Mirage (1965, Edward Dmytryk) ***

The New York Times' original review places writer Peter Stone's name in its headline (!), never even mentioning Dmytryk once throughout the entire piece. Easy to see why: Mirage, like its younger, frothier brother Charade (1963; also written by Stone), classily weds a sly wit to big, violent mystery and surprisingly few writers in cinema have repeatedly pulled off this feat (Hitchcock's John Michael Hayes and the Coen Bros. are the only others who come to mind; Shane Black, for all his strengths, lacks the elegance) -- it's a highly distinctive stamp. In the years between Charade and Mirage, Stone seems to have grown more cynical, trading radiant romance for a confused country darkened by the Atomic Age's shadow and JFK's assassination. Gregory Peck wounds the film with his stiffness (and he already gave essentially the same performance two decades earlier in Spellbound), but Stone interrogating our worst capitalist impulses and Dmytryk's cryptically jagged editing (which paved the way for Point Blank's fractured rhythms to inaugurate a new era in American film) more than compensate.