In order to further their cause a Palestinian Terrorist group capture five daughters of wealthy and influential men, holding them on the luxury yacht the Rosebud. With their fate not at all certain three counter intelligence operatives are dispatched to kill the terrorists and rescue the girls...

Rosebud (1975, 121 min) was directed by Otto Preminger in the twilight of his life and, whilst I do not wish to talk ill of the dead, it’s a pretty awful film - suffering from lazy direction, a poor script and a set of great actors who look like they're acting with their brains turned off.

The film really had all the ingredients to be the equivalent to one of the good James Bond films: location filming around the world; a set of attractive young women in peril, including Lala Ward in her pre Doctor Who days; and Peter O’Toole in the lead role as Larry Martin playing an undercover CIA agent.

When the terrorists demand that they are allowed to show their films on national television Fargeau (Claude Dauphin), the wealthy grandfather of one of the captives, contacts Martin to use his contacts in rescuing the girls. Martin, in turn, gets help from Hamlekh (Cliff Gorman), an Israeli Intelligence office, and the enigmatic Sloat (Richard Attenborough).

Although Preminger keeps things chugging along from one situation to another, he does so with little sense of peril, leaving the film a thriller with very few thrills.

The film is presented in 2.35:1 aspect ratio with a mono audio track; the only extra is the original theatrical trailer.

One for completests I’m afraid.

4

Charles Packer