This gritty, straightforward, unpretentious, Charles Bronson hostage thriller relies on realistic, white-knuckled suspense to maintain its momentum throughout its tense 94 minutes. James Mason, Liv Ullmann, Jill Ireland, Michel Constantin, Luigi Pistilli and Jean Topart co-star in this no-nonsense, muscular yarn with the agile, charismatic Bronson. “Thunderball” director Terence Young emphasizes raw brute force as a man has to contend with criminal associates from his shady past who want to balance the books for his treachery. When “Cold Sweat” came out in 1970, the British censors complained about its violence, particularly a scene where Bronson snaps a crook’s neck without a qualm and then later on perforates a man with a flare pistol and turns him into a flaming shishkebab. Ostensibly based on Richard Matheson’s 1959 novella “Ride the Nightmare,” “Cold Sweat” depicts what happens when a group of unsavory thugs rupture the idyllic existence of Joe Martin. Scenarists Dorothea Bennett, Jo Eisinger, Albert Simonin, and Shimon Wincelberg have shifted the setting of the story from California to the scenic south of France. In the Matheson novel, Chris Martin had served as a getaway car driver for three bank robbers, but he abandoned them during the commission of a crime. The authorities arrested and sent them to prison. Meanwhile, Martin reformed, married, had a daughter, and found a responsible job as a music store owner. In “Cold Sweat,” Joe Martin lives with his wife, Fabienne, and her daughter and operates a charter fishing boat out of the port of Beaulieu-sur-Mer on the French Riviera between Nice and Monaco. Initially, Matheson had wrote “Nightmare” for an “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” television episode.
“Cold Sweat” opens with Joe Martin (Charles Bronson of “Hard Times”)owns a deep-sea fishing boat and he is letting a client steer it into the harbor after a successful fishing expedition. Afterward, Joe gets into a poker game with some wharf buddies and wins a pile of dough from them. When he comes home to his wife, Fabienne (Liv Ullmann of “Persona”), Joe learns that somebody has been constantly called them. Somebody throws rocks at Joe’s windows and he sends Fabienne upstairs to lock herself up while he prowls around downstairs. Vermont ( Michel Constantin of “The Family”)catches Joe by surprise and clobbers him. Fabienne finds Joe unconscious on the kitchen floor. Vermont holds gun on Joe after he recovers and demands that he take him on his boat to an undisclosed destination. Joe outfoxes Vermont, disarms him in the kitchen and then cracks his neck. Fabienne grows suspicious when Joe refuses to phone the authorities. She argues that Joe killed Vermont in self-defense. Later, she accuses Joe of lying to her.
Joe fills Fabienne in on his shady past. He served in the Korean War as an army sergeant. His commanding officer, Captain Ross (James Mason of “Lolita”),was a good soldier in combat. When the military transferred them back to Germany, Ross missed the combat. Worse, he got into graft, taking kickbacks from service clubs and hijacking U.S. Army trucks. He sold the stolen goods on the black market. “Sometimes around his headquarters,” Joe observes. “You couldn’t tell the Mafia from the army.” later, Joe ran into Ross in the stockade again because Ross had made ‘a pig of himself’ with his larcenous exploits. Joe was in the stockade because he struck a ‘chicken’ colonel when he got drunk. Ross invited Joe to join himself, Vermont and Fausto (Luigi Pistilli of “Eagles Over London”) in an escape effort. Ross knew Joe was a good driver. Unfortunately, during their break-out, the former Foreign Legion soldier who furnished them with new clothes and a car, Katanga (Jean Topart of “Action Man”)stabbed a German bicycle cop to death with a knife. The policeman had demanded to inspect their papers. Joe seized the car and left Ross and company to take the rap. Each drew a twenty year stretch in prison, and Joe would have gotten ten years. Vermont had finished seven years when he broke out and tracked down Joe.
Fabienne and Joe cruise out to a desolate stretch of road and pitch Vermont’s corpse into the gorge. When they return home, they find Ross, Fausto, and a machine-gun wielding Katanga awaiting them. Ross keeps Fabienne at home and sends Katanga and Joe off in the charter boat to pick up a cache of opium from a Turkish ship. Joe gets the drop on Katanga and knocks him out. Meanwhile, Joe picks up Ross’s girlfriend, Moira (Jill Ireland) at the airport, punches out Fausto, and stashes her at a remote cabin.When he gets back, Joe discovers that Ross has kidnapped his step-daughter. Katanga recovers. Joe takes Ross and company to the cabin where he left Moria. When it looks like they have worked out their differences, Ross signals Katanga to open fire on the car that Fabienne is driving with her daughter. Joe and the former Legioneer struggle and Katanga accidentally kills Fausto and shoots Ross in the belly. Joe has to fetch a doctor for Ross before the villain loses too much blood and dies. Joe has to race back with the girlfriend and the doctor before Katanga kills Fabienne and his step-daughter.
“Cold Sweat” qualifies as above-average with Bronson outsmarting both the criminals and the authorities. Although it is a pared down nail-biter that focuses on a small group of characters, this brisk thriller conjures up several twists and turns that keep the protagonist and his adversaries from taking things slow and easy. The biggest set-piece is a careening auto chase between our hero and two French motorcycle cops along a mountainside road with Bronson swerving recklessly around cars and trucks. Veteran stunt driver Rémy Julienne stages some tire-screeching scenes with a credible Bronson at the wheel. The novel charm of “Cold Sweat” is the off-beat casting of British actor James Mason as a drawling southerner and actress Liv Ullumann as Bronson’s love interest.
