Minikillers (1969)

I wrote the below a little over ten years ago for imdb.com, but couldn’t post all of it because of their word count limits. Blogger has saddled users with a complicated new interface I’m trying to figure out, so I decided to resurrect this old writeup for today’s post until I can figure out what the hell I’m doing on this stupid new Blogger interface, which seems to have been designed by Millennials who do everything on their phones. 

German producers H.G. Lückel and D. Nettemann had an entrepreneurial idea: to provide entertainment for people getting their cars refilled at gas stations in Germany. The idea was to place TV sets by the pumps, so customers could watch a short film while their car was filled (this was before the days of self-service.)  They envisioned an espionage thriller to capitalize on the James Bond/Eurospy genre. Casting about for a famous lead, they eventually settled on Diana Rigg -- fresh from her biggest role in the Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. After negotiating, Rigg agreed to appear in these films. 

Minikillers is a series of four short films, tied together into a coherent storyline: the idea was that customers would keep coming back to that particular gas station to see the conclusion. The series was shot on 8 millimeter and without dialog; sound effects and music were added later. In a way the project comes off like a silent film; all is relayed via movement, gestures, and facial expressions. 

Rigg apparently did not realize the uber-low budget of these films until the camera(s) started to roll. However true to her contract she shot each of them...and never mentioned them again. The entrepreneurial project, by the way, failed completely: the deal fell through and the movies were never shown at any gas stations. Hence Minikillers achieved a mysterious status; copies circulate on the bootleg market. It appears also that each film was released on 8mm reels for a short while in Germany; most bootleg DVDs are no doubt sourced from these. 

Minikillers is comprised of 4 minifilms, each about 7 minutes long, totaling a 28-minute movie which is as good as any other Eurospy flick you could name. Rigg apparently plays Emma Peel here; at any rate, she’s a fun-lovin’, judo-choppin, swingin’ chick who smirks at danger. The film also retains the surreal charm of The Avengers; Rigg never fires a pistol, defends herself with the crudest of martial arts moves, and never once appears to be in any real trouble. 

Filmed in Spain, the movie takes advantage of the scenic locales of Costa Brava – however most of the scenery is lost in the washed-out and blurry 8mm film print. Long story short: Minikillers looks like garbage. My DVDR is taken from the original 8mm film and looks rough; colors are muddy, faces are blurred. But Diana Rigg still glows. 

Part 1: Operation Costa Brava – At seaside resort, lounging by the pool in a red bikini, Rigg sits reading a paperback. She notices a toy doll which walks up; somewhere distant a bald assassin who looks like Telly Savalas sets a sort of time-bomb activation clock. The doll stops in front of some guy, who picks it up; the doll squirts poison through its eyes and the guy dies. In the melee of panic Rigg takes the doll, investigating; the bald henchman sees this and sends a stooge after her. A quick judo fight outside Rigg’s house; she tosses this guy and as he slouches off she spots a clock which has fallen from his pocket – it’s the same kind as the clock used to activate the doll. Rigg goes back into her swank room to inspect the doll. Unseen by her another doll another comes in, controlled by the Savalas lookalike; Rigg leaves her place just as the poison sprays from doll #2’s eyes – Rigg never even sees that it’s there. 

 Part 2: Heroin – Rigg sits along the beach in a wrap, mini-camera in hand. She spots some scuba guys who get into a yacht; Rigg snaps photos of them with her minicamera, the guys on the boat looking back at her. The main boss is here – a mustache-sporting type who controls the Telly Savalas lookalike and who is apparently behind the minikillers. He gives the order and the men on his yacht hoist a lever, activating a trap. A strange scene where Rigg realizes she is surrounded by mannequins on the beach – as if she didn’t notice? Yacht guys pull lever; a net comes up from the sand and ensnares the mannequins and Rigg and drags them into the water. Guntoting stooges in the yacht wait as the net’s dragged from water – but it’s empty! Meanwhile Rigg comes out of the ocean unseen by them – wearing only white panties and a bra, her wrap lost in the tumult – and gets into a dingy. She pulls herself into the yacht. Hides from men and goes into bottom deck, investigating – minikiller dolls everywhere. Ever curious Rigg looks into one, finds a bag of heroin tucked inside it – the dolls transport drugs as well. Cute bit where she waves a “naughty naughty” finger in the doll’s face. Next she finds a photo of two men, with “Interpol” written above them, and X marks over each face; one of the faces is the man killed in part 1. Rigg puts on a raincoat and avoids the armed thugs. Eventually the yacht gets back to the dock; while sneaking off Rigg sees the Telly Savalas looking thug, and he sees her. A few judo chops and she beats away her attackers; escapes into the main villain’s car, races off. Ends with Rigg depositing the stolen car on the street and hopping into her own race car, jetting off; a cop puts a ticket on main villain’s car for being illegally parked. 

Part 3: Macabre – Rigg enjoys a coffee at an outdoor restaurant. The Savalas lookalike and the main boss watch her from afar. They take the minikiller (from part 1) from her car and activate it, then place it back in Rigg’s car. She leaves and they follow in another car, she sees them. She hears a ticking noise and so stops to look at the doll. Realizing it’s been armed, she looks up in her rearview mirror and sees that her tailers have also stopped. She throws the doll at them and it explodes; men scatter. Cool bit where Rigg saucily gets out of her car and challenges the bald henchman. A quick fight scene where she judo-chops him and he plunges off of a hill, out cold. Rigg leaves, and back at her hotel a porter hands her a note. Apparently she’s asked to come to a certain address. That night, Rigg in sexy black minidress arrives at a palatial estate. Men there await with a coffin, one of them the Savalas lookalike. She beats them up and escapes in a horse-drawn carriage. This is the shortest installment, at just 6 minutes. 

Part 4: Flamenco – Rigg sits in a packed nightclub, enjoying a flamenco dancer named Sali. In an upper balcony sit the main villain and his Savalas lookalike henchman. Also, we see that Sali the dancer is one of the two Interpol agents in the X’d out photo from part 2. (Talk about a strange cover assignment!) A waiter comes by with a photo for Rigg, of that same “Interpol” photo. Again a message being sent to her. Flamenco over, Sali takes his bow, goes to his dressing room. In his mirror he sees a minikiller doll advancing on him. Too late, it sprays its poison in his face and he dies. Later Rigg comes down to Sali’s room. Before she can go in she’s gagged and dragged off. She comes to strapped inside of a cliffhanger serial-type device: bound flat while the stone ceiling slowly descends on her while gears revolve; soon she will be crushed to a pulp. The Savalas lookalike watches for a while and then goes back up to the main boss to gloat. Meanwhile Rigg reaches for the gears… Upstairs Savalas realizes something’s amiss. Goes downstairs, sees that the device is not working – plus it’s empty. He leans in to investigate; sees a ring jammed between the gears. Savalas is so caught up that he gets caught in the device by the wrist and can’t move. Rigg pounces off into Sali’s dressing room, sees his corpse, notices that he died pointing into his mirror. She follows the direction of his finger – a hidden room. Finds in there several crates filled with heroin-stuffed minikillers. Rigg takes one of the dolls out of a crate, remembers the clock-activation device she got from the judo-tossed henchman in part 1, which she conveniently has strapped around her neck. Meanwhile upstairs the main villain messes with a minikiller of his own, charging it up with a syringe of poison. Downstairs, Rigg sets up her own minikiller to test it out. She winds the clock and sets it off, but somehow this sets off the minikiller in the main villain’s hands. Poison sprays in his face and he dies. So Rigg has disposed of the main villain completely unawares! The film ends with Rigg enjoying a drink at a bar as cops lead off the bound Savalas lookalike; Rigg winks into the camera, takes another drink, and the credits roll. 

The direction is actually very good considering the rudimentary production. One can only wonder how much better this would look with an actual budget – not to mention dialog. But there are some innovative camera angles and the action scenes are handled with aplomb. Rigg of course carries the film; it’s a shame she didn’t feature in more globe-trotting Eurospy productions. The soundtrack is a swanky treat. Two tracks from Minikillers can be found on the CD Poppshopping Volume 1, released by the German label Crippled Dick; ironically, neither of them are versions actually heard on the soundtrack! The versions released on the Popshopping CD are the same, but are just slower – the main version as heard in the film itself is sped up. But either way the theme gets stuck in your head.

Random Movie Reviews, Volume 9

Europspy:

The Cobra (1967): This is more of a cop film than a Eurospy film, but why split hairs. Our disgruntled hero is Mike Rand, a former Treasury agent now living in Istanbul; a few years he took a bum rap, and now former boss Dana Andrews has come a-calling to see if Mike is interested in taking a new job. A masked villain known as “The Cobra” is looking to hook the West on heroin, working with the Chicoms in some complex scheme. Mike isn’t interested until he learns a woman he either worked with or slept with has been killed in the investigation. Mike by the way is an ass, constantly bitching about something (he has an annoying tendency to call everyone “man,” this being the later ‘60s and all), and to make it worse he isn’t the most skilled agent. The actor playing him (an Italian guy) also handles the action scenes a bit too light in the loafers; seriously there are parts where Mike Rand will punch or kick or run away, and the actor throws in these odd almost ballerina-like touches, like he’s trying too hard to sell it. Oh and Anita Ekberg shows up as a heroin-hooked owner of a fitness center who ends up in bed with Mike, but she doesn’t show too much skin. The action is sporadic and mostly fistfighting, but there’s a firefight in the villain’s refinery at the end. The revelation of who the Cobra is comes off as humorous, as I had no idea who the dude even was. Overall The Cobra is okay – not to mention serviced by a nice widescreen print – but I wouldn’t recommend it to someone new to this particular subgenre.

