Auteur Connery: The Offence (1973)

  This 1973 Brutal Cop thriller is an interesting test of the auteur theory. Who is the organizing intelligence behind this genre flick? 

First up is obviously Sidney Lumet, who proved a master adapter from classic O’Neill down to genre novels. 

Or — star Sean Connery? 

Here Connery plays a police detective maddened by his years of dealing with cases of child abuse and murder. He succumbs to the evil he has seen. The key event is his fatal interrogation of one suspect in such a case. As the victim remarks, “Nothing I have done can be one half as bad as the thoughts in your head.” 

That fails to mollify. Addressing one offence, the cop on offence commits his own murderous one.

The film is very much of its time - 1973. The police force is still all white. Women inhabit the fringe, unless they’re victims. But it’s still a powerful drama.

It’s especially interesting as the direct antithesis to the Sean Connery image of the time. He was, remember, James Bond. Licensed to kill even beyond Hollywood cop film convention, if not the law. Suave and debonair and unruffled by anything he has witnessed or done. 

Connery’s cop here is a harsh exposure of the nightmare reality the Bond films glossed over. This Connery hero is broken by his experience. 

In addition to the violence, his character here is antithetic to the Bond as ladies’ man. “Why aren’t you beautiful?” he turns on bis suffering, victimized but still caring wife: “You’re not even pretty.” As his name colloquially confirms, Detective Sergeant Johnson is a prick.

As Connery trails his film persona into this role, so does Trevor Howard, listed as co-star but appearing only at the end as the hardened investigator into the Connery character’s “case.” From such films as The Third Man and Brief Encounter Howard personifies the ethical administrator, the tempted but firm Brit.

The film’s back story favours this auteurship. Connery had wanted to escape his Bond image. He was lured into his last exercise, Diamonds are Forever (1971), with the promise that United Artists would then fund two films of his choice. In genre, tone and theme this film — the first in that deal — was Connery’s escape from his Bond-age.

The second was to be a Macbeth that he would have starred in and directed. Like The Offence, that would have been another profound study off a hero destroyed by the poison of his power and responsibility. Unfortunately, the release of Roman Polanski's version and the box office failure of The Offence stopped that project. So the only Shakespeare Connery we’re left with is his wonderful pre-Bond Hotspur in The Age of Kings TV series. 

With that context,  Connery might well be considered the auteur responsible for this work. It comes from his heart, against his image.