Gregory Peck in Mirage (1965)
Easily one of the more underrated films of the '60's, if hardly known, about a corporate executive (played beautifully by Gregory Peck) that realizes he has been suffering from amnesia for the past two years (bringing to mind another similar obscure bizarrity in regards to the strange portraits of memory loss, Mister Buddwing, which was released only one year later in 1966), after a sudden blackout in a New York City skyscraper (such a memorable cityscape-opening that will leave you begging to know "why" [naturally]). Walter Matthau plays a quirky, brilliant private detective (Peck being his first "client" interestingly-enough) that Peck hires after visiting a wacky, know-all-"I'm-better-than-Freud" therapist (played by Robert H. Harris) to help try and sort out and illustrate a better understanding for these "sufferings." Matthau, in his whimsically-entertaining ways, steals the thunder, in my opinion, for a period of time, while events unfold and shape up into an interesting twisting-mold of unleavened mystery (and anxiety on part of the viewer). Diane Baker plays a mysterious woman who, early on in this feature, enters into his life, thus adding a bit of pudding to the mystery. Soon, two killers (played by George Kennedy and Jack Weston) are attempting to gun him down. Do any of these particular individuals have something to do with a highly-important man (Peck's boss, Walter Abel) jumping (or was he?) from the 27th floor on the night of the power outage? (which is a fantastically-powerful scene; the usage of a watermelon splattering onto the concrete sidewalk as a metaphor for, well, a splattering human being -- perfect!) ... You will have to see for yourself to find out!
You can watch the first 10 minutes and 29 seconds of the film Here.
Mirage (1965)
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