Eye Drop

By JAY COCKS

ST. IVES

Directed by J. LEE THOMPSON

Screenplay by BARRY BECKERMAN

By now, we pretty well know what to expect from contemporary private eyes, especially the ones who work out of L.A. The eponymous hero of this movie has all the predictable particulars. St. Ives (Charles Bronson) lives in seedy splendor, books and bed just about filling up the furnished flat in his downtown residential hotel. He has fussy, mildly eccentric eating habits: he likes New Orleans chicory coffee and frequents a cafeteria where the food is more honest than the clientele, which runs mostly to grifters, hustlers and small time sharpies. St. Ives drives a car that is, as required, grittily chic -- a black Jaguar sedan that has seen better days. So, of course, has St. Ives.

A former crime reporter, now become a freelance crime buster, St. Ives toils away at being a novelist in his spare time. He has more of that commodity than he can handle, however, so when his attorney finds him an odd job, St. Ives snaps it up. An old richie up in Holmby Hills named Abner Procane (John Houseman) has had some journals stolen. St. Ives is commissioned as middleman in the trade-off of big bucks for large books, whose precise contents remain a mystery. As the caper proceeds, however, it becomes increasingly clear that whatever is in the books is highly inflammatory, not to say down right dangerous. St. Ives cannot help noticing that whoever comes in contact with the books usually -- and rapidly -- winds up dead.

Barry Beckerman's screenplay offers Director J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone) several good chances to take advantage of the flush, neon lowlife of L.A. Thompson sedulously ignores every opportunity and does not try to sort much sense out of the plot, either. He has all he can do to keep his actors from tripping over corpses. In addition to the ravishing Jacqueline Bisset, who appears as a rather tricky temptress, and Houseman, whose air of hothouse gentility is persuasive, Charles Bronson makes a pleasing shamus out of St. Ives. No big thing, mind. But he eases through the part with gruff grace and a few hints of low-rent charm. In Breakout, last year's Hard Times, and now here, Bronson has turned in good, engaging work. It is getting nice to have him around.

Jay Cocks

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