Where to watch Cold Sweat
2 Stars
Joe Martin, a quiet American, lives a quiet life in the South of France renting boats to tourists. He is happily married to Fabienne and has a twelve-year-old daughter named Michèle. But the quiet man has a past: ten years before, Joe (then Moran) had escaped with four other convicts, among whom the sadistic ex-mercenary Katanga. Seeing the latter brutally kill an M. P., Joe had abandoned his accomplices and left with the car. One night, Captain Ross, Katanga, Whitey and Fausto re-appear..
The beginning of Charles Bronson’s rise from a supporting cast member to a leading man is evident by his star turn in Terence Young’s film Cold Sweat. Lensed in France by the department heads of numerous James Bond films, the polish and awe-inspiring stunt work of the Bond series are absent in Cold Sweat, which is a grungy, low-budget flick without much excitement. Yet, things perk up briefly for an extended chase sequence, which is the best thing about this Bronson-headlined production.
Cold Sweat is adapted from the novel by Richard Matheson, and the plotting, which is ideal for a novel format, doesn’t successfully translate from page to screen. Bronson’s peaked biceps and leaned-out torso make him a visual marvel. Here’s an actor with such a physical presence that it’s actually distracting. Charles Bronson in Cold Sweat has the greatest physique to have ever graced the big screen up to that point in time.
Directed by: Terence Young
Written by: Shimon Wincelberg, Albert Simonin, Richard Matheson
Starring: Charles Bronson, James Mason, Liv Ullmann