DVD Review: The Holcroft Covenant (1986)

For an author who dominated the bestseller lists for three decades, there have really been surprisingly few film or television adaptations of Robert Ludlum’s novels over the years. Of the ones there have been, John Frankenheimer’s film of The Holcroft Covenant stands as what I would call the “Ludlumiest” of them. Which is to say that, while not exactly faithful to the word of the book (review here), it retains that essential Ludlum feel as a film. In fact, it might even Ludlumier than the novel! ("Ludlumier" might be my favorite word ever, so expect me to use it a lot.) By which I mean that it checks most of the boxes that I expect from a Ludlum adventure: There is an innocent man—an amateur—thrust into the world of international intrigue. There is globetrotting. There are lots of great European locations—including the requisite Geneva—and there is Swiss banking. There are multiple parties after our hero for unknown reasons. There are double-crosses. There are triple-crosses. There is sex. There is violence. There are gunfights and car chases. And there is a plot so labyrinthine that I’m not sure even veteran spy screenwriters George Axelrod (The Manchurian Candidate, The Fourth Protocol), Edward Anhalt (The Satan Bug, The Salzburg Connection) and John Hopkins (Thunderball, Smiley’s People, Codename: Kyril) could explain exactly what happened.

Their script departs fairly radically from the book’s plot in specifics, but keeps the basic overall premise intact: Noel Holcroft (Michael Caine) is told by an enigmatic Swiss banker (Moonraker’s Michael Lonsdale) that his father, a notorious Nazi, left him a fortune ($4 billion) to be used to make amends for the Nazis’ horrible crimes. This money is the product of a covenant between Holcroft’s father and two other Nazi officers who supposedly turned on Hitler in the final days of the war. The terms of the covenant dictate that Holcroft must locate the eldest offspring of the others to access the vast sum, but as the only British-born American citizen of the trio, he will be the chairman. The book was not one of Ludlum’s finest, its plot dense and clunky. Most of the changes are expedient and necessary, some really improving the storyline. A lengthy sojourn to South America is excised altogether, keeping the action limited to New York and Europe. The various factions after the money (there were tons of them in the novel) are condensed into a manageable few (though it’s still not entirely clear who is working for who), and a messy subplot involving an international assassin is wisely cut, along with the uncharacteristically clumsy setpiece it culminated in in the novel. I was disappointed, however, with the decision to conflate the two daughters of the Nazi Von Tibault (another member of the Covenant) into one character, Helden (Victoria Tennant), as their characters were very distinct in the book and would have worked well on film. Caine’s Holcroft is also, happily, a far less annoying protagonist than his literary counterpart! He whines a little, but overall he’d prefer to take action against his predicament than to complain ceaselessly about it.

Caine himself is, of course, the consummate spy movie actor, and even when he’s just doing a picture for the money (as one suspects he was with some of his Eighties spy flicks), he still elevates any material he works with. James Caan was originally slated to star, and he would have probably been great in the role, but Michael Caine nails it. In Caine’s finest moment here, following a grisly murder that hits close to home, a trained agent assures Holcroft that he’ll kill the person responsible. Seeing the look on Holcroft’s face, he amends his offer, “Or you can, if you like.” A bereaved Caine glowers up at the camera, and growls, “I like.”

Caine is ably supported by an ensemble of the caliber that could be described as too good for this movie, but like Caine they elevate the material to their own level by their presence. Tennant is not only ethereally beautiful, but convincing in a part made much trickier by the screenwriters’ decision to roll two very different characters into one. Anthony Andrews is in full sneering villain mode, but what else would you expect of a man who wants to bring about a global Fourth Reich? The august Lilli Palmer (Hitchcock's Secret Agent, Lang's Cloak and Dagger) stands out as Holcroft's strong-willed mother, Althene, and Eurospy veteran Mario Adorf (The Dirty Game, That Man in Istanbul) lends a commanding presence as the final member of the present-day Covenant, Erich Kessler. A lot of spy vets round out the cast, including multi-picture Bond alumnus Shane Rimmer (who turns up in the small role of a New York cop who played a much larger part in the book), Carl Rigg (the assassin who tangled with Timothy Dalton in the opening of The Living Daylights, here playing a very similar part), Andy Bradford (Octopussy’s ill-fated 009, as an agent attempting to help Holcroft) and Bernard Hepton (Toby Esterhase to Alec Guinness’s George Smiley; The Contract) as a slick MI-5 operative whose role is successfully expanded from the book.

Caine’s real co-star, however, is director John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Ronin). Like Caine, Frankenheimer could frequently be found slumming in the Eighties, but, like Caine, he brings his all to this film—mostly, anyway. The director’s gritty style and sharply honed sense of pacing are perfect matches for Ludlum’s story, and I credit Frankenheimer with translating the spirit of the author’s work so directly to the screen. It’s too bad he didn’t do more Ludlum titles in that era. In a stroke of genius, Frankenheimer relocates the book’s carnival chase scene to Berlin’s infamous Love Parade (though he could perhaps be accused of dwelling a tad longer than necessary on all the glittery, naked flesh), creating the film’s most successful setpiece bearing his unmistakable imprint.

