ScoobyMint Disappointment for a huge fan!

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

mark.waltz What is an interesting plot conceptually ends up dropping down to mediocrity thanks to moments of slowness that seem to make the film drag on to eternity. Obviously, the "Golden Salamander" is a take-off on the legend of the "Maltese Falcon" with the mysterious statue of the tiny lizard (enlarged to iguana size) providing the film's theme of "The best way to conquer evil is to confront it". That's the case for the British Trevor Howard, in Northern Africa for "private business" and his sudden involvement in a ring of thieves lead by the nasty Herbert Lom. Long before the shout of "Clouseau!" would drive him to insanity, Lom was already playing film heavy's in British thrillers like this, and for a side-kick, he gets none other than a very thin Wilfred Hyde White, resembling Percy Kilbride, who is the first person to encounter Howard when he arrives at the inn run by Anouck Aimee, simply billed by her first name.There's a lot of insinuation that certain sleazy characters aren't as bad as they seem or that those who seem nice or on the side of the law really aren't. While this provides some potentiality for clever plot twists, some of those moments aren't clarified for plot line purposes and the results are somewhat confusing. An extensive chase sequence towards the end of the film seems to go on forever and leads into more plot developments which extends the film's running time when it seemed as if it was already running out of plot. Ronald Neame's direction certainly isn't to blame and neither are the performances who do their best to enliven the action. Compared to American romantic heroes of the time, Howard is certainly a unique leading man and manages to stay charming even if he doesn't fall into the same league as the crop of stars doing similar adventure yarns in Hollywood films. What ultimately decreases overall interest in the film is the excessive use of moments of action with little to no sound which really proves that sometimes, silence is deafening.

worldofgabby When I saw the cast for this, I figured the movie would either be very good or awful. Luckily, it was the former. Good acting, great cinematography, editing and a convincing character path make this movie a real classic. Of course there are the "exotic" Arabs, but their depiction is not as offensive as in most films of its era. The somewhat dazed performance by Anouk Aimee leads one to believe that she either had a lot of trouble with the English language, or overplayed her depressive qualities. The boar hunt sequence brings to mind the conclusion of the book "The Alexandria Quartet." Aside from these minor quibbles, I recommend The Golden Salamander to anyone with an interest in character development, intrigue, and film noir that isn't about people unjustly accused of criminal action, innocent people led into same, and heists gone wrong.

bkoganbing If Golden Salamander had been made in the USA some studio back-lot would have sufficed for Tunisia. But this being post World War II in Europe, the British film adventure was made on the actual location with interiors shot in the UK. That's more than could be said for the great Casablanca.In 1950 when this made the French were busy trying to hang on to their colonial empire and not making much of a go at it. Which brings us to the plot of Golden Salamander and how archaeologist Trevor Howard, in Tunisia to retrieve some salvaged Etruscan works gets himself mixed up in arms smuggling. The guy who has his archaeological treasures is Walter Rilla, the same man who is running the arms smuggling. He's also the local big shot in the coastal town where this is all taking place and owns just about everyone.Who to trust is Howard's problem, he's not even sure about the lovely Anouk Aimee, a refugee with brother Jacques Serna from the Nazis who has settled down there, but would like to get back to Paris once she can afford to. Because of the lack of trust involved in our hero's part, Golden Salamander is an action adventure that plays a whole lot like film noir.Herbert Lom is on hand as Rilla's nasty henchmen. No mystery where he's concerned. Until he got to play Inspector Dreyfys in the Pink Panther series, Lom was as reliable a villain as you could find in film. Wilfrid Hyde-White has an interesting part, if this had been done in America, Hoagy Carmichael would have been cast.The title refers to a particular valuable piece of Etruscan art that is the centerpiece of the collection that Rilla is turning over to Howard. Golden Salamander is a nicely packaged action film with a twist of noir that should satisfy anyone.

MARIO GAUCI Watchable British thriller about gun-running in Post-WWII Tunisia with faint echoes of THE MALTESE FALCON (1941; except that the title artifact bears little relation to the main plot!), TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944) and THE THIRD MAN (1949; not least the presence of two of its cast members), but is perhaps too low-key to be really memorable. Nonetheless, the film has a remarkable cast (Trevor Howard, Anouk Aimee', Herbert Lom, Walter Rilla, Miles Malleson, Jacques Sernas, Wilfrid Hyde-White) and nice, noir-ish atmosphere going for it - and is short enough (87 minutes, though some sources give this as 96!) to keep tedium at bay...which could result from its lack of incident (apart from a couple of confrontation scenes and a climactic fistfight between Howard and Lom) or the incongruous pairing of its two leads.