Operation Counterspy (1965): The same year he starred in Sergio Sollima’s Passport To Hell, George Ardisson starred in this pulpier slice of Eurospy which really needs a better release; currently one can only find a pan and scanned VHS print with hard Danish subs, or a widescreen VHS print with hard Dutch subs, both of them dubbed in English. I saw the former. The print, while cropped, is passable, but it would be great to see this one in sharper clarity. It’s a lot of fun, with more frequent, arbitrary action scenes than Ardisson’s two “Agente 3S3” movies, but not as polished or satisfying as either of them. In fact it’s the too-frequent action that becomes a detriment, particularly given that Ardisson’s character is almost always getting knocked out and/or captured by his enemies.

There’s some unintentional comedy in how Ardisson is dubbed; his character is Lord George Moriston, codename The Ace of Spades, a mega-wealthy freelance English spy. For some puzzling reason, he’s been dubbed with a voice that would be more suitable to a villain; it’s a chilly, pitiless British voice that one would more associate with a supercriminal or something. Also, Ardisson’s blonde hair is dyed black for this one, the producers no doubt capitalizing on the whole “Italian Sean Connery” thing. But he does really look like Connery at times, and as ever Ardisson brings a charisma to the role. I’d say without a doubt he was the best of all the Eurospy stars, and as I mentioned in the comments thread of the previous movie review round-up, I’d be interested to know if the Bond producers were aware of him back in the ‘60s. The guy could’ve made for the perfect replacement when Connery decided to quit being Bond.

The plot has Lord Moriston being called in on a job that has him coming upon some secret plans, which will eventually lead him to an underground installation in the desert in which the villain plans to launch a missile. Along the way he’ll get in a lot of fistfights, the occasional gunfight, and meet a few random Eurobabes. Though curiously Moriston only falls for one of them, and falls hard – the film features several almost awkward scenes where the two kiss a little too passionately. I mean show some reserve, Moriston! The film is hard to gauge because it seems low-budget, yet it has action scenes on a grander scale than many other Eurospy movies, from cars being lifted by wreckers and tossed in the ocean to climactic subgun-blasting battles. The villains are more annoying than threatening: the lead henchman looks like Oliver Hardy after a session or two at the gym, and the main villain is a heavyset guy with a beard who isn’t threatening at all. Though he does of course get to slap a girl around – par for the course in Eurospy – before adding the novel addition of tying her up and whipping off her clothes.

The production seems to have hopped around Europe and Istanbul, but most of the action occurs indoors, so it all could’ve been shot on a set in Italy, who knows. We also get a trip to a club with a belly-dancer; one of the dancers turns out to be the gal who hooks up with Lord George, but even more attractive is the villainous blonde babe who also dances there. But this is another movie that cheats us on the hero-villainess confrontation; the blonde turns out to have her own secrets, as revealed in the climax, which as mentioned takes place in an underground bunker. I wish more of the film had occurred here, as it’s one of those cool sci-fi sort of places common in Eurospy, complete with subgun-wielding goons in silver jumpsuits (with spiders emblazoned on their chests!). Also worth noting that Lord George is a bad-ass here, garrotting guards in cold blood and shooting down goons with a permanent sneer on his face. If only there had been more stuff like this and less of the endless fistfights/Lord George getting captured stuff! Apparently a sequel was planned, but never happened due to scheduling conficts or somesuch.

Spies Strike Silently (1966): Lang Jeffries, who starred in several Eurospy movies (like Cifrato Speciale), stars as agent Mike Drumm, on loan to the British service. This Italian-Spanish joint, unlike many other films in the genre, plays things very straight – perhaps a bit too straight. Jeffries in fact comes off as rather bland in the lead role, sort of a prefigure of Timothy Dalton’s take on Bond. But on the plus side, there’s zero “comedy” antics or general tomfoolery, and plus like many co-productions, this one appears to have had a healthy budget. There’s a lot of traveling around Europe and Beirut, the camera work is downwright artsy for the genre, and the finale is an action onslaught of blasting subguns and mind-controlled, black-uniformed goons buying it in bloodless fashion.

The film suffers from a disjointed opening; an interminable sequence of a group of people just walking around Beiruit, going to a hotel pool, engaging in banal dialog – then the pretty girl jumps in the pool and we get an abrupt cut of her floating there with a bunch of blood around her. From there to Drumm, in London, where he’s briefed by an affable British officer. In Beirut Drumm quickly deduces that there’s more to the murder than meets the eye, particularly when other prominent scientists – each of whom have been working on projects that could benefit mankind – are suffering from similar threats against their loved ones. Action is periodic, with Drumm actually using his gun in a few scrapes – in addition to the genre-mandatory fistfights (which were of course cheaper to film than gunplay), we get a couple parts where Drumm guns down his opponents.

Spies Strike Silently doesn’t go overboard on the Eurobabe angle, but we do have the rather novel appearance of a black actress in one of these films; she’s quite attractive, especially in her mid ‘60s hairstyle and clothing. Then there’s the brunette babe who turns out to be working for the villains – never trust the brunette babes in these movies. Finally there’s a British gal Drumm hooks up with late in the film. However it’s my sad duty to report that agent Mike Drumm fails to score in the entirety of the film! Perhaps it’s his aura of taciturn blandness that fails to entice the ladies. There is though as mentioned a polished feel to the film, with unusual angles and shots that appear to have been carefully staged.

A bit after the hour mark the film takes a turn toward sci-fi, which seems to be mandatory for these films, and no doubt influenced by the similar transition in Dr. No. The villain, a dude named Rashid, is your typical mad scientist type who has created a drug that turns people into his puppets; in his Beirut home he has an entire underground base complete with black-uniformed, submachine gun-wielding goons. There’s also a cool pop art-esque room where potential subjects are strapped to a mod chair and brainwashed. Drumm almost becomes the latest unwitting assassin, only to escape – and then get caught and brainwashed, anyway!

The finale is pretty spectacular, at least when the genre average is taken into consideration; Drumm and his affable British pal lead a squad of Beirut soldiers on an assault of Rashid’s place, and there’s copious gunplay and dudes getting mowed down by subgun autofire. Sure, sometimes the prop guns don’t even belch smoke, let alone flame, and the dudes falling down don’t have a single bullet hole on them, but you have to give them credit for trying. But for some reason it doesn’t end there; instead the climax rips off Goldfinger, only in a car instead of on an airplane. The film ends with Drumm learning his next assignment will take him to…Ohio!? But it appears that, though Jeffries made other Eurospy flicks, this was the only adventure of Mike Drumm.

Spy in Your Eye (1965): This Italian-German production stars future soap star Brett Halsey as “Brad,” American agent who reports to none other than Dana Andrews. Like most Eurospies with a German pedigree, Spy In Your Eye benefits from a healthy budget; there’s a fair bit of globetrotting and some money was clearly spent on sets. Also of note is the English dub, which is so well-done it actually made me look it up – and sure enough, the script for the English dub was courtesy an uncredited American producer. Despite the dubbing, Spy In Your Eye could almost pass as an American production given this extra care in the dialog department – and it’s helped that both Halsey and Andrews dub their own voices.

Halsey makes for a passable Eurospy lead; he’s tall and lanky, and sort of looks like Wally from Leave It To Beaver. Interestingly, he’s more “Timothy Dalton” in his delivery than “Sean Connery;” again like Dalton’s take on Bond, Halsey presents a secret agent who is a bit more taciturn and, well, dull. His assignment has him going around Tangier and Paris, trying to keep the daughter of a scientist from Red agents. The villains aren’t that menacing, a factor not helped by the fact that the main one looks very much like modern fashion icon Michael Kors. Dana Andrews plays Halsey’s boss, and he is the recipient of the titular “spy in your eye;” early in the film he has surgery to get a sort of bionic eye to replace his missing left eye, but it turns out the Kors lookalike and his fellow Commie spies are using this artificial eye to spy on Andrews and Halsey, monitoring their every move.

While it’s sort of lacking on the Eurobabe front, there are a few action sequences that move beyond the genre-norm of fisticuffs, and the villain’s lair is built on a revolving set. One switch of a button and a medical lab becomes your average Eurospy sci-fi headquarters. This transformation results in one of the goofier deaths in Eurospy history, as a villainess is crushed to death (seemingly) by a slow-moving piece of equipment. Honestly, it’s like that part in Austin Powers where the random stooge has plenty of time to get out of the path of Austin’s zamboni machine (or whatever it was) but just stands there sceaming. Otherwise the film plays it pretty straight, without even the usual genre-spoofery one finds in the typical German Eurospy movies. That being said, a robotic Napolean (clearly an actor in costume) factors in the plot.

In 1979 Halsey published a paperback original in the Harold Robbins mold titled The Magnificent Strangers; set in the early 1960s, it’s about a group of American actors working in Rome. I’ve had it for quite some time and keep meaning to read it. Halsey would certainly be able to tell the tale, as he lived and worked in Rome for several years before coming back to America to star in General Hospital. Dude was even married to Luciana “Fiona Volpe” Paluzzi!!

Random Movie Reviews, Volume 8

Eurospy:

Agent 3S3: Massacre In The Sun (1966): Okay I’m cheating here, as I already reviewed this one, but this time I watched the cut of the film made for the Spanish market (which is possibly the same as the version that was released in the Italian market). Last time I watched the French cut, which was about 17 minutes longer, but as mentioned the copy I viewed suffered from a blurry, murky print. Not so this time, folks; this cut, which runs an hour and forty minutes, was put together by enterprising Eurospy fan David Alamaco, and apparently at one time it was posted on the Wild Eye Eurospy forum, which appears to be gone now. I was in touch with Mr. Alamaco last year, about to do a trade with him, but he ventures all over South America and the shipping costs are outrageous. Luckily the folks at Cult Action got hold of this very cut of the film, and for a mere $13 I was finally able to see it.

