Quick, Before It Melts

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Moviecut—Quick, Before It Melts

Quick, Before It Melts

Major stinker. Obviously, they tried to capitalize on Robert Morse's huge success in HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING. Having George Maharis co-star was a complete waste. As a photographer big on women and drink, Maharis was a complete and utter dud here. You had a good plot go completely awry here when Howard St. John sends his reporter Morse to the Antarctic to get him away from his daughter. The film becomes utterly nonsensical. What was the brawl all about in the New Zealand bar? Michael Constantine plays a Russian scientist who winds up with a love interest of Morse. Constantine needed Room 222 on television; that's where he really shined. How dare they name a penguin after a dead sea man? That also was ridiculous, but the film was inane. I wasn't only cold seeing the scenes at the Antarctic; the entire film gave me the chills.

A womanizing photojournalist and a milquetoast reporter are partnered on an assigned business venture to the South Pole. At a military outpost in the Antarctic, they encounter government meatheads and Russian scientists, but what they really want is girls! Screenwriter Dale Wasserman, working from a novel by Philip Benjamin, doesn't provide the actors with anything other than head-butting humor, and seldom have I seen so many floundering performances in one picture. George Maharis and Robert Morse end up looking like a poor man's Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon; their comic rapport is colorless, though they do remain relaxed in the midst of such witless shenanigans. Daniel Mann directed, perhaps with his eyes shut. * from ****