I dunno, but I think something was lost here, and it was more'n in the translation! THE LAST CHANCE stars Tab Hunter about eight years after his decline as a teenage heartthrob and about six before he began posing in BLUE BOY as this Amerigan reporter in dagoland (where this film was made) who ticks off a whole buncha people with an article he wrote about a gun-running ship being blown up. Exactly why these people are angry is unclear since all of the headlines shown on-screen are in Eyetalian and I can't read that. Meanwhile his boss (Michael Rennie) is calling him on the carpet for the piece and Hunter still has his eye on the boss's wife who he had a fling with a long time ago while his own wife is so desperately wanting to go on a getaway with ol' Tab. Got all that?
Well here's more---the captain of the blown up ship asks to visit the only other survivor and offs him as soon as he's left alone. He is offed as well by this rather evil looking guy who's not only a crack rifleman (though his gear has nary the power as Chuck Connors's) but drives around in a classic late-fifties Opel. That guy was also caught taking snaps of Hunter but for what reason I do not know. Hunter also plays some croquet with his former lover and some old fanabla who lives in a beach house who later sells him out to the police, and then there's the part where, at a ritzy party, Hunter and Rennie have a discussion behind closed doors only when wifey opens up said door all she finds is Rennie dead. We find out Hunter didn't do the dastardly deed at all---it was the assassin mentioned earlier, who locks Hunter in a classic Studebaker Lark while a train's rolling down the track and...he survives???
Man is this moom hard to follow what with all of the plot twists, turns and whatnot. The whole gun running notion is impossible to get hold of what with the brief shots of Mao-era Chinese soldiers and peasants adding even more to the confusion, and I still don't know who half of the people in the film are. Even stranger is the ending which seems to make the entire film out to be one big lie. And then it seems they all make up and like am I missing out on something or is this film really an intellectual thriller only the brainiest amongst us can decipher like a NEW YORK TIMES crossword puzzle that's aimed at the eggheadier amongst us.
What's your take? If you've happened to see this particular pelicula and want to add your usually worthless chatter to the clatter, just drop a comment and try to look even stupider'n this ubermess of a writeup!
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