Alamaco sourced his cut from a Spanish cable broadcast, and the picture is pretty great – nothing hi-def, but certainly better than the previous version I viewed. Also, Alamaco has provided subtitles for most of the scenes that were never dubbed into English; as with the French cut I viewed, I of course watched the English dub (it just ain’t Eurospy if it doesn’t have bland, dubbed English voices). Unfortunately, this subtitling arbitrarily comes and goes; some scenes we get to understand what’s being said, other times we’re given no help at all. But whereas that French cut had no subs at all in the undubbed sequences, at least this time we’re given a better understanding of what’s going on. Otherwise the movie flows the same, with Giorgio Ardisson (as Agent 3S3 Walter Ross) strutting his stuff like the “Italian Sean Connery” he was hyped as; the women are approrpiately sexy, and in this more-clear copy we get better glimpses of the female flesh on display in the general’s multicultural harem, not to mention the bits jawdropping blonde bombshell Evi Marandi shows off in the swimming pool.

Here are the major differences I noted: The French cut of the film opens with Ross getting a fellow agent out of a Communist country, which turns out to be a training exercise that’s really being held in England. Then we get to the overlong title credits, after which we meet KGB agent Ivan Mikhailovic (Frank Wolff), who is on a training exercise of his own, posing as a peasant in a Spanish bar which turns out to be a training camp in the middle of snow-swept Russia. The Spanish cut reverses this, with the film opening on this scene, presumably catering to the Spanish market, before cutting to Ross in England, and then the credits. Later in the film, when Ross gets to San Felipe, he is given a room in which he discovers a bug hidden in a statuette. The Spanish cut ends there, but the French cut features a pretty blonde in the room who hops in Ross’s bed and offers herself to our hero. Most notably the finale, with Ross’s men geared out in black combat suits and infrared goggles, features more scenes of subgun-blasting fury in the French cut. In the Spanish cut the gliders land and we only see Ivan and Ross’s pal don their goggles and blast away, then we see some Molotov cockails in use. The French cut features the two female members of the resistance blasting away (with even more sequences of bad guys being blown away in infrared-vision), as well as an entire sequence of a glider landing and guys hopping out of it to mow down their enemies – and then we get to the Molotov cocktails scene. I’d love to see this additional action material in the same quality as the Alamaco dub. Perhaps someday a better version of the French cut will surface and someone will properly subtitle all of it.

The Big Blackout (1966): Here’s another Eurospy that sort of comes off like the Nick Carter: Killmaster film that never was. In fact, a Killmaster volume, The Weapon Of Night, played on the same concept, tapping into the blackout which gripped the East Coast of America in November 1965. Here though this event doesn’t happen until the end, and indeed the budget must’ve been pretty low – unlike most other Eurospy movies, The Big Blackout stays in Italy for the duration. The Italian name for the film is Perry Grant, Agente Di Ferro, so clearly the US distributors thought they’d capitalize on the “blackout” element.

Unknown actor Peter Holden stars as agent Perry Grant; according to imdb.com this guy was only in one other movie, a Spaghetti Western, so the budget wasn’t extended for a “name” Eurospy actor, like George Ardisson, Roger Browne, or even Gordon Scott. But Holden isn’t bad, though to tell the truth I thought he was an Italian, posing under a fake English name, as was the style of the time. He isn’t the best-looking Eurospy stud nor is his physique all that great, which makes it all the stranger that the director (Luigi Capuano as “Lewis King”) keeps showing us Holden without a shirt on – at the beach, in a gratuitous shower scene, or just lying in bed smoking a cigarette. Hit the weights, dude! I think Roger Moore was more buff.

Grant is called away from his latest Eurobabe, a brunette knockout in a white bikini, by a coded radio message – rock has now entered the realm of Eurospy, with a twangy mod rocker playing throughout courtesy The Planets. Grant’s boss tasks him with posing as a fashion reporter, another agent posing as his photographer, and looking into a plot which will eventually entail a sci-fi contraption that blacks out entire cities – and soon the world! The film is curiously padded, with many scenes of people wandering around aimlessly or eating up the runtime doing menial chores, like tearing open envelopes or looking at maps. Action is sporadic, and poorly staged; the gunfights are particularly lame, with stuntwork that wouldn’t cut the mustard in a kindergarten play. Along the way Grant hooks up with another pretty brunette, named Sylvia (with vacant eyes, it must be stated), and there’s also a slinky Asian babe (who humorously enough is dubbed with a Southern Belle accent!). It must be noted though that agent Perry Grant fails to score!

The final fifteen minutes improve in a major way; the villain has that pulp spy-fy mainstay: an underground base filled with jumpsuited goons (each bearing a lightning bolt logo on his chest). Here oblong tv monitors provide views of the blackouts the main villain, a former Nazi, has been causing, the New York blackout of course included – and black and white footage of the event is included. This sci-fi vibe is much appreciated and makes one wonder why more of the runtime wasn’t spent down here in this underworld lair; the finale at least has some fireworks, with Grant toting a subgun and mowing down jumpsuited thugs in another poorly-choreographed action scene. The flick ends oddly enough with Grant not bedding down with Sylvia, which the penultimate scene implies is a foregone conclusion, but with some other random Eurobabe, on some other beach.

Superargo Against Diabolicus (1966): This perfect slice of Eurospy better captures the vibe of the classic Bond franchise than any other such flick, which is ironic given that its titular protagonist is a muscle-bound wrestler in a garish red costume and a black face mask. Plus he has superpowers! Catering to both the Eurospy and the Lucha Libra genres, Superargo Against Diabolicus only features wrestling stuff in the first quarter, as Superargo accidentally kills an opponent and goes into mournful seclusion. An old friend from “the war” shows up to offer him a job, and a chance at redemption: to stop Diabolicus, a criminal mastermind looking to take over the world in some convoluted fashion. The Bond ethic is in full effect. Superargo is given a bunch of fancy gadgets, in addition to a bullet-proof costume (and by the way he’s already impervious to blades, freezing temperatures, and can hold his breath for 7 minutes). He’s also given some weapons and a souped-up sportscar similar to the one featured two years later in the more-famous Diabolik.

The action kicks in midway through, as Superargo infiltrates the underworld lair of Diabolicus, a place of blooping and bleeping sci-fi gadgets, uniformed henchmen, and a riding crop-wielding henchwoman who apropos of nothing changes costumes at one point to put on something more revealing (not that I minded). Superargo is constantly tested, and when he gets a chance to fight back he kills without mercy. It’s all done very well, and to tell the truth I actually prefer this to Diabolik, as this one plays it straight throughout. The action finale is also fun, with Superargo wielding everything from a submachine gun to a flamethrower to his bare hands as he stops Diabolicus from escaping in a sort of rocket – and by the way, Diabolicus here wears the same avante garde “space suit” as seen in Operation Atlantis.

But man, this one’s a lot of fun, which makes it strange no one’s officially released it (mine’s a widescreen transfer taken from some overseas release, complete with the English dub); even the soundtrack comes off as Budget Bond, with the memorable theme song sounding very similar to John Barry’s “007” (not to be confused with the “James Bond Theme.”) Superargo returned two years later in Superargo And the Faceless Giants, which was courtesy the same director who gave us Devilman Story.

Top Secret (1967): The same year he starred in the dire Danger!! Death Ray, Gordon Scott made this Eurospy that clumsily melds espionage and humor, which was the style of the time. Luckily Top Secret isn’t a full-blown comedy, the antics relegated to random, inconsequential bits, and Scott, as CIA agent John Sutton, still gets to beat up a few people. But I would’ve enjoyed it more if it played things straight. Our Eurobabe is Polish beauty Magda Konopka (good grief is this woman beautiful), who the following year starred in Satanik. I’m pretty sure The Eurospy Guide (an overly-negative book that is not recommended; practically every “review” is along the lines of, “This movie sucks, but…”) makes the claim that Ms. Konopka gets topless in this film, but that unfortunately doesn’t happen in the copy I watched – a crystal-clear widescreen presentation off the Italian cable channel Rai, complete with the English dub.

The plot’s about…actually I don’t know what the hell the plot’s about. This is typical of the Eurospy genre. But it has something to do with an old former Nazi escaping Russia or something (though it’s implied he’s intentionally allowed to escape?), and agent John Sutton goes from Casablanca to Naples trying to get the top secret info he’s brought over. The film is more concerned with the “Spy vs. Spy” antics of Sutton vs. KGB agent Sandra Dubois (Konopka) – it’s just a repeating situation of one chasing the other, save for the occasional moments they get in bed together. The viewer quickly learns to turn off his brain and just appreciate Ms. Konopka’s ample charms. Action is periodic, but mostly of the fistfight variety; it’s not helped that the musical cue for one of the villains is a cartoonish “BOING!” sound effect.

Gadgets are relegated to bugs hidden in makeup compacts, and while Sutton occasionally totes a pistol, he doesn’t even shoot anyone. In retrospect I think Danger!! Death Ray was actually superior, as at least it played things mostly on the level. (And the MST3K version is one of my favorite episodes of the series.) Piero Umiliani’s score is the usual greatness, other than that annoying villain cue; some of it is the epitome of easy listening. The film ends with what might have been a flash of bare breasts; Dubois slips into Sutton’s bed at the end of the film, and her response to his tirade about her trying to kill him is to whip down the sheets which cover her. It’s hard to say – perhaps the Rai channel edition cut out the nudity, but otherwise I think it would’ve been a bit out of the norm for a Eurospy of this era to end on a scene of toplessnsess. Not that I’d complain or anything.

