipped of the bad guys that Sherman was arriving.

Top-notch drug smuggling thriller on par with the French Connection movies

[Leofwine_draca · 8/10 · 16 March 2015]

Don't you just love it when you stumble across an unknown movie and discover it to be an instant favourite? That's the case with PUPPET ON A CHAIN, a virtually forgotten Alistair MacLean drug smuggling thriller that turns out to be one of the most entertaining of '70s thrillers. With shades of Bond and a wonderful setting in the atmospheric city of Amsterdam, this is up there with the best of genre a la the two FRENCH CONNECTION movies.

Sven-Bertil Taube is the solid lead, playing an American agent dispatched to the Netherlands to break up a drug-smuggling ring. Once there he finds himself pursued by an assassin while investigating some shady business ventures that may well be the front for heroin smuggling on a grand scale. The story is fine, but it's the action that makes this a class act: there's a speedboat chase to rival the ones in LIVE AND LET DIE and AMSTERDAMNED alongside plenty of other great suspense and action sequences.

Director Don Sharp, famous from his work for Hammer Studios, contributes to the action and stunts, in particular helping shoot the aforementioned speedboat chase which is the definite highlight and might be the best thing Sharp ever did. Elsewhere, a decent cast of character actors has been assembled, with unique-looking faces filling the cast list. The only thing this film needs now is a decent Blu-ray release...

Action Drama in Dutch Setting Isn't Too Cheesy; Some Parts Gouda Be Good

[grainstorms · 7/10 · 3 October 2017]

If you don't expect too much from "Puppet on a Chain," you can spend an enjoyable session watching a nearly half-century-old bam- bam-wham- wham adventure movie set in beautiful Amsterdam.

The story, cobbled from a book by Alaistair MacLean, once one of the most popular novelists working the global-thriller gold mine ("The Guns of Navarone," "The Satan Bug," "Ice Station Zebra,"), involves a narcotics gang working out of Holland, and the good guys bent on stopping them.

If "Puppet on a Chain" has any claim to fame, it's because of its heart-pounding epochal speed-boat chase through Dutch canals. Beautifully set up, daringly acted by supremely skilled stuntmen and superbly photographed, it's one of the most exciting high-motion chase scenes in movie history.

The rest of the movie involves a heavily layered story about dolls, Bibles, and ingenious ways of making the hero's life miserable and painful. Aside from the veteran American actor Alexander Knox ("Wilson") and a dependably hissable villain (Vladek Shaybel, a familiar Bond baddie, most notably the Czech chess grandmaster, "SPECTRE Number 5," in the 1963 "From Russia with Love") the acting is solidly second-rate and the undistinguished dialogue just a means of nudging the story forward.

The hero, a US agent, is stolidly if unexpectedly portrayed by a Swedish actor, Sven-Bertil Taube (who was much better decades later in the Swedish film, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," as Henrick Vanger). Don't look for Bond girls here – just an assemblage of wan actresses, all looking curiously like Addams Family cousins in their dark-haired pallor, mouthing dull repartee.

Good points include the aforesaid speedboat chase, beautiful cinematography in good color, Piero Piccioni's appealing score, some funny headgear, and a sometimes original look at the seamy underbelly of The Netherlands, including prostitutes, graffiti and some wildly complicated drug smuggling operations.

All this doesn't stop director Geoffrey Reeve and cinematographer Jack Hildyard from having some fun, notably in photographing a) a naughty and messy floor show, and later, b) a prudish and precise folk dance – the vigilant moviegoer might enjoy comparing the two.

"Puppet on a Chain," for all its obvious influence on Bond movies, has somehow always hidden under the radar, and never been given its just due as a progenitor of the international thriller genre, although moviegoers have time and again been pleasantly surprised at the unpredictable morsels hidden within its bland Dutch cheese offering.

