A major critical and commercial flop for United Artists in 1975, Otto Preminger's ROSEBUD is fascinating in a 'What the hell happened here?' kind-of way. Theodore Gershuny documented the troubled production in his 1980 book, "Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture", which is an enlightening read. In short: An old school director/dictator ran head-first into Murphy's Law, resulting in a film where everything and everyone feels off. Relegated to the CBS Late Movie for its American television premiere and (as of April 2020) still unreleased stateside on any physical home video format, this ones main value comes from the realization that you're watching a once major director (and his A-list cast) firmly bottom out.
On paper, Otto Preminger has assembled quite a decent cast for this, but sadly neither he nor them can make much headway against some really dreadful writing. Peter O'Toole ("Martin") is drafted in to try to rescue five girls kidnapped from the yacht of arms-dealer "Fargeau" (Claude Dauphin) by a PLO cell under the leadership of zealous Brit "Sloat" (Richard Attenborough). The story lurches along with lots of clunky set-piece action scenarios and some terrorists about as menacing as yesterday's milk; the star is well off his game and the film looks as if nobody involved had ever made one before. Even the supporting cast - Raf Vallone, Peter Lawford and an almost unrecognisable Kim Catrall add nothing to the sloppily directed nonsense. At over two hours, it struggles from start to finish to engage - and I'm afraid really is not worth the effort of sitting watching it.