Random Movie Reviews, Volume 7

Eurospy:

Agent 3S3: Massacre In The Sun (1966): George Ardisson returns as Walter Ross, Agent 3S3, in a superior sequel to the previous year’s “Agent 3S3: Passport To Hell” (below). Also known as “Hunter From The Unknown,” this movie exists in a few different versions. The one I watched was an uncut print taken from a French TV broadcast – it’s widescreen, no commercials, and no network logo, but the picture is a bit fuzzy and the color is a bit muted. But it’s worlds better than the pan and scanned, sourced-from-an-old-USA TV broadcast that once existed on the trade circuit. Some wonderful person has even included the English dub on this French print, but the uncut scenes are in French only, clearly never dubbed into English. This print runs three minutes shy of two full hours, much longer than the 106 minutes listed on imdb.com.

And it truly feels like an epic; filmed on the Ibiza coast, the film brings to mind the sun-splashed hedonism of the film version of Harold Robbins’s The Adventurers. Ross is sent to the sunny island of San Felipe to find out what happened to missing fellow agent 3S4. He meets a host of colorful, exotic characters, from the boisterous dictator, who keeps a harem of women in his palatial, swanky estate, to a brunette villainess who enjoys punishing men with her bojitsu skills. The harem stuff is what really brings to mind The Adventurers; the camera work from director Sergio Sollima (also returning from the previous film) is wonderful ‘60s exploitation, with countless scantily-clad babes relaxing in various poses of undress in the indoor pool. Speaking of which, this French print has a bit more flesh – nothing outright R-rated, though. 

The movie, in this two-hour version, takes its time, with more character-building than any other Eurospy I’ve seen. (And Ross is shown to be more brutal, even shooting an unarmed guard in the climax, a scene cut from all other versions of the film.) In a way it does lack the bizarre, off-the-wall goofy charm of the average Eurospy movie, yet at the same time “Massacre In The Sun” comes very close to being like the real Bond films. Ardisson in particular makes this possible; the actor, an Italian whose real first name was Giorgio, is one of the very few Eurospy actors who could match the on-screen charisma of Sean Connery. He even sort of looks like him.

Action scenes are the expected low-budget fistfighting, but we get some karate too, and the stick-wielding villainess employs a legion of gorgeous women armed with submachine guns. There’s a long chase and fight scene where Ross is hunted down by some of the soldiers of the effete but sadistic head of island security. Another memorable scene has Ross bedding the brunette villainess by not only quickly taking her bo staff away but also giving her a sound spanking! You can bet this only gets her in the mood. Speaking of which, the villainess and mega-babe blonde heroine Evi Marandi get in a knock-down, drag-out karate fight at the end of the film that bests any other girl-on-girl fight you’ll see in Eurospy. 

“Massacre In The Sun” works on a slow-burn for the duration, with periodic sex and action, as Ross discovers that a rebel faction plots the takeover of San Felipe, with the intent to use a new nerve gas or something on the rest of the world. The finale is great, with Ross and comrades clad in black jumpsuits and infra-red goggles, toting “infra-red Tommy guns” and piloting gliders, launching a nighttime commando raid on the villain’s compound. Sollima does some cool psychedelic-esque stuff here with infra-red shots of men getting gunned down, smoke exploding from their chests as they’re machine-gunned, the action viewed through those infra-red goggles. This entire sequence was so murky as to be unviewable in that old pan and scan print; while still a bit muted in the color department, the finale plays a whole bunch better in this uncut French print – not to mention there are additional action scenes here (you can always tell the uncut parts because the characters will suddenly start speaking in French!).

All told, “Massacre In The Sun” is one of the standout Eurospy movies I’ve seen, so fleshed out and complex that multiple viewings would be rewarding, and it makes one wish there had been a third Agent 3S3 film.

Agent 3S3: Passport To Hell (1965): Italian actor “George Ardisson” debuts in the first of two films as Walter Ross, Agent 3S3 of the CIA. Well-regarded by Eurospy fanatics, “Passport To Hell” keeps things fairly realistic, with a plot similar to “Secret Agent Fireball” (below). It even takes place in the same location (Beirut), but this flick I found a little more enjoyable. Agent 3S3 like Fireball is on the hunt for the daughter of an important man, though in her case Pops was a villainous spy who has set up a SPECTRE-like cabal of former spies; these villains are one of the most interesting features of the film. They’re not aligned with any foreign power and, like a true “shadow government,” are out to use their intelligence contacts for their own ends. Plus one of them sort of looks like Terence McKenna. Their mysterious leader is the father of the above-mentioned girl, and Ross is assigned to ingratiate herself into her life, even “marry her if necessary.” Off he heads to Germany, where composer Pierro Umiliani provides this uber strange (yet super-catchy), Muppets-esque “rock” track when Ross gets in a fight in a bar, the local toughs not appreciating his advances on their “girl” (aka the daughter in question, a somewhat-attractive brunette Euroactress).

Action is mostly fistfights and the expected low budget stuff, but Ross does take out the occasional foe with a silenced pistol. Ardisson is likely one of the top Eurospies, bringing to his role the same sort of natural swagger as Sean Connery – supposedly he was dubbed “the Italian Sean Connery” – and it’s a shame he wasn’t in more of these films. As he tracks down the various spy network members he fends off several attempts on his life, using a few gadgets along the way, like a beacon that’s tracked by a pair of sunglasses. The villains also have a chamber where they can view proceedings on a viewscreen while lights blip in the background, but this is about the furthest the movie gets into sci-fi.

Speaking of the villain spies, one of the leaders turns out to be a sexy Chinese lady, who at one point strips down to black bra and panties, but of course I scanned through it to avoid watching such shocking indecency. She actually lives through the piece – and surprisingly is not a conquest of Ross’s, who only manages to sleep with the daughter – and for that matter neither is the main villain dispatched by our hero. He simply beats him up and that’s that. Lame! Overall this one wasn’t bad, but wasn’t great, and was mostly elevated by Ardisson and the grim vibe – even the picture itself is sort of dark, but that just might be the murky-but-widescreen version I viewed. The movie was followed a year later by “Agent 3S3: Massacre In The Sun” (above), which I not only found much superior, but is also one of my favorite Eurospy movies.

Killers Are Challenged (1966): Richard “the proto-Ben Affleck” Harrison returns as Bart Fleming, Agent 077, in this sort-of sequel to the previous year’s “Secret Agent Fireball” (below – and I’m pretty sure he was “Bob” Fleming in that one). However as usual no effort is made toward continuity, and indeed Fleming just sort of walks into the film with no big buildup or payoff. At any rate this one’s a lot better than the previous movie, with Fleming going up against a bevy of sexy Eurobabes. An old scientist has come up with a new energy source and everyone wants it. Fleming poses as the scientist, who has had facial surgery, and goes to Casablanca, where he’s constantly hounded by a variety of enemy agents, all of whom work for a mysterious female. The focus is at times on comedy, but never to an outrageous extent, and the movie gets a lot of good mileage out of Fleming screwing with the unwitting villains who come after him – he’s much more suave and accomplished in this one, with a Bond-esque mastery of every situation. There’s also a bit more action, with random shootouts and chases.

Gadgets aren’t as prevalent, with low-budget stuff like coat buttons that double as audio bugs. Fleming again doesn’t manage to score, though he doesn’t come off like the horny teen of the previous film. The three main gals are an Asian babe who apparently falls for Fleming (though it’s hastily and vaguely implied at the end that she might be in a lesbian affair with the main villainess); failing in her mission to distract Fleming the Asian gal is at one point stripped to her lingerie, chained, and whipped by one of her fellow henchwomen. The main villainess, whose identity isn’t too surprising, is the same buxom blonde who appeared in that year’s Lightning Bolt as the jumpsuit-clad femme fatale in the villain’s underwater lair. She also appeared, as a different character, in “Secret Agent Fireball.” Here she is much more duplicitous and clearly enjoys harming others. Finally there’s a jawdropping redhead who plays Velka, secretary for a wealthy and aging Texan but who in reality is a double agent who helps Fleming; she’s my favorite of them all, but it looks like the actress didn’t do much else.

Everything goes along swimmingly until the final hour, when a pointless barroom brawl breaks out…and goes on for like 15 minutes. Egregious as you can get. The finale at least wraps things up, and once again hero Fleming (who did not return) doesn’t manage to score until the very last frame of the film – with Velka, the lucky bastard. This one features inventive camera angles and seems downright polished when compared to many other Eurospy entries.

Secret Agent Fireball (1965) Brawny blond American actor Richard Harrison, previously a sword and sandal star, makes his Eurospy debut as Agent 077 Bart (or is it Bob?) Fleming (note the last name, of course!), a character he would reprise in the superior followup, “Killers Are Challenged” (above). Harrison makes for a good pseudo-Bond, however personally I felt the actor looks uncannily like modern-day “superstar” Ben Affleck, which admittedly detracts a bit from one’s enjoyment of Harrison’s films. At any rate Fleming is sent around Europe and Beirut searching for a scientist who has devised some maguffin the Russians also want. Speaking of which, a team of Russians constantly shadow Fleming, the scenes sometimes played for thrills, sometimes played for laughs. Gadgets are plentiful but low budget, like shirt buttons that double as homing devices. There’s also a pipe that fires poison darts. Eurobabes are limited to a fierce-eyed blonde who played the red-jumpsuited ass-kicker in the awesome Lightning Bolt (and who also appeared, as a different but still evil character, in the sequel “Killers Are Challenged”), and the svelte brunette daughter of the missing scientist, who becomes Fleming’s ally.

