The whole story is preposterous. The moment anyone in the British Embassy had an inkling that Andrews was romantically interested in - let alone emotionally involved with - a Russian espionage agent, she would be home on the first flight and FAREWELL FCO!
Direction is incipient, Andrews tries her best but is better at comedy, and Sharif never really found his feet as an actor after debuting in Lawrence of Arabia, even his tearful Dr. Zhivago is difficult to rate as serious acting. Here he is a very dark Russian, in appearance and motivation and apparently never gets to see the light... which defines the pointlessness of the entire film. Photography is much too mediocre to save the film, the John Barry soundtrack is probably the best thing about THE TAMARIND WEED... and it is much too long. I fell asleep after 30 minutes, and had to rewind to watch the rest, only to fall asleep again. It took a third viewing, and that was a mistake, because the schmaltzy ending is - in my humble opinion - the worst part of a pretty poor flick.
A generous 4/10
Direction is incipient, Andrews tries her best but is better at comedy, and Sharif never really found his feet as an actor after debuting in Lawrence of Arabia, even his tearful Dr. Zhivago is difficult to rate as serious acting. Here he is a very dark Russian, in appearance and motivation and apparently never gets to see the light... which defines the pointlessness of the entire film. Photography is much too mediocre to save the film, the John Barry soundtrack is probably the best thing about THE TAMARIND WEED... and it is much too long. I fell asleep after 30 minutes, and had to rewind to watch the rest, only to fall asleep again. It took a third viewing, and that was a mistake, because the schmaltzy ending is - in my humble opinion - the worst part of a pretty poor flick.
A generous 4/10