Reflecting the director's sense of humor, the man who attacks Holcroft in that scene (one of the book’s many interchangeable, faceless hitmen working for various factions) is now a scantily clad transvestite named Fritzl!

A pretty terrific (and unambiguously Eighties) synthy soundtrack by Russian-born composer Stanislas (that’s right, just one name) perfectly complements this sort of sleazy opulence. (I would love to get my hands on that score, but it was sadly never released, not even as an LP.) Where Frankenheimer lets us down, unfortunately, is in the car chase department. A promising setup involving a speeding Mercedes, a helicopter, and several motorcycles sadly never builds to what we know the director is capable of. (Perhaps Ronin was his apologia.)

The film’s ending is radically altered from the book’s unforgettable finale… but then the book’s conclusion probably wouldn’t have worked in a movie. The drama in the film’s closing moments, unfortunately, depends a little too much on a largely unconvincing (and until that point underdeveloped) love story. But that doesn’t detract too much from what’s really a pretty enjoyable viewing experience. Overall, The Holcroft Covenant is fairly great spy entertainment if you’re looking for that unique Eighties European flavor, for Second Stage Michael Caine spyishness, for underrated Frankenheimer direction, or for some rare, genuine, on-screen Ludluminess.

This is one of those odd titles that's recent and fairly big, but somehow ended up in the public domain, probably because someone at the studio didn't do their due diligence. That means that there are a lot of budget DVDs available, but all the budget versions I've seen should be avoided. Most are fullscreen. The version to get is the official MGM DVD . It isn't anamorphic, but it is at least widescreen, and it looks decent enough. (That said, this film could really stand a new high-def transfer!) Also, it's got some good special features, including an audio commentary with Frankenheimer, the original theatrical trailer, and one of those 8-page booklets MGM used to include with all their DVDs, which is actually quite informative.

The Ludlum Dossier
Read my book review of The Janson Directive (2002) here.
Read my book review of The Bourne Supremacy (1986) here.
Read my book review of The Holcroft Covenant (1978) here.
Read my book review of The Bourne Identity (1980) here.
Read my book review of The Sigma Protocol (2001) here.

Book Review: The Holcroft Covenant by Robert Ludlum (1978)

Is the lead character named Holcroft? Yes.
Is there a covenant? Most definitely! And mentioned often.

The Holcroft Covenant is notable as the first of Robert Ludlum’s truly globehopping contemporary international thrillers. If The Chancellor Manuscript the year before had signified the transition from more localized action (The Osterman Weekend was more or less limited to a single location, and The Matlock Paper took place entirely in Connecticut) to at least a cross-country chase, then The Holcroft Covenant represented the full-on plunge into the man-on-the-run-around-the-world type of thriller the author would define and dominate over the coming years. (His next novel, The Matarese Circle, was the beginning of his most creatively fecund period.) Taken on its own, however The Holcroft Covenant isn’t one of the author’s better books. That may prove a somewhat controversial statement among Ludlum fans, many of whom consider it a favorite. I'll grant it’s still Ludlum, to be sure, which automatically places it head and feet above most of the imitators, and it’s got a very memorable surprise ending, but it meanders too much along the way. Certain subplots go nowhere; characters are introduced and then disappear. And, worst of all, the hero is profoundly irritating!

Ludlum heroes are all either disavowed professionals or rank amateurs plunged into the world of international espionage who find themselves in way over their heads. But few of his amateurs take so long to learn the ropes as Noel Holcroft—or whine about their predicament so much along the way. (Well, Bourne whines a lot, but his predicament is so awful that it seems more forgivable.) It doesn’t help that Ludlum provides the sort of reveal that usually comes late in his books less than a third of the way into the 512-page tome, and from that point on the reader is always ahead of the hero. It’s nearly impossible not to get frustrated with a hero so far behind you in terms of the plot! (Though in other novels Ludlum uses variations on this device to generate suspense instead of frustration.) Never able to catch up on his own, Noel has to rely on other characters to provide the exposition necessary to get him up to speed. Often, however, that information is stuff that the reader already knows from previous scenes, and functions as boring filler when read again. Noel blunders his way through the plot as a pawn, never sure who’s his friend and who’s his foe, but not dissuaded because of that position from acting (rashly) first and asking questions later. Making matters worse, his hopeless actions generally get his friends and anyone who helps him brutally murdered. And he stubbornly dismisses anyone who can provide him real help! If the book were a movie (and it was, later—but different enough from the book so as not to share all the same deficiencies), the audience would constantly be shouting at the character not to do stupid things.