Action is frequent but limited mostly to fistfights and car chases. In the finale Fleming chases the villains via helicopter, and Harrison is clearly sitting in a grounded ‘copter, merely pretending to fly. Also of humorous note is that Fleming throughout is as horny as a teenager but fails to score – he hits on the scientist’s daughter relentlessly when meeting her on an airplane, and makes aggressive advances on just about every lady he meets. So far as sidekicks go, Fleming partners up with a Beirut native who apparently is a fellow spy and who drives a gadget-filled taxi. The film has an unexpected finale in which the leader of the Russians ends up helping Fleming avert world destruction, with Fleming saying some maudlin stuff about the Cold War hopefully thawing one day. This one’s okay but a little threadbare compared to other Eurospy movies – I much prefer the sequel.

Random Movie Reviews, Volume 5

Eurospy: 

Agent X-77 Orders To Kill (1966): This Italian-Spanish production is only marginal, mostly elevated by supersexy Italian actress Sylva Koscina as a saucy nurse who hooks up with the hero, Vadile, and helps him take on a group of Commie plotters who are looking to steal the plans to an experimental fuel called Agent X-77. As for the hero, he is a French dude with zero screen presence, and Koscina easily steals the show from him. Anyway our hero Vadile is a French agent sent to Italy posing as an airline investigator. A plane crashed in the Itallian mountains and we viewers know it was sabotaged, the men onboard killed for the documents they were carrying. Vadile sort of lurks around the countryside and investigates; it’s all very slow-going, with only an occasional fistfight or car chase in the first hour. But as mentioned there is Sylva Koscina sexing things up; with her chin-length ‘60s hairdo and big eyes she looks like a living Japanimation character. At the hour mark Vadile is captured, strung up, and mercilessly whipped, and you still care little for him. I didn’t really enjoy this one, but I did get a chuckle that the two main villains looked like Walter Mathau and James Coburn. Also of note is the annoying soundtrack, which sounds like something out of a Buster Keaton comedy.

Electra One (1967): When the protagonist isn’t a spy but instead is a jewel thief, does the movie still count as Eurospy? This is of course the same question that plagued the ancients. At any rate “Electra One” doesn’t have enough to recommend it either way. Our “hero” is a square-jawed type with the bland good looks of a paperback cover model; he is a Hamburg-based thief who runs into a scheme involving an experimental gas called Electra One which unleashes inner impulses or something. Not that much is made of it; we only see it at work in the beginning, where villainous Electra, a Blofeld-type who plans to blackmail governments with the gas, uses the drug to mess up the mind of a US colonel who then attempts to launch missiles on Russia. But from there on the movie devolves into one chase after another as our hero inadvertently saves the pretty blonde assistant of a murdered doctor who has come up with an antidote to the drug. There’s a grating comedy element courtesy a pair of American and Russian agents who do nothing but eat up the running time. However, always-sexy Rosalba Neri appears as a villainous babe, one working for Electra. She doesn’t do much, though, other than sit around and look sexy. But you take what you can get in meager films like “Electra One.” The finale isn’t bad, with our hero armed with a subgun and being chased by a small plane.

O.K. Connery (1967): Unlike Danger!! Death Ray, which was also given the MST3K treatment, this film is improved by watching the uncut version. The story behind this one goes that, when Sean Connery briefly quit the Bond franchise after filming “You Only Live Twice” in 1966, some genius in Italy wondered, “What if we hired Connery’s younger brother Neil in a bunch of pseudo-Bond films – and also hired a bunch of other actors from those movies to play similar roles?” From the real Bond films we have Bernard Lee, playing “Commander Cunningham,” a variation of M; Lois Maxwell, playing “Max,” a more ass-kicking variation of Miss Moneypenny; Anthony Dawson (who played Professor Dent in “Doctor No” and the behind-the-camera Blofeld in “From Russia With Love” and “Thunderball”) as a variation of Blofeld; Daniela Bianchi (Tatiana in “From Russia With Love”) as a sort of Pussy Galore; and Adolfo Celi (the villain in “Thunderball”) as a variation of Emilio Largo. Where they couldn’t get the original Bond actors, they got lookalikes and gave their characters similar names: Lotte Lenya, who played Rosa Klebb in “From Russian With Love,” is replaced by a lookalike actress whose character is named “Lotte Krayendorf!”

The movie is often referred to as a spoof, but this isn’t really true. For the most part it plays it straight, with only the occasional humorous aside. In that manner it’s not much different than the actual Bond films. But this isn’t a “Matt Helm” movie or anything. The movie has Neil Connery as “Neil Connery,” a doctor with mental mastery along the lines of Doctor Strange. He’s the brother of Commander Cunningham’s “best agent,” and is drafted by the Commander to handle the latest plot of Thanatos (aka SPECTRE), an international criminal organization which plans to steal some atomic maguffin. Connery (who didn’t dub his own voice) is okay if bland in the lead role, bringing none of the rakish charm of his more famous brother. The most enjoyable aspect of the film is seeing the actors from the Bond movies have fun with roles that give them a bit more opportunity to stretch their acting wings – Bernard Lee gets a few laughs, and as mentioned Lois Maxwell gets to do all sorts of action stuff.

There must have been a nice budget in play, as “O.K. Connery” goes all over Europe and down to Morocco, Connery researching various leads and getting in the occasional fight. He’s more superheroic than even his brother’s character: in addition to being able to control minds, Neil Connery is also an expert archer. He keeps bumping into the lovely Bianchi (dressed in the most outrageous fashions), who is one of Thanatos’s members, though not as evil as the others – and interestingly, we get to see a lot of evil women who work for the organization, in particular Mildred, a curvy brunette Eurobabe who at one point wears this crazy-but-awesome leather catsuit/miniskirt deal – that is, right before some dumbass kills her. Bummer!

Action scenes are plentiful, and sometimes go beyond the typical, low-budget fistfights of the average Eurospy. That being said, the money must’ve run out at some point, as the climax features that maguffin atomic device rendering firearms useless, thus Connery and comrades must raid Thanatos’s lair armed with bows and arrows! Connery handles the action scenes okay, but the hand-to-hand fights usually seem awkward and clumsy. Make no mistake, this film is no patch on the real Bond films, and indeed isn’t as good as many regular Eurospy flicks; it’s more enjoyable as a funhouse mirror reflection of the Bond franchise, one with a wild spyghetti overlay. My understanding is this was planned as the start of a franchise, but either it didn’t do well or more likely Danjaq, then-owner of the Bond franchise, probably stepped in and curbed anymore films. And I’d love to know what Sean Connery thought of it! Supposedly the producers asked him if he’d do a two-minute cameo, but he turned them down. This is surprsing, as Connery – by his own admission – hated the Bond film producers. You’d expect he would’ve relished the chance at sticking the knife in.

OSS 117: Double Agent (1968): OSS-117 was a recurring character in a series of French movies (and novels), usually played by a different actor each time. I checked this one out because it was a co-Italian production, and as everyone knows Italians just do it better. Coming out after the Eurospy boom of ’65-’67, “Double Agent” has the look and feel of a Bond film, but lacks the gadgets and sci-fi wackiness of earlier genre entries. Speaking of Bond, the actor playing OSS-117 this time is John Gavin, a brawny, dark-haired, virile type of dude who looks so much like Bond that he was actually chosen to be Bond; he was signed on to portray 007 in “Diamonds Are Forever” in 1971 but obviously backed out once Sean Connery decided to return to the role. But Gavin looks very much like a young Connery, with the same sort of build, looks, and mannerisms. Perhaps he could’ve become “the” Bond if he’d kept the role.

So far as the female leads go, for one we have an early (and sadly too brief) appearance by always-gorgeous genre mainstay Rosalba Neri (“Superseven Calling Cairo”) as one of 117’s early conquests. Later we have busty Italian redhead Luciana Paluzzi, who played the sexy henchwoman Fiona Volpe in “Thunderball” (I’ll take her over Oddjob any day!). As if that weren’t enough, finally we have Margaret Lee (“Dick Smart 2.007,” etc), as gorgeous as ever, but here with an “exotic” makeover courtesy lots of eye liner, given that she’s playing a Middle Eastern gal.

OSS-117 goes undercover as an infamous assassin, hired by a supervillain played by Curd Jurgens. “Double Agent” really has the vibe of a pseudo-Bond film due to the casting; Gavin as mentioned was Bond for a while, Paluzzi was in “Thunderball,” and nine years later Jurgens was the main villain in “The Spy Who Loved Me.” But the movie doesn’t properly exploit any of them; while it starts off promising, with 117 in Jurgens’s headquarters (where he boffs Paluzzi’s character, here serving as a doctor/henchwoman for Jurgens), it soon veers astray as 117 is sent by Jurgens to Istanbul on an assassination mission. Now the plot is a jumbled confusion of 117 trying to pretend to kill a man associated with Margaret Lee’s character. Action is sparse and undermined by cranked-up film speeds. T&A isn’t much exploited, either, though Rosalba Neri apparently sheds her clothing. Again, it’s really just the gals and main actor Gavin that recommends “Double Agent;” even the finale is underwhelming, with Paluzzi’s character totally forgotten, Jurgens dealt with by a random character, and 117 engaged with a non-threatening henchman in an overlong fistfight.

