Assault on a Queen

First of all, this poster for this movie is incredible. One of my all time favorites. This movie was really hard to find until recently (just came out on blu-ray April 2012) so years ago I found an old paperback of the Jack Finney novel and read it. Loved the story. Then, finally, I was able to see the movie ... disappointing. My biggest complaint is the direction: absolutely flaccid, dull and without any creativity. Not surprisingly the director, Jack Donohue, was a hack TV director almost his entire career and only directed a handful of movies - none of them good. And so Assault on a Queen feels soooo slow when it really should be fast paced and have high energy. The great Rod Serling wrote the script from a fun novel, so I'm not going to blame the writing. And the acting was fine too. The only other problem was the music: poorly used and sparse and never seemed appropriate for the scene. I suppose I can blame the director for this too since he'd be the one overseeing where it was used.

Anyway, worth watching for fans of 60s heist movies. I like it, but wish it were better.