Play Dirty. 1969. UK. Directed by André De Toth. Screenplay by Melvyn Bragg, Lotte Colin. With Michael Caine, Nigel Davenport, Nigel Green. 35mm courtesy Park Circus. 118 min.
Martin Scorsese writes, “I’ve always been fascinated by André de Toth’s movies. Their underlying anger and determination often make them very disturbing. Take Play Dirty, for instance. The characters have no redeeming social value; they don’t think, they just act. They have a job to do, and they're going to do it. The nihilism, the pragmatism–it’s at least unsettling.” A thrillingly and unapologetically grim view of war, Play Dirty had the misfortune of coming out after The Dirty Dozen, a patriotic blockbuster, yet it’s the far more honest film about human treachery and smallness. A British patrol of criminals must cross the brutal North African desert to destroy a Nazi oil depot; Nigel Green is the vain and incompetent colonel, Nigel Davenport his wily stooge, and Michael Caine the callow captain who’s set up for certain death. Director André de Toth took over from René Clément after the French director had a falling out with Harry Salzman, the producer of James Bond and Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer series. As de Toth would wryly note, “Clément was looking for the roses, I was looking for the thorns.”