Password Kill Agent Gordon (1966): Roger “Superseven Calling Cairo” Browne stars as dashing “super secret agent” Douglas Gordon in this bland but spirited Eurospy cheapie that goes from Paris to Tripoli to Madrid. Browne’s assignment has him posing as a talent agent for a bevy of beauties, one of whom is super-sexy Rosalba Neri (who appeared with Browne in “Superseven”), with another played by ever-sultry (and duplicitous) Helga Line. The first half is a bit talky and slow-going, before the inevitable endless fistfights expected of Eurospy break out. Gordon does well for himself, scoring with Rosalba Neri’s character early on – a scene which begins with him “torturing” her with a feather to the soles of her feet. As ever Neri shows off as much skin as possible, traipsing around in lingerie; one can almost suspect many of these Eurobabes were just waiting for the ‘70s, when they could go full-on nude in their films.

Once the action moves to Madrid we get more of a sci-fi angle, with Helga Line (who turns out to be a Russian spy who ends up working with Gordon) sporting a lipstick tube that shoots lasers (shown via animation drawn on the film). There’s also lots of cheap spy-fy tricks, like Browne “talking” into his wristwatch. The villain is a wheelchair-bound transvestite who manages to capture both Gordon and Helga Line’s character, putting the former in a chamber with poison gas and strapping the latter onto a bed while being dunked in water and shot with electricity – while wearing nothing but a teddy and panties, naturally. More spy-fy ensues with the revelation of a previously-unmentioned special ring Gordon wears. Action-wise we get periodic shootouts, but this one was certainly cheaply made, as the guns don’t even spout flame when firing. Overall “Password Kill Agent Gordon” is okay, but nothing great. Admittedly it might come off a lot better if we were able to see it in a better print than the current faded, blurry, pan-and-scanned job that’s available.

Sicario 77: Vivo o Morto (1966): Rod Dana is Ralph Lester, a freelance agent currently taking an assignment from British intelligence which has him going from a fixed boxing match in Soho to a villain’s headquarters hidden in a renovated cathedral in Madrid. “Sicario 77: Vivo o Morto” (aka “Killer 77: Alive or Dead”) benefits from nice production values and a plot that’s lifted directly from “Dr. No,” which was of course the template for most of the better Eurospys – the film starts off a basic spy yarn before progressing further into sensationalism. It also has a great surf guitar theme song that will get stuck in your head. Action is sparse for the first 40 or so minutes, but the plot isn’t as complicated as most other entries in the genre, and there’s some fun with Lester’s comrade on the assignment, “The Priest” – a busty, beautiful blonde so-called by her fellow agents due to her prudish views on sex. That being said the director gives us enough lecherous moments, like the Priest shedding her clothes and walking toward the camera until her panties-covered crotch is in super-extreme closeup. Eventually Lester is captured, after a long chase sequence and a fight in an elevator shaft that could come right out of one of the Dalton 007 movies. He wakes up a prisoner of V-3, an organization of “old Nazis” who look to take over the world.

The Budget Bond vibe is at full effect, complete with a Blofeld-esque main villain, several armed guards in identical black outfits, and a sadistic, leather-garbed henchman who is an expert with the barbed whip, slashing apart a female member of the organization for the viewing pleasure of the leader (an act which is kept off-camera, but later we see the scars on the woman’s back – along with the insinuation that she enjoyed it!). Gadgets are relegated to a special bullet Lester can fire which emits radiation that can be tracked by a command center or somesuch; we’re informed just one bullet costs a few hundred thousand pounds, but in this way Lester is able to alert British intelligence where he is. We also have a micro-recorder in the heel of Lester’s shoe, complete with antennaed earpiece for long-distance audio surveilling. After some unsurprising betrayals we move to an action finale, which occurs in the villain’s villa rather than the expected cathedral. On a motorcycle a toting a subgun, Lester guns down several uniformed henchmen before whipping out this bizarre-looking bazooka-type deal which he uses to blow up scads more of them in a rousing action finale. Apparently never dubbed into English, “Sicario 77” currently exists in a nice-looking widescreen print sourced from some Italian broadcast, graced with English subtitles.

Tom Dollar (1967): This late-era Eurospy almost has more in common with the Italian crime flicks of the ‘70s; even the soundtrack occasionally sounds like a Blaxploitation score, with copious wah-wah guitars. But titular Tom Dollar is a CIA spy, and his assignment has him trying to stop an Iranian villain from stealing uranium. Tom Dollar is played by an Italian actor but he’s apparently meant to be Japanese-American – the actor wears subtle eyeliner to heighten the “Oriental” look – his father mentioned as having been a samurai and his mom an American. He also has a Japanese sidekick who engages Tom in impromptu Pink Panther-esque fights to test his mettle.

The movie is a bit sluggish and undone by periodic attempts at comedy, particularly courtesy a fellow CIA agent whose speciality is disguise. There’s an overlong sequence where this guy, an artiste, makes up the female lead of the film, an Iranian princess whose father was murdered and who is next on the death list. As is typical for Eurospy, the plot is jumbled and overly complex, livened up by sporadic, patience-testing fistfights. Given the Japanese angle, most of the fights are of the karate and judo variety, however the director speeds up the film during the fights, so that it almost looks like Benny Hill. We aren’t treated to nearly as many Eurobabes as is standard for the genre, again indicating that the movie was made in the twilight years. Even the finale lacks the action climax one could want, again degenerating into brawls, though we do get to see a few of the villain’s stooges gunned down by a commando squad.

Random Movie Reviews, Volume 4

Eurospy: 

Agent 505 Death Trap Beirut (1966): I really enjoyed this one, a bright and colorful German-Italian production shot entirely in sixties Beirut, a much different place than today. The movie has a great opening as a few lovely young women are shot by the poolside, their killer using a C02 gun that fires frozen air bullets! The killer himself is soon done away with, his dying words that the girls “knew too much” and that by tomorrow everyone in Beirut will be dead. Enter Agent 505 of Interpol, a suave spy-type who looks similar to Roger Moore. This dude quickly informs us he operates by his own rules: he knows killers will be looking for him, so sets up a gullible traveling salesman as bait! At least he ensures the guy isn’t killed. As with most West German productions there’s a focus on comedy here, mostly through ironic one-liners, which gives the film more of a Bond feel than most Italian Eurospy efforts, which usually fail at the ironic comedy. That being said, the middle half derails a bit with the bungling efforts of a group of criminals 505’s Interpol colleague gets involved with.

This does pay off, though, as the criminals work for the mysterious Sheik, ie the villain of the piece, a master criminal with only four fingers but who is never seen. The reveal of who the Sheik turns out to be is actually well done, if implausible. There could be more gals on display, though: the only two main ones are a blonde trickshot artist with bouffant hair who is the ex-wife of the Sheik, and another blonde, this one a reporter who falls for 505. The story takes place over two days and the action keeps moving, with more C02 guns, a telephone-gun, and other gadgets, plus a lot of stunts, including 505 hanging off a helicopter. The finale is the highlight, as 505 and pals infiltrate the villains’s lair, and like “Coplan FX 18 casse tout” we have a miniature “Dr. No” riff, with the heroes and villains all wearing shiny silver radiation suits and blowing each other away with submachine guns. This flick features the most brutal killing of a main villain yet in Eurospy, with the hearltess bastard’s face wrapped up in barbed wire before he gets blown up!

Cifrato Speciale (1966): Apparently the English title for this German-Italian production would be “Special Cypher,” but it was never brought over to the US, and thus the only print we have of it is from a widescreen German VHS which some helpful fan has subtitled in English. Like most West German co-productions this one seems to have had a nice budget, but it’s undone by constant action scenes, with more fistfights randomly and arbitrarily breaking out than in one of the Bruceploitation flicks of Bruce Le. Seriously, hero Lang Jeffries (as a US agent posing as a formerly-insane pilot…!) can’t go five minutes without someone jumping out of the shadows and taking a swing at him. The flick opens in 1945 as two Nazi pilots drop special crates into the ocean. Twenty years later various factions are looking for these crates, which apparently hold the plans for anti-gravity tech. Jeffries poses as the lone survivor of the flight, who has spent the past two decades in an insane asylum, escaping as the movie opens. Everyone thus believes that Jeffries knows where the crates are, so everyone looks for him.

There are a few Eurobabes in attendance, one of whom is a treacherous spy for the main villain faction, a SPECTRE-type cabal that apparently resides in an underwater city (we only see the inside of it). Here various henchman stalk around in shiny black jumpsuits, toting submachine guns. There’s a fair bit of “Thunderball”-inspired underwater photography, with Jeffries in scuba gear getting in a few scrapes beneath the waves (even here there is constant fighting) while riding around on an underwater sled. It climaxes in the villain’s lair, but hopes for a big battle are dashed as a deus ex machina poison gas does the hero’s job for him. But the sets look cool and the movie certainly keeps moving, even though it’s all so convoluted. Like many German productions this one also mocks itself throughout, with “witty” asides making fun of the events. Also a great bit where the treacherous spy babe strips down to bra and panties to prove she isn’t wearing a wire, but the bastards cut away when she doffs her bra. I wept bitterly.

Coplan FX 18 casse tout (1965): This one’s supposedly a French-Italian joint, but it seems a bit too French to me. Sluggish pace, self-conscious camera angles, lack of a good Eurobabe. As usual the Italians just did it better. Also, it’s very humorless. This is surprising given the star, the Roger Moore-looking dude who showed up two years later in the slapstick-esque “Dick Smart 2.007.” Here he’s dour and merciless Coplan, top French agent. The convoluted plot has him going to the Middle East for something about a missing scientist or whatever; stuff just happens in the movie and characters react like it’s a big deal, whereas the viewer has no idea what’s going on. There’s a lack of gadgets and as mentioned a lack of Eurobabes, with only two or three of them showing up in minor roles. Action is occasional, like a long motorbike-car chase. The final thirty minutes improves with an underground complex where a nuclear missile is being built. It’s all very Bond-esque, complete with goons in sci-fi radiation suits a la “Dr. No.” But even this can’t save the film, which just lacks the spark and fun of an Italian spy-fy flick.

