My review was written in May 1982 after a Midtown Manhattan screening:
"The Uppercrust" is a modern film noir tale of corruption and double-cross, filmed in a combo of English and German language with locations in Vienna and San Francisco. Featuring a finely detailed lead performance by Frank Gorshin as an international hit man, pic suffers from dull, overlong exposition scenes and far too many in-jokes.
Prolog set in San Francisco establishes Harry Werner (Frank Gorshin) as a ruthless killer for hire. Without warning he shoots Mike Carraday (Broderick Crawford) in the head and then laughs maniacally. (Crawford's cameo is thus terminated before the opening credits.)
Summoned to Vienna, Werner is assigned to rub out Ludwig Haumer (Lukas Resetarits), a small-time con man who is blackmailing three government bigwigs concerning corruption in a building project. As the ineffectual police track down the killings being generated by Haumer and Werner, plot follows many predictable twists and double crosses.
String of jokes become to silly to believe: Crawford sneers at a noisy Highway Patrol car just before he's killed (in reference to his Ziv tv series); police inspector Kottan has to put up with jokes referring to his fictional namesake played by George Nader) and Werner makes several escapes near the end of the film by taking a pussycat hostage.
Director Patzak is okay on atmosphere and characterization, but frequently halts the action for talkfest exposition. His toying with genre conventions is fun (Kottan's assistant is a one-legged policeman on crutches, probably a first), however.
Though his screen time is limited by an episodic structure which overemphasizes the police segs, Gorshin is very effective as a cold-blooded killer, limned without any reliance on the famed impressionist's screen antecedents. Rest of the casr is adequate. Tech credits are fair, with lots of reverse-shot closeups apparently aimed for tv usage.
