The 1960s and early 1970s were a Golden Age for filmmaking in the former Yugoslavia. In addition to an uptake in the local product, Western European countries and the United States took advantage of cheap labor costs and the welcoming hospitality of the Marshall Tito regime. Several well known movies were shot there including Orson Welles' THE TRIAL, GENGHIS KHAN with Omar Sharif, ISADORA with Vanessa Redgrave, NICHOLAS & ALEXANDRA, Mel Brooks' THE TWELVE CHAIRS, the Viking epic THE LONG SHIPS with Richard Widmark & Sidney Poitier, and FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. After a considerable dropoff in the 1990s during the Balkan Wars, the area has since rebounded this century, with the highly popular series GAME OF THRONES being filmed there at this time.
One of the many movies made in Yugoslavia during the 1960s, and completely forgotten today, is OPERATION TITIAN (1963). The story of a stolen painting and the people involved was never released in America in its original version, instead appearing as 3 different films. There was PORTRAIT IN TERROR (1965) which was a shortened version shown only on TV. Then that was completely altered, combined with new footage, and released in 1966 to drive-ins as part of a horror/sci-fi double bill. Rechristened BLOOD BATH, we now dealt with an insane painter who murders his models and covers them in wax. Then BATH was revised again with additional footage and sold to TV as TRACK OF THE VAMPIRE with the painter turned into the title character. You can check all of these out on IMDb.
For the purposes of this review, I shall deal only with the original OPERATION TITIAN which has been rarely seen and deserves better as it is a pretty good movie. It all started in 1962 when legendary B movie entrepreneur Roger Corman went to Croatia (then Yugoslavia) to produce a feature film utilizing local performers and filmmakers. This was to be an International crime thriller involving a stolen portrait by Italian Renaissance master Titian. The two principal male roles were to be played by American actor William Campbell and Irish actor Patrick Magee. Both had already worked with Corman on two movies made in Ireland, THE YOUNG RACERS and DEMENTIA 13, both released in 1963 (check them out on IMDb as well). TITIAN was filmed in 6 weeks in the Fall of 1963 right after the other 2 movies.
To economize further, OT would be shot entirely in and around Dubrovnik. According to Campbell "Being in a seaside resort made it a fun shoot and everyone got along just fine. There were very few problems. It was like a vacation". However, once the movie was finished, Corman realized it would be unreleasable in the U. S. There were no big stars to attract an audience and most Americans didn't even know who Titian was (and probably still don't). It was then that he and the film's distributor, American International, decided to alter the movie into something quite different. First a shortened version would be sold to American television, and then Corman hired an American director, Jack Hill, to re-fashion it into a horror picture with a running time of 66 minutes (down from 88 minutes).
The storyline of the original involves a mediocre artist who is descended from an aristocratic Italian family. He makes a deal with an Irish confederate who will steal his uncle's priceless Titian painting, sell it to a collector, and then they will split the proceeds. As so frequently happens with crimes committed in movies, things go terribly wrong. The Irishman kills the uncle while stealing the painting only to discover that it's a fake and the real Titian has vanished. So what has happened to it and who has taken it? The artist, his former girlfriend, the Irishman's overnight acquaintance (an exotic dancer who performed earlier in the movie), or someone else? When the Yugoslavian police become involved because of the murder, things spiral out of control. The ending is something of a surprise.
While OPERATION TITIAN is nothing extraordinary, it is entertaining and, for those who like picturesque locales in their movies because they know they will never travel there, you get to see Dubrovnik as a resort city in all its glory before the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the break-up of Yugoslavia. All of the principal supporting players hailed from Dubrovnik. They spoke English so dubbing isn't an annoyance but their Slavic names were Westernized in the credits. If you enjoy International intrigue and are looking for a little something off the beaten track, then OPERATION TITIAN will fill the bill nicely. It is available on YouTube in the original and TV versions (the latter should be avoided) and as part of a special Blu-ray set from Arrow Video which contains all 4 incarnations...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.
