Agent 077 - Heißes Pflaster Tanger

When a gang of crooks steal a disintegrating ray gun -- unlike the cartoons, it disintegrates what it's aimed at, not itself -- the authorities call in the right man for the job: a handsome man who has lots of sex with the ladies and drives a nice sports car, Luis Dávila.

This Italian-French co-production has a lot of bad stuntwork, although the tyically distracting dubbing may well have some effect on my reaction. There are lots of pretty girls -- including one of the lead villains -- some decent camerawork by Alvaro Mancori and Rafael Pacheco, and a certain amount of slapping around and torture by all hands. Not as elaborate or, really, as funny as the James Bond stuff, it has a lot of energy.

This is a wonderful example of the Super Spy genre, where a secret agent must reclaim a dangerous 'invisibility ray' from a gang of criminal masterminds. Everything you want is here: beautiful Continental women, outrageous cars, spy gadgets, and fistfights galore (not to mention a rather uncomfortable looking belt tightening sequence). Films like this were once staples of late night TV, and now thanks to AMC's more adventurous programming policy we can see them again, widescreen to boot. Recommended.

This is an entertaining and amusing Bond rip-off from the 60's. The characters are laughable and the plot is like something out of an Austin Powers movie. And just when you think this old 60's Bond spoof can't get any more hilarious, along comes George Lazenby in the film. This is one of the classic Bond spoofs without a doubt.

Wow, interesting, an Italian made Bond-rip-off, made around the Goldfinger/Thunderball Bond mania days. This spy film is certainly one of the best of all of the Bond spy rip-offs made in the 60's, maybe the best.

It is one of the ones you should see if you like those types of films, if for nothing more than it features former James Bond star George Lazenby in a small role before he became Bond.

This short film, the English-dubbed print only runs about an hour, is by-the-numbers spy stuff but it is never boring. It doesn't have time to be! Luis Davila (Ypotron, Make Your Bets Ladies, The Viscount) is agent Mike Murphy (for us English speakers) and he's after a ray gun that completely disintegrates whatever gets in the way of its blue beam.

The ratio of action per minute is way up there. Four people are killed in the first five minutes! The last of these is unfortunate enough to have his head caught in a car window and is then dragged down the street! There are plenty of fights (contrary to the short blurb on the back of SWV's tape box, the fights are actually pretty well staged and exciting), car chases, gun battles, torture, and people getting slapped around.

You could actually do a lot worse than this little adventure, believe me. Director Gregg Tallas (Assignment Skybolt) has made a pretty fun no-budget thriller that falls into the so-bad-it's-good category.