Granted, it’s hard to blame Noel too much because of the awkward position he’s thrust into at the novel’s opening. Holcroft is an architect with a failing firm who’s enjoyed an all-American upbringing, even though in truth he’s the son of a high-ranking Nazi officer. His mother, Althene Holcroft, vehemently disagreed with her husband’s politics and bravely fled Germany with her infant son before the war. She hasn’t hidden the identity of Noel’s true father from him, but he doesn’t dwell on a past he never knew. He fully identifies with his mother’s second husband, the man who raised him, as his dad. Therefore, it’s a surprise and a bit of an inconvenience when he’s summoned to Switzerland to be told by a secretive banker that he’s the beneficiary of a very unique trust fund. In the final days of World War II, he’s told, his father made a covenant along with several other ranking Nazi officials. These were men who loathed Hitler, and attempted to assassinate him. Failing that, they secretly funneled hundreds of millions of dollars out of the Reich. The funds were to be used after forty years had passed to compensate for all of the Nazis’ horrible crimes against humanity. As the son of the leader, it falls to Noel to track down and bring together the other Nazis’ offspring and, with htem, start a non-profit corporation dedicated to distributing this money where it’s most needed. He’d be doing the right thing, atoning for his father’s sins… and, ultimately, collecting a not-insignificant payday for himself—enough to save his failing business. That final incentive—along with a genuine belief that he’s doing the right thing, and a newfound respect for his biological father—convinces Noel to go along with some very unusual conditions, which threaten some particularly dire consequences should the terms of the covenant not be carried out in total secrecy. But how could those threats bear any weight forty years later? Surely there’s no one left associated with these Nazis now, he figures….

Noel’s quest to find the other inheritors takes him back to New York, down to South America, and ultimately all over Europe. Along the way, people start violently dying in his wake. And in New York, he finds his apartment broken into and rearranged—not burglarized, just rearranged. (It’s a subtly chilling scenario, which has the desired, maddening effect on Noel.) A man claiming to work for MI5 calls him up and tells him they need to meet urgently, but then he’s killed on the other end of the line as Noel listens, unable to do anything to prevent it. It’s one of many very tense, effective suspense sequences. Even lower-shelf Ludlum is still rousing excitement.

In Europe, Noel’s mission brings him into contact with the Von Tiebolt family. Among this uber-dysfunctional group, he must pick a sibling worthy of the Covenant to be a co-inheritor. Unfortunately, the family includes a crazy, nymphomaniac elder sister, Gretchen, a younger sister, Helden, who lives in hiding because her denouncement of her Nazi lineage has made her a target for extremists on both sides of the equation, and a brother, Johann, who may or may not be the international assassin known as the Tinamou. (By the way, has there ever been a less scary-sounding assassin name than “the Tinamou?” Sure, it’s explained that he’s named after a bird with a remarkable ability to blend into its surroundings, but still. Ludlum would do much better with his next torn-from-the-headlines international assassin, even if the real-life Carlos the Jackal had to borrow his scary-sounding animal nickname from the fiction of another spy author!) Oh, and Johann and Gretchen are also involved in a creepy incestuous relationship. Yep, it’s slim pickings to find a worthy heir, yet all is not what it seems with any of them. Clearly, Ludlum had a blast creating this mad clan, and they’re collectively the best creations in the book, far more interesting than the bland and annoying Holcroft!

Partially by default, given the drawbacks of the other siblings, Noel ends up on the run with Helden in tow, and she becomes the romantic interest. Luckily, she’s got far more experience than he does when it comes to living on the run, and she’s able to give him a crash course in evasive techniques. By the time everything comes to a head in a rousing Swiss finale involving the Von Tiebolts and Althene (among others), Noel’s finally starting to learn how the game is played. But is he already too late? Will the funds really be used for the purpose the thinks, or has the covenant been co-opted by others with a more nefarious purpose? Or was its stated purpose all just a ruse to begin with?

The final chapter brings the book to a truly shocking conclusion unlike anything else in all of Ludlum’s body of work, and it’s for this that the book remains most memorable. But it’s undoubtedly a keystone in the evolution of the author’s career. Not only does The Holcroft Covenant mark his first contemporary international thriller, but it also serves as a blueprint for all his (generally better) international thrillers to come. Of course, it’s worth reading beyond its historical context. Like nearly all of Ludlum’s books, it’s a real page-turner, even if some setpieces are better than others, and even when packed with more filler than most of his books. And the conspiracy Noel finds himself up against is just as harrowing and creative as any of Ludlum's nefarious conspiracies. But Ludlum would revisit the same theme a few more times in his career, and The Sigma Protocol is a much more satisfying variation that theme.

The Ludlum Dossier
Read my review of The Bourne Identity (1980) here.
Read my review of The Sigma Protocol (2001) here.