The Split (1968)

	Directed by: Gordon Flemyng	COUNTRY USA GENRE Crime/Thriller NORWEGIAN TITLE Seks om kuppet RUNNING TIME 91 minutes
	Produced by: Robert Chartoff Irwin Winkler
	Written by (based on a novel by Donald E. Westlake): Robert Sabaroff

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
McClain	Jim Brown	½
Ellie Kennedy	Diahann Carroll
Bert Clinger	Ernest Borgnine	½
Gladys	Julie Harris
Det. Lt. Walter Brill	Gene Hackman
Harry Kifka	Jack Klugman
Marty Gough	Warren Oates	½
Herb Sutro	James Whitmore
Dave Negli	Donald Sutherland

Review

A trendy and urban jazzy score by Quincy Jones, along with stylish off-hand direction by Gordon Flemyng, make The Split an attractive and engaging film, cocksure about its own seductive qualities. The film holds up well after all these years for the aforementioned reasons, but also because it pushes and plays with genre conventions, beginning with a series of seemingly incoherent high-action chase sequences, developing into a clever, low-key heist narrative, before ultimately becoming a hard-hitting urban western, complete with a showdown and an indulgent portrayal of violence, which arguably was quite controversial at the time of release. As such, the film belongs to a vein started by Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty with Bonnie and Clyde the year before, in which violence was given a far more stark and pessimistic treatment than earlier. The plot presented in The Split isn't necessarily brilliant, but the ambition with which it is treated gives the film relevance and freshness. The performances are notable for the division between the classic, unprobing workmanship of Ernest Borgnine, Jack Klugman, Julie Harris and Warren Oates, and the modern, more introspective work by Jim Brown, Gene Hackman and Donald Sutherland. All in all, it's a fine and attractive cast in a film that deserves to be remembered.

Copyright © 02.11.2010 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang

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