Dated thriller

[jonnybrutal-350-25526 · 5/10 · 28 October 2021]

With a male lead who looks like a fish out of water this was going nowhere fast. Directed in a very point and shoot fashion it sits firmly in the time it was made. Saved by the source material and a great speedboat chase at the end this is a film for nostalgia fans only.

Must-see for swedes

[ingemar-4 · 6/10 · 12 July 2014]

An action movie with Sven-Bertil Taube as the hero, driving a SAAB 99 no less, opposing the terrific Vladek Sheybal, you just can't pass over that one!

For those who don't know, Sven-Bertil Taube is the son of Evert Taube, legendary Swedish singer and composer. Evert Taube is to Sweden pretty much what Washington is to USA, a national symbol. Sven-Bertil is also one of the most prominent artists singing Everts tunes.

So, how well does Sven-Bertil do as action hero? Well, seriously, he isn't the strongest I have seen. As pointed out by others, he doesn't quite have the presence of Connery or Moore, to pick the main ones from the same time. That isn't necessary his fault though. The director is also part of that.

One weakness in the movie is the casting of the female actors. They are way too similar. I have seen this before; a producer has a certain favorite look for females, picks a number of girls close to that look, and then puts the best of those in the parts. That is no way to do casting.

But the casting of the males is a lot better. Vladek Sheybal is pretty much the best you can get, and I like the others too.

A disturbing detail is the sneaked-in female nudity. We see topless women in a few scenes, never really needed, but I guess that was put in as an extra excitement for the male audience. Today that looks cheap and sexist, but I guess that topless bars were new and thrilling at the time.

The boat chase is indeed well done. The "sound torture" scene is quite over-the-top, but I really enjoy Vladek Sheybal as sadist. The ending may seems a bit standard, but I note that it is absolutely no worse than 90% of all action movies, and has the good taste of not throwing in some forced double ending like a lot of action movies do. The hero turns out not to be invulnerable after all, and the ending fits the theme without overdoing it. Not genius, but I definitely have seen worse!

Overall, the movie was well worth seeing. I didn't expect much, and it delivered a bit more than expected.

Great speedboat chase

[martin-fennell · 7/10 · 8 August 2022]

Good tough thriller with a smashing if somewhat protracted speedboat chase.

Best performance comes from Vladek Sheybal, who along with Anton Differing seemed to have a monopoly on playing villainous characters particularly in the 70's.

Puppet on a Chain

[I_John_Barrymore_I · 14 April 2009]

Looking and sounding like a cheap porno without the sex, this is the first in an impressive string of stinkers from producer (or in this case director) Geoffrey Reeve.

And it's a doozy. Laughable on just about every level.

Some government agents (I think) are "professionally murdered" in Amsterdam and a considerably less-than-charismatic, block-of-wood Interpol agent (who I assure you is not named Louis Salinger) is sent in to investigate by walking around a lot to ensure the tax-dodge financiers get their money's worth for the plane tickets to shoot on location.

The wannabe-hard-hitting attitudes to drugs and depiction of prostitution must have looked laughably outdated even before the celluloid dried, but the script at least is very obliging in that it explains exactly what's happening regularly in horribly contrived direlogue ("Were you followed? Oh no of course not. No one outside Washington even knows you're here!") yet despite this the plot somehow remains confusing. By the time a sinister Vladimir Putin lookalike Priest (no less than Kronsteen from From Russia with Love) swaggers up to his pulpit to deliver a sermon your brain will have switched off, which is unfortunate because you'll miss our hero - pinned to the ground during a fight - struggling to reach for a plank of wood only to later realise he is in fact sitting on a loaded pistol, and him shouting "You bastaaaard!" at his friend's murdered corpse, and the leather-bound, moustachioed go-go boys, the morris dancing and the hilarious torture sequence - all of which provide ample laughs. Only the climactic boat chase impresses. It's an exciting, well-directed sequence that really has no place in this movie. Such a glaring anomaly is explained when the credits roll - Reeve had nothing to do with that sequence! Thankfully everything goes back to business as usual for the ridiculous, spit-out-your-drink twist and warehouse shootout.

