To me, this movie is perfection.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

John McDonald's Travis McGee comes to life when one of his McGee novels Darker Than Amber comes to the big screen. Rod Taylor essays the role of the salvage beachcomber who does an occasional turn as a detective.What Taylor attempts to salvage here is Suzy Kendall who would like very much to get away from William Smith who on the big screen and small is usually one evil dude. Kendall is the come-on, one of many women Smith uses as a come-on in a cruise ship badger game racket. How evil this guy we only find out toward the end of the film.Taylor makes a fine private detective and Theodore Bikel is good as the intellectual sidekick Taylor has and apparently needs to keep him centered on what's good in life. But the one you won't forget is William Smith. His bleached blond appearance for this film only accentuates the evil in a truly evil man. The final scene is a fight with Taylor and Smith and about 15 others get in the way. It ranks up there with The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre for realism.Definitely for fans of the principal players.

Had the director or the principal actors (Rod Taylor and Theodore Bikel) bothered to read the novel(s) before the script, it would have been vastly improved. However, Travis McGee with an Australian accent, played by an actor whose skills are in playing himself in every role? Theodore Bikel was slightly better, but he took his cues from Mr. Taylor's performance unfortunately.The plot line made it worth watching despite the best efforts of the lead actors and director. Either John D. MacDonald was drunk or given points in the production to give it the review he did. The names were the same and some of the settings, but the Travis McGee novels are character driven and the tone is crucial to the story. This movie, and I use the term lightly, had none of the tone or character that makes McGee beloved and a long-lived mystery/action series. It followed the plot line and had a brutal fight scene, but is really, thankfully, eminently forgettable.After watching the movie, the changes and director's method showed no concept of the story and I got a clear vision of the director, a.d., and studio execs responding over and over "What's the diff?" When queried about Taylor's Aussie accent, Travis McGee wearing coat and tie readily, Bikel's eastern European accent, killing off the Alabama Tiger to cameo Jane Russell, and wiping Trav's repugnance and distaste at shopworn hooker Vangie's attempts at seduction, etc. etc. etc.All in all a very poor movie, unworthy of the plot line and story. If you watch it, you'll realize what a superior story teller John D. MacDonald was and how untalented this crew of filmmakers were in telling a story. It's no wonder during the 60's and 70's most of the films rewrote the basic story totally. You can see how badly they did with filming a good story and plot line in this effort.It doesn't even come near the original story.

I've never read any of the novels by MacDonald so I can't comment on book to film accuracy.On the other hand,I'm a huge fan of both Rod Taylor and William Smith.It took me almost ten years to get my mitts on a copy of this manly movie masterpiece.It's got some foreign subtitles on it but who cares,this movie's climactic brawl lived up to every bit of it's hype.No goofy chop sockey stuff just good old fashioned, beat the living hell outta the other guy moves.Taylor and Smith use every thing but the kitchen sink on each other.It's true that the only movie fights that come close are From Russia With Love (who doesn't love seeing two football hooligans like Connery and Shaw trying to kill each other but I digress) and the final throwdown between Rod Taylor and Peter Carsten in Dark Of The Sun.This movie is a holy grail for manly movie fans but all the way worth it.Let's hope it finds it's way to DVD in it's pure,unedited form soon,hopefully with commentary by Taylor and Smith.

This movie is the only cinematic Travis Magee movie made. It has a strong cast and was written by John D. himself but the "hipness" prevents the realism from coming out. The casting of Rod Taylor is of a questionable choice and the movie lacks the technical expertise that a first class author should have been given.Miss Agnes is the only concession to class and the "flush" is appropriate as well. All in all a disappointment to those John D. fans. Too bad that those responsible for "Cape Fear" didn't sign on to do this flick!! Lori and Paul WA state