The Tamarind Seed

From the very first few bars of the opening John Barry theme and the obvious Maurice Binder titles, you could be forgiven for thinking you were about to watch a "Bond" movie... However, what we are presented with is an overly-complicated espionage drama that could very easily trip over it's own feet. A charming and debonaire Omar Sharif is taking a holiday on Barbados where he makes friends with fellow holiday-maker Julie Andrews. As luck would have it - he is a top level Soviet spy and she works for a top UK Home Office civil servant. Anthony Quayle is the British Spymaster convinced he is trying to turn her; Oskar Homolka the Soviet general convinced the contrary in on the cards. Well, it takes quite a long 2 hours of this rather plodding romantic thriller for us to find out which... The last 15 minutes are quite unpredictable, and the cast are all proficient enough - especially a rather untypical role from Sylvia Syms - but the story is just over-padded-out, I'm afraid.