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Laurence Harvey’s brief foray as a leading man seems improbable in hindsight. He was so dour and borderline unlikable, so prone to looking frankly bored and displeased in front of the camera that his prominence in the late 50s/early 60s makes you wonder if everyone in Hollywood lost their damn minds. Occasionally these zombie-like characteristics would merge well with a character, like in The Manchurian Candidate, but more often than not, it sank the material, as it does here.
There’s little reason to believe that Martha Hyer and France Nuyen would be so drawn to him, and he generates a kind of anti-chemistry with both of them. His character uses one to try and get American citizenship (Hyer), and the other is supposedly his actual love interest (Nuyen). With no heat generated in the love triangle then what exactly are we left with here? The answer is nothing much.
There’s some lovely location footage that’s been spliced into the rear projections, and Nuyen and Hyer are clearly favored by the filmmakers over their leading man. They do decent work, Hyer posing like a glamorous movie star and Nuyen wafting throughout as the embodiment of multicultural chicness. A Girl Named Tamiko just limps along for its two hour running time.
