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Crest Of A Wave Stuff: The Puppet On A Chain Boat Chase

On the Scene is our new series where we take an in-depth look at particular singular scenes from films and examine their significance. In this first edition, Steve Swift takes a look at the boat chase from Geoffrey Reeve’s 1970 thriller, Puppet on a Chain, and sees how the groundwork was laid for the cinematic chase scenes that followed after it…


That Live And Let Die speedboat sequence is good, isn’t it? Groundbreaking. Or is that water-breaking? Either way, it’s a bit special. And it is, but it wasn’t first.

Oh no. That came in 1971 with a movie called Puppet On A Chain. The film is rather good all around. It’s an investigation of a heroin ring that leads to Holland, a hard-boiled police-type working with the British Secret Service and some rather dirty, murky business. It’s also rather fine. The lead performance of Paul Sherman by Sven-Bertil Taube is tough and no-nonsense but never showy. The 70’s grimy patina works beautifully and there’s even a dodgy padre to enjoy.

Now; there was another movie about drugs that has a grainy, gritty feel that was released that same year. That little thing was called The French Connection. It had a fantastic chase sequence too. And that may have led to Puppet On A Chain being overlooked; unfairly, in my view.

And why was the chase so good? It had its own director: Don Sharp, who had 1966’s Rasputin the Mad Monk under his belt and lots of TV episodes for shows like The Avengers. He ended up doing a little more than the one sequence on this movie. But more on that in a little while.

http://youtu.be/EZzLl7A7XHk

The chase, plotted by Wim Wagenaar, who can be seen on YouTube smiling over his shoulder as he tears his speedboat around Amsterdam’s canals, created something special. Why? Well, it was clearly plotted out. So much is clear from the crowds thronging the water’s edge as Wagenaar thrashes his boat about. But this sequence has real peril. Just like the car chase in Bullit and The French Connection, there is a real fear that someone might get hurt. It’s visceral. And that’s because this is not about skill. This is about muscle.

Taube as Paul Sherman and the holy man played by Vladek Sheybal push those motorboats to the limits of their possibilities. There’ll be no tourist joyrides after this.

The boats smack against the walls of the canals. When they are in open water, Sheybal aims a shotgun at the approaching Sherman and is cut up in return. Everything is at top speed, which leaves them nowhere else to go but the claustrophobic canals. They dodge between boats, turn on a sixpence. We see the boats in mid-shot and behind Sherman’s left ear, but never Sheybal’s—he is on his own. The camera isn’t allowed to love him.

There’s even a little coquettish hide and seek, a lull, as Sherman wonders if he’s guessed correctly. He then settles mere feet from the other boat, which has a sawn-off shotgun cocked. This is the moment Sherman detects fear in his fleeing holy man. Startled by a seagull, he fires too early, nonetheless missing the cop by a whisker, and the chase begins again.

The sheer speed of the boats means that those in control of them can’t quite keep within the confines of safety. There is a feeling that either man could lose control; boats are manhandled into turns, only just managing to make it under bridges.

And then the padre doesn’t. He slams into a stone bridge. It seems like a mistake, something kept in. But what else can he do? Give up? He gathers his wits and rams the other boat. He might as well; it’s as if a line has been crossed, where he crashed but didn’t sink.

Sherman makes a mistake. He shoots at the boat ahead, realises it won’t work, and puts the gun back down on the boat. Unfortunately for him, it ends up in the drink. And then we see from above the serpentine passage, the ins and outs of the boats, as they motor dangerously close to both sides of a tourist cruiser. The boat ahead just misses a low-lying freight vessel and Sherman uses a log in another tunnel to jump it.

Yes, it’s a stunt and it’s affected by well-placed wood, but because it isn’t celebrated, because he only just makes the jump, it doesn’t seem egregious. Shaybel’s resigned look says it all.

The end comes when Sherman catches his opponent and his boat bashes it, then briefly mounts it, in a strangely sexual, coupling way. And then they switch. One was chasing, then mounted. The other now takes up the chase. And it of course ends in a ball of flames, but on this occasion, the end doesn’t justify the means.

Don Sharp was given 4 weeks to shoot this 8-minute piece and every second is worthwhile, it’s breathtaking, edge of the seat stuff and it has a realism that is slightly heightened.

Sharp went on to reshoot some more scenes, using a moviola to match things up. Sharp told John Exshaw in Cinema Retro in 2012 that 75% of it worked but he had to shoot some dialogue. He also told Exshaw that the film went on to make ‘a mint of money’.

Time Out might have called this sequence ‘the one tolerable sequence,’ and Roger Ebert disliked the illogical actions of some of Puppet on a Chain’s characters, but this Alistair Maclean oddity is worth another look. And the speedboat sequence is worth lots of them.

Better than the Live And Let Die chase? Oh yes. Much.

Written by Steve Swift

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