The Dove

I seem to have seen a very different film to the couple of "10" reviews this has received. The early 70's was the rise of the independent movie, many of these where pretty poor in quality compared to the movies of the studio period, but made up for this by covering topics the studios had refused to, some earned cult followings over the years, the Dove is certainly not one of these, with an obviously low budget, but not really trying be ground breaking. While it's said to be filmed around the world with the exception of a few insert shoots like Galapagos much of this was filmed in Australia, with a number of the cast being well known Australian actors of the time. Like many films of the period this one is not helped by some dire acting, editing and soundtrack, the theme song is awful. A quite young Dabney Colman survived this and had a pretty active career through the 80's and 90's. Mr Bottoms career was very up and down with long gaps in his movie acting and dropping out into daytime soaps by the mid 80's, he is the main problem with the film, he just can't act, which is a problem given the number of shots in the film where it's just him on the screen trying to look moody. Much is made of the fact Gregory Peck produced this, but while he produced a number of films in the 60's and early 70's it's telling that after this film he didn't produce anything for almost a decade.