Unless such a wretched thing as a Geoffrey Reeve completist exists - and you're one of them - I wouldn't bother with this instantly forgettable nonsense.

James Bond without the humor

[moonspinner55 · 5/10 · 7 September 2017]

Swedish actor Sven-Bertil Taube plays a US narcotics agent (by way of the Netherlands!) assigned by the government to track down the source of a heroin-smuggling ring in Holland, one whose main assassin has already caused bloodshed on American soil. Upon the American's arrival at the Amsterdam airport, a fellow agent is shot dead by the assassin, who manages to get away. The police frown upon the interloper and resent his help, so he reconnects with an undercover agent (and former flame) to ferret out the drug dealers and their base of operations. Alistair MacLean crime story with a nasty streak of sadism. The results are not unlike the 007 adventures, though the wayward good humor of James Bond is entirely missing. Taube is somewhat of a liability: he isn't in Sean Connery's league--he's all business but without the panache--and his fight technique consists of two special moves, a powerful right hook and a flip over his head. Geoffrey Reeve directed (apart from "special material" and an exciting canal race, which were completed by Don Sharp), and the pacing is lean and mean. Terrific cinematography by Jack Hildyard in the final reel; dated but enjoyable music score by Piero Piccioni. Everything is here, actually, except for a bit of personality. ** from ****

Bond Wannabe

[Theo Robertson · 6/10 · 23 March 2003]

Wow Paul Sherman is one badass secret agent . Look what he does to that man in the hotel bedroom , he`s someone who takes no prisoners and makes James Bond look like a total wimp . But that`s the problem with PUPPET ON A CHAIN , Sven Bertil Taube is no Sean Connery and lacks the presence needed to convincingly play a ruthless secret agent . I also found it strange that if the story is set in Holland that nearly everyone speaks with either an American or British accent except for Paul Sherman who`s supposed to be American but has a noticable European accent . Still this is a fairly good , though slightly dumb thriller which does feature go go dancers . How many Bond films can claim that ?

Worth the trip to Amsterdam and the stunning canals.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 9 July 2022]

There have been dozens of international thrillers like this made in the late 1960's and '70s, including some based upon the novels of Alistair MacLean, who contributed to the screenplay. Not many of them outside of the location footage are very good because they are far too over long, humorous and filled with uninteresting, underwritten characters that are not enough to hold the viewers interest. Once again, the blood surrounds an international drug ring, and the film starts with the violent murder of three pushers in Los Angeles. Once the action gets to Amsterdam, the film becomes a visual tree of the exciting vistas and some incredible props. The action scenes are exciting, especially the boat chase at the end which the viewer can fast forward to rather than sit through all the obligatory nonsense in between.

Sven-Bertil Taube is a very handsome hero, and Barbara Parkins does what she can with an underwritten character, even though she's always a welcome sight on screen. Veteran actor Alexander Knox has a nice long cameo as the Amsterdam Chief of Police, and Patrick Allen is an interesting villain. But in spite of the beauty of the film itself, it's frequently tedious and slow, which makes it very frustrating because I really wanted to enjoy it.

Not a bad film adaptation of Maclean's classic

[coltras35 · 6/10 · 15 August 2022]

In Amsterdam to track down a murderous heroin smuggling ring, US agent Paul Sherman faces deadly danger at every turn as he seeks to unravel the mystery of how the drug is transported to the US, and to unmask those responsible.

I was quite cautious of seeing this Alistair Maclean film adaptation because Maclean movies can be a mixed bag, some great, some not-so, however I was quite surprised. It's a not bad adaptation, of course it's not as great as the book - which is one of my favourite Maclean novels - but it captures the book's vicious underbelly of the drugs world, the seedy Amsterdam streets and its canals, and the macabre puppets on a chain fairly well. There's some gritty action, the fistfights can be quite brutal and exciting. There's plenty of judo moves! Of course, this is all overshadowed by a 9 minute rousing boat chase between the good guy and bad guy. The problem is that the plot doesn't flow well and it looks like it's joined up with glue, however it's reasonably watchable.

