michaelg-784-603194 This is not the worst film I have seen, but it is among the most incoherent. My two stars are for splendid over-the-top cameos by the great William Demarest and the great Agnes Moorehead and a valiant try by Jacques Aubuchon. What are we supposed to make of an allegedly crack investigator who relies entirely on research by others and wildly improbable coincidences? What are we to make of the Jeanne Crain character whose only role is to look lovely, introduce the "hero" to another woman, reunite passionately with said "hero," and then vanish without trace? What above all are we to make of our hero's deep love for the Dina Merrill character when he fails to recognize her when sitting next to her and talking to her on a long plane flight? The story is ludicrous, the lovely Dina Merrill is seriously miscast, most of the male actors are stiffs, the denouement is absurd, and none of this farrago makes any sense at all.

Ed-Shullivan This certainly should not be classified as a real "thriller" but, as a mystery film it was a decent watch. I was intrigued to hear the story behind special investigator Tom Adler's (David Janssen) American born geisha girl Nicki Kovacs (Dina Merrill). The story has flashback scenes to when Tom Adler was a lieutenant stationed in Japan when he meets Nicki Kovacs at a Japanese nightclub.. Nicki is one of the private dancers/geisha girls at the nightclub who provides the sombre looking Tom with an ear to listen to his woes, and a couch to sleep on overnight. By morning Tom has fallen in love with the mysterious Nicki but he loses touch with his war time crush and over the following decades he cannot get her beautiful mysterious face out of his dreams and thoughts.Do not expect any James Bond or Mike Hammer physical action scenes as David Janssen is not your action Jackson type of detective. No, Tom Adler is more a wussy heartbroken type of detective who is good at his job at finding missing persons to which his firm gets a handsome reward for finding long lost loved ones. In this film, ironically enough Tom Adler is having a difficult time finding his own long lost love, his American born geisha girl Nicki Kovacs.No spoiler here. Suffice to say that Twenty Plus Two is a decent mystery film with a decent ending to which I give the film a decent 6 out of 10 rating.

MissClassicTV "Twenty Plus Two" is a stylish, ambitious movie with a great look. It's a shame that it's filmed after the height of film noir, but it still has a few great scenes that are noir-ish, and plenty of night scenes in general. The movie starts off in Hollywood 1961 and follows Tom Alder (actor David Janssen) from coast to coast as he figures out a murder mystery and finds a missing person, all the while dealing with a LOT of different characters. I thought it was really well made.The main problem with "Twenty Plus Two" is the casting of Dina Merrill as the female lead. Her character is about 30 years old at the time of the movie, and in flashback scenes, she's about 20. Merrill was 37 when she made this movie and she looked older. She was hardly believable as a 30-year-old woman, and definitely not as a young 20-year-old. She was badly miscast and it affected the movie.Jeanne Crain fares better as a sort of "girl next door" but fifteen years down the line. She plays Linda, who was engaged to Tom before he was sent to Korea, but married someone else while he was away. Now, 11 years after they last saw one another, she wants him back, but he doesn't want her, and she spends half the movie chasing him. She and Janssen are kind of funny in their scenes together.Agnes Moorehead as the missing girl's mother was superb in her scene with David Janssen. It's a long, pivotal scene. I give credit to both actors as their give-and-take was spot on. There's a lot of dialogue in this movie and these two could really deliver lines.The most stylistic and atmospheric scene in the entire movie is a shot of Tom sitting alone in his hotel room, thinking about the past, smoking, and the camera follows the smoke as it rises to the ceiling. It is fantastic.David Janssen is very, very good in this movie. He's cool, and the film's black and white visuals and jazzy score help to underline this. He should have become a major feature film star. As it was, he became a major TV star, and deservedly so.

GUENOT PHILIPPE I must admit that I expected more from the Joseph Newman's last picture. I thought that it was an authentic film noir, not necessarily with plenty of action, but intriguing, breathless, well done; with a plot not tepid as the one in this feature.The story of a private eye - Janssen - who investigates on a murder and meets a bunch of protagonists; as usual in this kind of production. An unbelievable tale, and complicated at the most. But the music score, jazzy, is adequate as the surroundings. I think it's the only positive point of view about this movie.David Janssen is also rather good in his character, as Brad Dexter, Agnes Moorehead and Jeanne Crain.In short, it's not a corny picture, but if you miss it, I think you'll be able to live without it.