James ‘Shogun’ Clavell steps behind the camera for this swashbucksville epic tale of roistering thief-taker Jack Shepherd (that’s the character’s name, he’s played by Tommy Steele – sadly we’ve no record of a film in which Tommy Steele is played by Jack Shepherd) slipping in and out of jail, giving Stanley Baker the runaround, and rubbing up against Sue ‘Crossroads’ Lloyd. Cardew ‘The Cad’ Robinson, John ‘Mallens’ Hallam’, Caroline ‘Fortune and fame’ Munro, the two Michaels (Douglas and Elphick), Olivia Newton-John’s sister and George ‘Inigo’ Woodbridge fill out the britches and/or basques as appropriate.
George White
May 3, 2018 at 9:37 am
My grandad’s in this somewhere.Watched some of it. An annoying, somewhat shapeless mess, from the looks of it. No wonder it flopped.
Watched a few of Clavell’s stuff. Shogun I find overextended, Tai Pan which went straight to video here is very odd, even down John “Li H’sen Chang/”What, from ‘ere?” Bennett in a major role as a drunken Russian sea captain.
Noble House (1988) – A blandly Mid-Atlantic James Clavell-adapted miniseries from De Laurentiiiiiisssss. Stars Pierce Brosnan with artificial gray bits in his hair, plus Gordon Jackson, Khigh Dheigh (the actually African-American actor typecast as Chinese characters in Hawaii 5-0, Manchurian Candidate), Burt Kwouk for once in a major starring role with his name billed over various other American and British actors, e.g. Tia Carrere, Nancy Kwan, Irene Tsu, Lisa Lu, Dudley Sutton, John VanDreelan, Duncan Preston (whose handheld camera-shot scenes have the look of an As Seen on TV sketch). John Rhys-Davies reappears as a descendant of his character from Shogun, as do a few other actors from that, Leon Lissek, Damien Thomas and George Innes, but apart from Thomas and Rhys-Davies, in much smaller roles. A plotless exercise in chronicling the rich folk of Hong Kong. Being shot in both Hong Kong and North Carolina, very much a holiday for the cast.
The Michael Douglas involved was a different one. Who was apparently on Wheeltapper’s.