Color Me Dead

Color Me Dead is a 1969 Australian thriller directed by Eddie Davis, starring American actors Tom Tryon and Carolyn Jones. It is a remake of the 1949 film D.O.A.. Due to the failure on renewing copyright of D.O.A., the content of D.O.A. became the property of United States public domain. Thus the content of Color Me Dead could be exactly same as the movie D.O.A.

Color Me Dead
Theatrical release poster
Directed byEddie Davis
Produced byEddie Davis
Reginald Goldsworthy
Written byRussell Rouse
Clarence Greene
StarringTom Tryon
Carolyn Jones
Music byBob Young
CinematographyMick Bornemann
Edited byWarren Adams
Production
company
Distributed byMGM
Release date
  • December 1969 (1969-12)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Budget$500,000

Plot

Lawyer Frank Bigelow discovers he has been poisoned and has only weeks to live. He spends the time tracking down his own murderer.

The starting scenes from George Raynolds (Raymond Rakubian) was stealing a piece of iridium and selling it to Mr. Phillips. At the same time, Mr. Bigelow prepared to go for one week vacation, due to Mr. Bigelow (the accountant) did not get well with his girlfriend (the secretary Paula). While George and Philips were trading the iridium, they asked Mr. Bigelow to notarize the transaction.

After Mr. Bigelow arrived at the place of vacation, he went to a nightclub called "Pink Panther" with a couple he meets in the hotel. However, he did not notice that someone had changed his drink while he was talking with a charming lady at the Nightclub. After he went back to the hotel, he felt stomachache and went to hospital. The doctor explained he was being poisoned by a luminous toxin and there was no antidote had found yet. It is hard to say how much time he left in the world, but for sure it will be less than a week. After Bigelow felt the diagnose is telling the truth and the doctor mentioned someone wanted him dead, Bigelow decided to find out who killed him. Meanwhile, Bigelow received a call from Paula that Mr. Phillips had tried to reach him many times. However, Bigelow had no idea about who was Philipps until Paula told Bigelow he committed suicide.

In order to find the person who is trying to kill people, Mr. Bigelow went to Sydney and met Mr. Philips's controller (Mr. Halliday) and secretary Miss Foster. They told Mr. Bigelow that Philips committed suicide by jumping from his apartment. In order to make sure if Philips died by suicide or something else, Mr. Bigelow went Philips's house however, Philip's wife and relatives did not know anything about it. At this time, Miss Foster provided an important information which is Philips had called a model (Marlo Stevens) before he died. By using this information, Mr. Bigelow finally found the person who tried to buy the iridium—Bradley Taylor.

However, the truth is the person around Bradley, no one was told to kill Philips or Bigelow. Bradley explained he was doing business, though he was deceived by Philips and his nephew George. Because Bradley finally found his nephew stole his iridium and sell to Philips, and Philips sell to Bradley again. Therefore, at this time, Mr. Bigelow came to ask why he was trying to kill Philips and they others, Bradley is very angry and feels like Bigelow know too much. Thus, Bradley asked his subordinates to kill Bigelow, though Bigelow already is a dead person.

Luckily, Bigelow escaped Bradley's kill and went back to Philips’ home, but he found Mrs. Phillips and her brother had poisoned as well. He had been told Philips’ controller (Mr. Halliday) had been here before. Now he realized the first person who was trying to kill him is Philips’ controller. Because after Philips sold the iridium to Bradley, Philips got $60,000 and Halliday stole it. After Bradley found the problem on his iridium, he wanted to get the money back from Philips. But Halliday already took the money and to avoid Phillips told Bradley the truth, he decided to kill the person who know the transaction. But Bigelow is brave than every seconds in his life, he killed Halliday and went to the police office.

Cast

Production

The film was the second of three movies Eddie Davis made in Australia for Reg Goldsworthy: It Takes All Kinds, Color Me Dead, That Lady from Peking.[1] Shooting began in September 1968 and took place in Mittagong, Surfers Paradise and Sydney.[2][3] The common feature of these three movies is that the main actors are Americans and the Australian company Goldsworthy Productions provide the other resources of the movie, such as the $500,000 budget.

Reception

The film was poorly received critically and commercially.[2] Although the main actors Tom Tryon and Carolyn Jones have already won some cinematic achievements and rewards before they join this movie, in facts, the movie Color Me Dead did not show any big impact on their film career.

Nan Musgrove has evaluated that "'Color Me Dead', the Goldsworthy Productions film which, it is expected, will be a boost to the Australian movie industry, is one of the few films I have watched being made. On it budget of $500,000 it is an accomplishment and more than pleasantly surprised the experts."[3]

References
  1. Verevis, Constantine (January 2010). "Dead on arrival: The fate of Australian film noir". Studies in Australasian Cinema. 4 (3): 243–253. doi:10.1386/sac.4.3.243_1. ISSN 1750-3175.
  2. Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 248
  3. ""COLOR ME DEAD": The film that proves Australian knowhow". The Australian Women's Weekly. National Library of Australia. 22 January 1969. p. 8. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
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