The Swiss Conspiracy Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.5

The Swiss Conspiracy Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 19, 2024

If Jack Arnold is remembered at all these days, it's most likely for his fifties science fiction tinged efforts like Creature from the Black Lagoon, It Came from Outer Space and The Incredible Shrinking Man. But as is explored in two bonus features devoted to Arnold included on this disc, his career was really rather long lasting and widely variant in terms of subject matters and genres. Even during Arnold's sci-fi heyday in the 1950s, he was branching out rather unexpectedly into such areas as quasi-farce in The Mouse That Roared and supposed teenage exploitation fare like High School Confidential. The fifties also saw Arnold start to make his mark in directing for television, something that would increasingly take over his directorial life as things progressed. The sixties saw Arnold tackle any number of assignments for series ranging from Perry Mason to The Brady Bunch, and in fact The Swiss Conspiracy may strike some as approaching "made for television" status in terms of its overall ambience and perhaps notably with regard to a cast that would have been quite at home in any mid-seventies "world premiere" outing airing on something like ABC's Movie of the Week.

That television aspect has a somewhat interesting sidebar with regard to David Janssen, who stars as a former U.S. government inspector named David Christopher. It's kind of an ironic fact of show business that many, maybe even most, performers long for a career making role and then, if they're lucky enough to achieve that goal, end up spending years trying to undo any typecasting that may result. In that regard, while most folks will no doubt associate Janssen's name with his long running "tour" as The Fugitive, at the time of the filming of The Swiss Conspiracy, one of Janssen's most recent credits would have been his one season stint in the Jack Webb produced O'Hara, U.S. Treasury , where Janssen did in fact play a U.S. government inspector investigating financial crimes, which is more or less what Christopher does in this film, albeit at the behest of Swiss bank executive Johann Hurtil (Ray Milland). So, Janssen may have indeed jumped out of the typecasting fire and into the typecasting frying pan here, however unintentionally, and not with regard to his best known characterization.

The conceit of the film is that several clients of Hurtil, all of whom have supposedly "secret" Swiss bank accounts, have received blackmail threats with information about those accounts included, and in fact one of the seeming blackmail victims has already been killed rather violently in one of the film's opening moments. Christopher begins to explore the stories of a quintet of supposed victims, including Denise Abbott (Senta Berger), whom Christopher "meets cute" when she steals his parking place outside of the bank and then coos that "Ferrari drivers need to stick together", citing the vehicles they both drive. Needless to say, Christopher and Abbott "stick together" in a variety of ways as the plot progresses.

The Swiss Conspiracy benefits from some gorgeous location work in Switzerland, but the screenplay is a mess a lot of the time, and the "big twist" at the end is kind of mind bogglingly illogical. There are any number of kind of comical moments scattered throughout this ostensible "thriller", including the repeated hilarity of blackmail notes being left right on the floor of the bank lobby, where there are innumerable people milling about one would assume would have noticed this subterfuge taking place (the somewhat joking commentary makes some hay out of this particular issue). There are also way too many red herrings afoot as well, including a ludicrous subplot involving the bank's vice president Franz Benninger (Anton Diffring) and a woman named Rita Jensen (Elke Sommer) which seems to be related to the blackmail plot but which turns out to be something else entirely, in what is just one of this film's kind of inexplicably ridiculous info dumps late in the story.

The Swiss Conspiracy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Swiss Conspiracy is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Masters with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The front cover of this release advertises a "new 4K restoration from original 35mm archival elements", without specifying what elements those might have been. I frankly wish purveyors of home media would simply let us know what was used (interpositive? print?), but that curmudgeonly complaint aside, if the unrestored trailer is any indication of the shape the actual feature was in, the results here are pretty heroic, at least relatively speaking. There are some definite passing issues with color timing and contrast, but at its best this presentation offers a natural looking palette and some secure detail levels. That said, there are any number of temporary downturns in image quality, sometimes within the same shot, which may indicate a badly damaged source or one that wasn't curated especially carefully. While there is a noticeable grain field, it can pass into near invisibility at times, especially against some of the brighter outdoor backgrounds.

The Swiss Conspiracy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Swiss Conspiracy features a nicely robust DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track. There's a really nicely full midrange that helps cacophonous moments like the opening gunshot to reverberate quite well, and the film's score by Klaus Doldinger also sounds full bodied. Doldinger does go in for some "oom pah pah" silliness, but also contributes some kind of cool funky jazz that, once again making this seem like a television production, recalls some of the great scores by the likes of Pete Rugolo and Patrick Williams that graced old Quinn Martin productions (including, of course, The Fugitive). Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Swiss Conspiracy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Jack Arnold: The Lost Years (HD; 14:37) is an interesting piece whose title may be a little ironic, in that Arnold seemed to wish at least for a while that his Universal years, arguably his best remembered, were "lost".


• A Three Dimensional Filmmaker (HD; 28:26) is an even more comprehensive overview devoted to Arnold with Michael Shuman and Kristopher Woofter, both of whom have contributed to a book about Arnold's films.


• Restored 35mm Trailer for The Swiss Conspiracy (HD; 1:47)


• Original 1976 35mm Trailer for The Swiss Conspiracy (HD; 1:46)


• Audio Commentary by Robert Kelly and Daniel Budnik is accessible under the Setup Menu.

Additionally an insert booklet contains an appreciation of the film by Lee Pfeiffer which probably cuts the film considerable slack despite what even Pfeiffer overtly states is a "confusing" plot.

The Swiss Conspiracy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Without posting an overt spoiler, this film relies on a plot conceit rather like that in Murder on the Orient Express, vis a vis the "culprit(s)" involved, but unfortunately the screenplay here has none of the flair of Dame Agatha. There are some fun performances, including an almost manically irate John Saxon as one of the blackmail victims, and the scenery is often luscious, but the story is ultimately too ridiculous to ever generate any significant suspense. Video quality has some passing issues but audio is fine, and the supplemental package quite enjoyable, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.