Two Americans meet up in Turkey in 1922.  Josh Corey (Charles Bronson) is a cynical soldier-of-fortune who, along with his mercenary crew, is hoping to make money out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.  Adam Dyer (Tony Curtis) is the heir to a shipping company and is hoping to get his last remaining boat out of the Turkish dock where it’s been interned since World War I.  Osman Bey (Gregorie Aslan), one of the local powerbrokers who has risen to power since the Turkish Revolution, hires Josh and Adam to escort his daughters and their protector, Alia (Michele Mercier), to Mecca.  Actually, the plan is for them to instead go to Cairo to recover a priceless treasure.  The journey to Cairo is filled with action and betrayal as Josh and Adam try to navigate the upheaval of the post-war Middle East.

You Can’t Win ‘Em All is a mix of action and comedy, an adventure that owes more than a little to the other big budget heist films of the 60s and 70s.  (Director Peter Collinson was hired due to his work on The Italian Job.)  The film’s humor comes from the partnership of the stoic Bronson with the talkative Tony Curtis.  In fact, the film’s main flaw is that Tony Curtis talks too much.  Curtis simply will not shut up.  After about fifteen minutes, I was tired of listening to him.  Curtis’s acting limitations really come through the more that he talks and, as a result, Bronson walks away with the entire movie by saying next to nothing.  Bronson keeps largely quiet because he doesn’t have to speak to make an impression.  His stare says everything that needs to be said.

You Can’t Win ‘Em All is uneven but it has a few good action sequences and Bronson doing what Bronson did best.  Watching this movie made me appreciate Charles Bronson all the more.  Even when working with a less-than-great script and a miscast co-star, Bronson still had the undefinable quality that made him a star.