Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

ctyankee1 I watched this movie and at first I was going to stop. There is swearing in the first 10 or 15 minutes and after that no more. Michael Caine is a good actor who is some kind of secret agent whose son is kidnapped for money and diamonds. He goes to great lengths to get the government officials to help him get his son back who about 10 years old but they refuse to give him the diamonds. Then he does what a good father does. He snoops around his bosses offices finds the info he needs and get the diamonds out of a safe deposit box.He then has to meet up with the criminals who get lots of joy causing pain to people they capture or need. His son is heard screaming in calls to him in pain. Michael Caine is on the run from bad and good people. Lots of physical stunts. Very violent movie, I could not wait for it to be over but it was a good movie full of action and intrigue.Warning>>> in one of the scenes a woman takes off her coat is nude and proceeds to lay in a bed. Her boss takes a picture of her to make it look like MC is a compromised agent. Michael Caine is a good man and does not know the picture is taken in his room. The crime team leaves other things to make him look guilty to his boss and the police.

JasparLamarCrabb Don Siegel goes to Europe and makes a terrific thriller...or at least a mostly terrific thriller. When British spy Michael Caine finds his son kidnapped, he's charged with coming up with some black market diamonds as ransom. Caine is great, if a bit too somber...even before he's told of the kidnapping! The always interesting John Vernon and Delphine Seyrig are the kinky kidnappers and Donald Pleasence is Caine's anal retentive boss. Janet Suzman is Caine's VERY angry estranged wife. THE BLACK WINDMILL is taut and suspenseful for most of its run, unfortunately Siegel forgot to include an ending so he simply has Michael Caine explain it.

Morgan D Lee In 1965, Caine created the role of Harry Palmer in the Ipcress File. It was good enough to spawn two follow-ups: Funeral in Berlin and the Billion Dollar Brain. By 1974, the movie-going public was used to seeing him in the role of a secret agent. Here he gets in trouble, and although you know that by the end of the film he will emerge victorious, or will he? I'm not telling. But the excruciating fun is in trying to figure our what will happen next. Filmed in Europe, Black Windmill" is directed by Don Siegel. Clint Eastwood credits Don for his success as a director, and, of course, Siegel also directed some of Clint's best movies. The pacing is even throughout and builds to a suspenseful climax. Let it not be overlooked that Donald Pleasence in a supporting role is at his usual best. The human chameleon that adapts beautifully to whatever role is given him. John Vernon is especially menacing. To me, seeing old movies a second or third time is like visiting with old friends. Everybody has their own "Casablanca" and "Shawshank Redemption." If you haven't seen this one yet, please do. It will become one of your "old friends" which I'm sure you will visit again and again.

Jonathon Dabell Don Siegel will always be remembered as the man who gave us Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers and Dirty Harry, as well as being the mentor of Clint Eastwood when he was just starting out in the acting business. Here he tackles very atypical material with a low-key British spy thriller based on the book Seven Days To A Killing by Clive Eggleton. Although this is not really Siegel's kind of thing, he manages to coax sound performances from an impressive cast, and gets across a certain degree of excitement. From time to time the suspense slackens a little, but on the whole this is an engaging enough potboiler.Major John Tarrant (Michael Caine) is a secret agent who is distraught to learn that his son has been kidnapped by a gang who want a batch of diamonds for his safe return. Tarrant's boss Cedric Harper (Donald Pleasance) has never got on well with Tarrant, and even goes so far as to suggest that maybe the kidnapping is an elaborate double-cross hatched by Tarrant himself in order to get hold of the diamonds. Supported by his wife Alex (Janet Suzman), Tarrant steals the diamonds needed for his son's safety, and attempts to elude his own colleagues plus the police long enough to secure the return of the young boy.Critical opinion at the time seemed to be of the view that The Black Windmill was a bad film. Generous critics were kind enough to call it average. Perhaps everyone still had Siegel's extraordinarily good Dirty Harry fresh in their memories and were unable to accept that he couldn't always make films of that standard. The Black Windmill, while stilted and a touch dry in parts, is certainly not a full-scale dud. It has interesting plot twists, good acting (always good to see John Vernon in any of his '70s villainous roles), intriguing character clashes, and a nice sense of genre. I'd rather have a low-key thriller like this than one of the modern spectacular-but-empty popcorn actioners. Try not to be influenced by the negative buzz.... give The Black Windmill a try. It's no classic, but it's better than you might expect.