Danger!! Death Ray (1967): You’d think watching the uncut version of this flick in widescreen would result in a movie better than the one so capably mocked on MST3K, but nope! It really sucks. “Special effects by Timmy” does sum up the film, but you have to respect how the filmmakers just said the hell with it and clearly used toys in various shots. Superbuff Gordon Scott as “Bart Fargo” can’t really carry the film, and the plot lacks much logic, even considering the standards of the Eurospy genre. Highlight is the finale, which almost prefigures Arnold’s “Commando,” with buff Bart blowing away scads of henchmen at the villain’s villa. The annyoing, repetitive “Watermelon Man” theme song drives me crazy, and I say this as a guy who actually collects Italian soundtracks from the ‘60s and ‘70s. Otherwise this one didn’t thrill me, but the widecreen/English-dubbed print I saw looked great.

Dick Smart 2.007 (1967): A strange hybrid of a comedy film and a gadget & action-heavy Eurospy movie, “Dick Smart 2.007” is a spoof of Bond that sometimes takes itself seriously. Dick Smart is a suave, very Roger Moore-esque superagent, one more interested in picking up chicks than solving cases. Like Moore he’s also very fond of gadgets and has a motorcycle/helicopter deal. Whereas most of these Eurospy movies are all about the European babes, the hotstuff female lead in this one is blonde British babe Margaret Lee, who is extremely pretty. She plays the villainous Lady Lister, who is trying to steal jewels or some such, but one of her own employees turns out to be the main villain. Dick Smart of course hooks up with her, as well as other babes throughout, but the “comedy” angle is grating and too low-brow, like cranked-up film speed in the fight scenes. But there is a lot of action, and the finale is especially nice, with Dick Smart and Lady Lister united in a raid on the villain’s compound, complete with Lady Lister blowing away a bunch of villains. Usually the women are just eye candy in these movies, but she holds her own, and not in the generic “touch chick” cliché of modern action movies. She also looks damn great in a bikini-type scuba suit.

From The Orient With Fury (1965): The second film in the “Dick Malloy” trilogy features studly, hirsute Ken Clark returning as Agent 077. This one unfortunately is about as drab as the first film, “Mission Bloody Mary,” and nowhere as great as the last one, “Special Mission Lady Chaplin.” This despite a premise concerning a death ray. At any rate Malloy is called on to look into a missing, perhaps dead scientist who was working on a laser-based ray. Off Malloy goes to Madrid, where he gets in one brawl after another. Seriously, this film wins the contest for most barroom brawls in a Eurospy flick, with two of them breaking out just minutes apart, in two separate bars. One of them goes on forever, complete with a tourist Spaniard or something who eagerly joins in the festivities, adding a bit of unfunny “comedy.”

As far as the Eurospy-mandatory Eurobabes go, we have a return of the treacherous brunette who also played a bad girl in the much superior Superseven Calling Cairo that same year. There’s also megababe Margaret Lee, who shows up in the last half hour as a fellow secret agent; her voice is dubbed this time and she’s got beach-bottle blonde hair to her chin. The film doesn’t do much to exploit its actresses, though, save for a busty Spanish beauty Malloy scores with midway through the film. Otherwise this is a tedious, generic film, clearly shot on a budget. Only the finale shows any spark, so to speak, with the main villain busting out that raygun, which is also low budget but still fun. When a person or thing is hit by the ray they glow blue and then disappear. Also this flick features one of the more annoying soundtracks, from a recurring theme song which quickly grates on the nerves to a recurring big band cue that does the same.

Fury In Marrakesh (1966): Bob Dixon, Agent 077 (an annoying ass who bears a disconcerting resemblance to infamous Saturday Night Live loser Charles Rocket), heads to Marrakesh on his first assignment. At times this movie encapsulates the “Budget Bond” aesthetic of Italian Eurospy; there’s even a Q who has a roomful of dangerous gadgets which he shows off for 077. But this is a more randy pseudo-Q; he produces a pair of X-ray glasses and calls in his sexy secretary to try them out on! Agent 077’s mission is to find a sexy gal who lifted a bunch of counterfeit cash that itself was looted from Hitler’s war stash. A SPECTRE-type cabal is also after her.

Bob Dixon 077 is not only annoying but also arrogant, which is pretty funny when you consider he’s as green as you can get. He gets knocked out and captured more times than any other Eurospy hero I can think of. Also his life is sometimes saved via sheer deus ex machina, something you’d never see in a genuine Bond film. There are a ton of gadgets in this one, though, which adds to the fun. But 077 himself ruins it, and the finale seems rushed. Also the dubbing in this one is notable, particularly 077’s; I wonder if the actor himself dubbed it. At any rate it’s all dubbed very amateurishly. Another demerit for this one is the lack of Eurobabes; what few women are here are relegated to the background. The only notable one is the blonde who played the stewardess/evil spy in Operation Atlantis, who here plays the evil spy babe Heidi.

Mission Bloody Mary (1965): The first of three films brawny American actor Ken Clark did as “Dick Malloy, Agent 077,” the other two being “From The Orient With Fury” and “Special Mission Lady Chaplin.” This first one is okay but is more of a “realistic” espionage picture. Malloy heads across Europe and to Greece to track down the titular Bloody Mary, an experimental and highly-dangerous atomic device that’s been stolen. Clark got his start in Italian flicks in the sword and sandal movies due to his bodybuilder physique, thusly the fistfights are given more focus in this one. Clark is one of the Eurospy actors who could hold his own against Sean Connery, at least in the athletic category, but again he sorta looks like Roger Moore, like so many other Eurospy actors.

The film is very slavish to the Bond formula, complete with a theme song that’s almost lifted from John Barry. However I thought the movie was for the most part marginal; the fistfights get old after a while and the “surprise” reveal of who main villain Black Lily is can be seen coming halfway through the movie. The gadgets aren’t as prevalent this time, but 077 does have a special revolver with 9 rounds (it’s quickly lost, though), as well as an attachment for it that apparently gives it super-caliber properties (this showed up again in the much-superior “Special Mission Lady Chaplin”). He also has a kit that can recover burned messages. The movie is fast-paced and again comes very close to capturing the look and feel of a Bond movie, but it just lacks that special something more expected of spyghetti.

Special Mission Lady Chaplin (1966): The third of three films with Ken Clark as “Dick Malloy, Agent 077” (not to be confused with Bob Fleming, Agent 077, of course!). This one co-stars the lovely Daniela Bianchi, the svelte blonde who had the female lead in “From Russia With Love” (and she also had the female lead in “O.K. Connery,” to be reviewed next time, as the villainous blonde who later went good). She is the titular Lady Chaplin, yet another henchwoman-type character. The film is filled with great imagery, like the opening shot of Lady Chaplin, disguised as a nun, pulling a submachine gun out of her habit and blowing away a bunch of priests. (Turns out later they were really spies.) The film is very much in the vein of the Connery Bond movies, with lots of action and gadgets and a decent budget. Ken Clark is good as the hero, and he gets to pull his own “Thunderball”-type finale, donning a scuba suit and coming to the aid of Lady Chaplin, who as you guessed goes good before film’s end and helps fight her old boss. This is considered one of the classics of the Eurospy genre, and rightly so. Plus it’s available in a fairly nice widescreen print.

Random Movie Reviews, Volume 3

Eurospy: 

008 Operation Exterminate (1965): This was the first Eurospy flick from prolific Italian writer-director Umberto Lenzi, who went on to do “Superseven Calling Cairo” and “The Spy Who Loved Flowers.” The guy really knew his spyghetti because this is another good one. Perhaps the main gimmick of “008 Operation Exterminate” is the fact that 008 is…a woman!! Seriously though, blonde German babe Ingrid Schoeller plays 008, an American agent sent to Cairo to find out the truth behind a rumored radar-blocking station. Unlike the “tough chick” cliché of today, 008 is svelte and self-assured, with none of the aggressively macho posturing of today’s female action characters. That being said, she carries a derringer with “supersonic” rounds in her garter belt and has knock-out mist in her lipstick tube. The actress is certainly pretty and enjoys showing off her impressive cleavage with various plunging-neckline outfits, but one issue I had was the constant vacant expression on her face. She doesn’t look very comfortable in the role at times, perhaps reason why there was never a followup, even though the finale points the way to one.

008 teams up with a British agent (played by an oily and hirsute Italian actor) and together they run afoul of various spy-world types, including a henchman who wears a leather glove that shoots projectile knives. The plot features the usual incomprehensible detours expected of Eurospy, and sometimes it seems to lose its way, but we do get yet another egregious trip to the pyramids. It wraps up in a nice climax in the villain’s high-tech underworld lair, complete with flashing balls of light and whirring electronics. Strangely though the film doesn’t end here, but goes on for another 20 minutes as 008 and partner head to Switzerland to track down the man who has stolen the radar-blocking plans. It all ends with various turnarounds and reversals, but everything wraps up nicely. Overall “008 Operation Exterminate” is another sterling example of the Eurospy genre and would be a great gateway drug into the world of spyghetti.