Sven-Bertil Taube is quite tough and determined as Sherman, though he comes off a bit as a shop floor dummy and lacks the sardonic wit of the character. The rest of the cast - Patrick Allen, the pretty Barbara Parkins, Alexander Knox, Penny Casdagli and Ania Marson - play their parts well.

70s double bill fodder

[kamikaze-4 · 4/10 · 2 November 2021]

With Alistair MacLean writing the screenplay, you would think this film adaptation of his novel of the same name would be one wild ride. Sadly, the film picks up the pace in the last few minutes with a speedboat chase in the Amsterdam canals. The rest of the film is slow-moving. Barbara Parkins doesn't have much to do and is wasted.

Breath-taking seventies action flick!

[Mikew3001 · 8/10 · 17 July 2003]

Based on the famous novel by Alistair McLean, "Puppet on a String" brings secret agent Paul Sherman, played by Swedish actor and singer Sven-Bertil Taube, to the Dutch metropolis of Amsterdam. It's his turn to hunt a drug-smuggling gang and a corrupt policeman, and it takes some victims and actions until he faces the main villain on a dark harbor site in a last fatal fight.

The dark streets and canals of Amsterdam are a perfect setting for this seventies' thriller, and the action and suspense work pretty well. There is an incredibly breath-taking motor boat chase through the canals which looks takes the car chasing action of "Bullitt", "Vanishing Point" and "French Connection" a bit further and has been copied by Dick Maas in his Dutch 1987 psycho thriller "Amsterdamned". There are some really scary and psychedelic scenes in the movie, and Piero Piccionis great sound track adds much weight to the picture (and has been reissued two years ago on CD). A great forgotten action movie!

Puppet on a Chain

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 3 June 2023]

At the start of this, I did wonder what on earth was going on. Sven-Bertil Taube (a sort of Jon Voight lookalike) was an odd choice to lead. Hardly an household name, quite possibly not even in his native Sweden. Anyway, he arrives in Amsterdam where he doesn't even make it out of the airport before the bodies start dropping. Turns out that he is there to put a stop to a lucrative cocaine smuggling operation feeding the USA. He is not exactly flavour of the month with local police chief "De Graaf" (Alexander Knox), and so must do most of his investigating with the aid only of his friend "Astrid Lemay" (Ania Marson). A dastardly priest; garish gingham dolls, way too much dodgy flute music and a secret kingpin all lie in his path as he tries to thwart this successful industry. There is quite a fun motor boat chase giving a scale of just how the canals in the city interlink, but that ends rather unspectacularly - as, indeed, does the whole thing. It's made up of C-list "James Bond" types, and though there are a few quips in Alistair Maclean's self-adapted dialogue, this adventure is just a really weak and dated operation all round.

after a hunt found a dvd but not as good as I recall

[ib011f9545i · 5/10 · 10 April 2024]

I am sure I read the book as a teenager.

The film used to be on tv back when British tv showed a lot of films.

I think this is the weakest film of a Mclean book.

I am surprised so many people here praise it so highly.

I can't see why people like it so much.

Set in Amsterdam this is a crime thriller involving drug smuggling.

The plot is less important than the action.

The film has one good boat chase on the canals.

Sure the makers of Bond saw this scene.

The lead is some Swedish guy who is not very good in the part.

Amsterdam looks ok I suppose.

I am not a huge fan of Amsterdam,full of dodgy people and always cold.

As I said the plot is weak,it is hardly a who dunnit.

I only paid 50 pence (half a pound Sterling) for this and I am glad to add to my Mclean film collection but I didn't enjoy the film much.

I do like The Satan Bug and When 8 bells toll which also obscure films based on Mclean books.