The Domino Principle (1977)

Director:

Stanley Kramer

Writers:

Adam Kennedy (novel)
Adam Kennedy (screenplay)

Release Date:

25 July 1977 (Sweden)

Genre:

Thriller | Drama

Tagline:

Trust no one. No one.

Plot:

Tucker is a chronic underachiever and a loser. A Vietnam war veteran who just can't seem to keep out of trouble...

Plot Keywords:

Prison | Vietnam Veteran | Hit And Run | Conspiracy | San Francisco California

Cast

Gene Hackman	...	Roy Tucker
Candice Bergen	...	Ellie Tucker
Richard Widmark	...	Tagge
Mickey Rooney	...	Spiventa
Edward Albert	...	Pine
Eli Wallach	...	General Reser
Ken Swofford	...	Ditcher
Neva Patterson	...	Gaddis
Jay Novello	...	Captain Ruiz
Joseph V. Perry	...	Bowkemp (as Joseph Perry)
Ted Gehring	...	Schnaible
Claire Brennen	...	Ruby (as Claire Brennan)
George Fisher	...	Horsemyer
Bob Herron	...	Brookshire
Denver Mattson	...	Murdock

Also Known As:

The Domino Killings (UK)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (CFI)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | West Germany:16 | Finland:K-18 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Associated General Films

Trivia:

Director Stanley Kramer ordered steaks for 300 members of cast and crew shipped to location in Puerto Vallarta from Phil's Poultry in West LA, for a production BBQ, complete with mariachi band (which Phil did not provide).

Goofs:

Errors in geography: The bread truck carrying Tucker and Spiventa is shown driving across the Golden Gate Bridge in the southbound direction from Marin County to San Francisco. The very next scene, however, in which the prisoners are escorted out of the truck, clearly takes place under the roadway back on the Marin side of the bridge.

Soundtrack:

Some Day Soon

THE DOMINO PRINCIPLE (Stanley Kramer, 1977) **

Kramer, first as a producer and then a director, had been at the forefront in dealing with important social themes in Hollywood (THE DEFIANT ONES [1958], ON THE BEACH [1959], INHERIT THE WIND [1960] and JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG [1961] were his best films); by the late 60s, however, his particular brand of investigative style went out-of-date. In its place – largely in the wake of the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations – the Kafkaesque political thriller became fashionable; unsurprisingly, Kramer decided to try his hand at this as well – but the end result proved middling at best.

He certainly had his heart in the right place by choosing Gene Hackman, one of the finest actors of his generation, for the lead role – having already appeared in such superb pieces of alienation and paranoia as Francis Ford Coppola's THE CONVERSATION (1974) and Arthur Penn's NGHT MOVES (1975). His supporting cast looks impressive enough on paper, but they're given little to do: Candice Bergen (who's supposedly decorous here but is saddled with a highly unbecoming wig!), Richard Widmark (appropriately craggy in the role of a leading member of the secret organization), Mickey Rooney (amusingly cantankerous as Hackman's prison pal), Edward Albert (playing Widmark's young, ambitious and confrontational sidekick, thus making an interesting foil for the world-weary Hackman) and, in perhaps the least rewarding part of the lot, Eli Wallach (as Hackman's 'job' co-ordinator).

The film looks good but is bogged down by a rather icky central romance and the deliberate obliqueness of its narrative (starting with the hokey credit sequence). The effectively ironic revelation, then, is unfortunately followed by a number of other less convincing (not to say unwarranted) plot twists in quick succession – the last of which even rips off GET CARTER (1971)!