Devilman Story (1967): Also known as “The Devil’s Man,” this is my favorite Eurospy of all, even though it isn’t technically Eurospy, given that our hero is a journalist. But otherwise it has all the motifs of the genre and delivers them with aplomb. The movie also comes very close to capturing the vibe of a Nick Carter: Killmaster novel; the villain, the titular Devilman, even shares some similarities with Nick Carter’s archenemy Mr. Judas. The movie is very much on the sci-fi tip with a plot about electronic brains, mind control, and human experimentation. It takes a while to get there, though, with a first half that’s more along the lines of typical Eurospy. A sexy brunette Eurobabe named Christine is visiting Rome with her brain surgeon father when he’s abducted; along comes Mike, ruggedly handsome American actor Guy Madison, who looks sort of like a tough guy version of the Professor from “Gilligan’s Island.” Claiming that he’s a newspaperman, one who works for a “scientific journal,” Mike could in fact be a spy in reality – for a reporter, he certainly knows his judo, not to mention how to handle a submachine gun. Mike and Christine follow various leads until they get to Africa, where it develops that Christine’s father has been taken to the desert fortress of a madman who is considered a devil by the Tuareg desert tribes. Christine herself is captured by the “black riders,” ie the black-robed desert warriors who work for Devilman; mind-controlled desert warriors at that, with milky white eyes. Mike manages to infiltrate the place, and here the movie goes full-on sci-fi, with whirring blips and bloops from the bizarre contraptions the villain has stocked his lair with. We have nude men and women in weird red-lighted cryogenic chambers, electronic brains, and even a gizmo that makes a corpse crush a heavy iron ball in his fist.

By far the coolest villain in all Eurospy, Devilman wears a black uniform, leather gloves with blades that are perfect for slicing throats, and a silver mask, so that he sort of looks like the Eurospy equivalent of Destro, from GI Joe. Beneath the mask his face is a scarred ruin, like Mr. Judas. The filmmakers don’t cheat us out of a good finale, either, as is typical for many of these movies; Mike escapes and comes back with those Tuaregs for an action-packed finale that sees hell unleased on Devilman’s fortress, countless men gunned down and a climax that features about a gazillion explosions. Mike even takes on Devilman in a quick judo tussle, before everything quickly wraps up for a happy ending – Devilman’s plot averted (something about becoming a “new messiah” with his electronic brain), Christine’s dad freed from his mind control, and Mike and Christine no doubt about to hop into bed together soon. Previously only available in a poor-quality print, “Devilman Story” is now available on the underground circuit in a nice widescreen print with the English dub. The compilers even included fansubs for the few scenes that were never dubbed into English.

Lightning Bolt (1966): Another of my favorites in the Eurospy genre. It very much has the feel of a Bond film of the era, but it’s interesting because the hero is more along the lines of Roger Moore’s take on Bond. Strangely, I don’t think the dude kills a single person in the film. Instead he busts out a checkbook – he has an unlimited account – and offers to pay off the latest villain whatever he demands! The ass-kicking is mostly courtesy the babes of the film; our hero’s boss is a busty Italian babe whose code numbers are her measurements. The hero narrates the film, which gives it a hardboiled angle, and overall you could be fooled into thinking this was an American movie.

The finale is very Bond-esque, with the villain, who is based in Florida and trying to sabotage a NASA moon launch, capturing the hero and taking him to his underwater lair. The dude’s henchmen are outfitted almost identically to the Cobra soldiers in the GI Joe cartoon. Cool stuff here like a bunch of people the villain has cryogenically frozen; in the finale they melt and we get eerie shots of decomposing skeletons. There’s another ass-kicking babe in the underwater complex, a busty blonde Eurobabe whose father is the villain’s captive and who runs around in a red jumpsuit. Overall this one is a lot of fun and a great example of the genre, but again slightly let down given that the hero doesn’t even shoot anyone, which is very strange given that it’s a spy flick from the ‘60s.

Operation Atlantis (1965): I’ve watched this one twice now and still don’t know what the hell it’s about, yet for all that it’s one of my favorites. A strange, dreamlike film, “Operation Atlantis” doesn’t make a lick of sense. Our American hero, the muscular dude who co-starred in the old “Honey West” TV show (and who would’ve made for a perfect Nick Carter if a film had ever been made from that series), is apparently a spy or somesuch, and he’s hired while on his way to vacation to go to North Africa and look into…something, I’m not sure. Instead our hero gets in one bizarre misadventure after another. At one point he’s taken captive, put on a plane, and ends up with a bunch of desert dwellers in North Africa.

Then around the halfway point the film takes on this unexpected sci-fi angle. The hero and his latest female companion put on these cool leather “space suits” and cross over a radioactive forcefield in the desert (relayed via cheap red lines on the camera)…and enter the lost colony of Atlantis! Here the movie suddenly becomes like a sword and sandal flick, with the “Atlanteans” going around in robes and performing weird rituals. Of course there’s a hot, busty “princess” who takes a shine to our hero – who by the way is the most ineffectual protagonist in any of these movies. The dude does nothing! Turns out the Atlantis colony is really a Red Chinese decoy or something (despite which all the Atlanteans are Italians), its purpose to hide from the world a store of uranium the Chicoms have discovered. (There isn’t a single Chinese actor in the film, by the way…I think we’re only informed the villains work for the Chicoms.) From there it’s back to regular Eurospy territory for a quick action scene in Rome, the end. Strange and perplexing, the film is somehow still compelling, perhaps because it’s so weird. Plus it’s got three very attractive Eurobabes in the main female roles.

The Spy Who Loved Flowers (1966) “Superseven” Martin Stevens (Roger Browne) returns in a sequel to the previous year’s “Superseven Calling Cairo,” with Umberto Lenzi also returning as writer-director. Interestingly Stevens is never referred to as “Superseven” this time, and the gadgetry/sci-fi vibe of the previous flick is for the most part gone. So are the Eurobabes, with Stevens mostly sticking with just one lady throughout, a somewhat-attractive blonde who is a big step down from the previous movie’s Rosalba Neri. But Stevens is still brutal; the flick opens with him poisoning a pretty female agent and casually making off with the blueprints she stole. Stevens’s chief has it that others know of these blueprints and must be killed.

Off Stevens goes around Europe and the Mediterranean, acting as an executioner; the main villain he chases is the titular flower-loving spy, a bearded rake who is more a thorn in the side than an actual supervillain. Another of the villains is a female Red Chinese agent (Yoko Tani); Stevens calls her a “robot” in an effective moment later in the film. During his travels Stevens runs into the aforementioned blonde, who is a magazine photographer. There are a couple firefights and chases here and there, but nothing as fun as in the previous movie, and the gadgets are nowhere to be found. But at least Stevens is dubbed with a British accent this time. We get a brief repeat of that cool negative photography trick from the previous movie when the blonde is trapped in a cell and a special light turned on to torture her, but otherwise the movie just lacks that fun spyghetti spark. Superseven Martin Stevens did not return.

The Spy With Ten Faces (1966): Another one I rank very high on the list. Our hero is “Upperseven,” a superagent for British intelligence (despite which he and his superiors are all dubbed with American accents – but then I believe the actor, who was an American, dubbed his own voice). Upperseven is a master of disguise, and the film has the feel of the “Mission: Impossible” show with latex masks transforming him into a completely different actor. At first I thought this disguise bit was going to result in a more “gentle” hero, like the one in “Lightning Bolt,” but Upperseven is damn bloodthirsty. I think he kills more people than any other Eurospy hero yet; he has a special fondness for breaking necks. This caper has him going from Copenhagen to Italy to South Africa and back again; I’d say the film had a healthy budget. Upperseven also scores often with women, and is bloodthirsty with them, too; when he sleeps with one of them (hotstuff genre mainstay Rosalba Neri) and discovers she’s set him up for a trap, he pushes her out into the street to take the bullets that were meant for him!

Lots of action in this one, including a “Thunderball”-mandatory bit where Upperseven dons scuba gear and blows up a bunch of villains. The main babe is super-hot redhead Karin Dor, a German actress who the following year played the sexy henchwoman in the Bond film “You Only Live Twice.” She is one of the better-looking women in these films, and that’s saying something. The finale sees her and Upperseven in silver jumpsuits, running around in the villain’s high-tech lair in Africa. (During the action Upperseven, disguised as the main villain, finds the time to sleep with the villain’s hot girlfriend! Even Bond wouldn’t have had the courage to pull that one off!) Karin Dor’s character is a CIA agent and another of those Eurospy chicks who gets in on the action, throwing a few fancy judo moves. That being said, she’s easily captured at one point, with her dress pulled over her head, thus showng off her black lingerie. Overall this one was a total surprise and I’d say it’s definitely one of my favorites yet.

Superseven Calling Cairo (1965): The first of two films featuring agent Martin Stevens (played by American genre mainstay Roger Browne), apparently a Canadian working for British Intelligence whose code name is Superseven (ie even better than plain ol’ 007!!). The movie is bright and colorful and a perfect example of the “Budget Bond” of these Italian Eurospy movies. Filmed in Rome and Cairo, the movie makes the most of its location footage, including an arbitrary trip to the pyramids midway through where this dumbass character tries to escape the villains…by running up the Great Pyramid!! Where did he think he was going? Most importanly, the film features some uber-sexy Eurobabes. For one we have the exotic Rosalba Neri (briefly seen in “The Spy With Ten Faces,” above) in a big part, and later we have another that is quite easy on the eyes.

The plot has Superseven chasing around a film camera that has some sort of new uranium metal or something in it; as usual for the Eurospy genre the plot is both preposterous and convoluted. Fairly good action, with some clever gadgets as well, and also cool psychedelic visuals where at one point Superseven is put in a radioactive room that glows red and these dudes with goggles come at him, and he sees them in a cool negative photography shot. The middle loses its way a bit with some dumb stuff (ie the guy running up the pyramid), but it climaxes with good dramatic reversals and action scenes. Superseven returned with the same director in the following year’s “The Spy Who Loved Flowers,” reviewed above.