The Sell Out (film)

1976 American-British-Italian-Israeli film by Peter Collinson

May 1977 (1977-05)

Running time

88 min.CountriesIsrael
Italy
United KingdomLanguageEnglish

The Sell Out is a 1976 American-British-Italian-Israeli film directed by Peter Collinson and starring Oliver Reed, Richard Widmark and Gayle Hunnicutt.^[1] It was filmed in Israel.

Plot

The CIA, the KGB and the Mossad scheme to eliminate Gabriel Lee, a former CIA agent who defected to the Soviet Bloc but left Eastern Europe to travel to Israel. He seeks his old mentor Sam Lucas for help. Lucas is now running an antiquities store in Jerusalem with his mistress Deborah who was Gabriel's former lover.

Cast

Oliver Reed as Gabriel Lee
Richard Widmark as Sam Lucas
Gayle Hunnicutt as Deborah
Sam Wanamaker as Harry Sickles
Shmuel Rodensky as Zafron
Vladek Sheybal as dutchman
Peter Frye as Kasyan
Assi Dayan as Lt. Elan

Critical reception

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "Before his premature death in 1980, British director Peter Collinson achieved a certain notoriety with a ragbag of action adventures like this one, set and filmed in Israel. It's not surprising to find Oliver Reed and Gayle Hunnicutt on hand, since they tended to prop up international co-productions on attractive locations, but sad to see Richard Widmark slumming it. This would-be thriller about spies brings credit to no one, and the film's pace is leaden."^[2]

Leslie Halliwell said: "Unsmiling spy melodrama with a complex plot, a bagful of clichés and some unnecessarily unpleasant violence."^[3]

References

^ "The Sell Out". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
^ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 818. ISBN 9780992936440.
^ Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 897. ISBN 0586088946.