Das verräterische Auge

1965's "Spy in Your Eye" aka "Bang You're Dead" (Berlino = Appuntamento per le Spie) was theatrically issued by AIP on a double bill with Richard Harrison's "Secret Agent Fireball," an entertaining bit of fluff but little more. Brett Halsey's Bert Morris is on the trail of a formula for a powerful laser, his superior, Colonel Lancaster (Dana Andrews), unwittingly aiding the enemy after the surgical insertion of a glass eye that acts as a TV transmitter. Fast moving from one location to another, above average production values yet quite convoluted, the villains are an assorted lot of Russians, Chinese, East Germans, and Arabs, with varied twists and turns and a plethora of promising gadgets that often disappoint (an effigy of Napoleon boasts a fatal gift). The climax must be seen to be believed, an interrogation chamber transformed into an operating room in the blink of an eye before another breathless escape. Alas, once Lancaster learns of his traitorous orb he promptly vanishes for the remainder of the film, luscious Pier Angeli frequently absent for long stretches, though it's a bonus to see her kidnapped from a bubble bath!

Saw film at a double-feature second run house in the '60s. The spy-in-your-eye alternate title refers to an implanted micro television camera in a spy's eye. I can't remember if it was Dana Andrews. There's a tunnel under the Berlin Wall for the west to spy on the east that figures in the plot. Of course, the tunnel is discovered. There's a gimmick character who's hunchback deformity conceals a radio transmitter. Never understood why, if they could get the camera that small, why not the radio? I remember it fondly, but then I was 12 years old. Representative of '60's spy cycle, but at least they referenced real cold war players instead of made-up spy organizations. Don't know if its available.

And very ingenious for 1965, a real competition for the original James Bond series, although made on a low budget. Original gadget the radio and knife hidden in a human hump, obviously fake. Some Chinese spies, dressed in black suits, black hats, tie, not even blinking, American spies, Russian spies (Comrade Kommissar), transplanted camera-eye, dehydrating pills, pistol-camera, smart lines, a cool babe (Tania Béryl), action in Berlin, Paris, Amman, Portofino, and a secret formula that everyone wants, tattooed on the scalp of the heroine played by Pier Angeli (it would have been much more interesting if it was tattooed in the groin area). Dana Andrews is cool and credible as the head of American spies, Gastone Moschin is funny as the villainous boss Boris, and Luciano Pigozzi, the Italian equivalent of Peter Lorre, present in many films of the same genre in the '60s, is credible as an assistant villain. Nice music by Riz Ortolani. Worth 8 stars!

Of eight movies Dana Andrews appeared in from 1965, the unknown SPY IN YOUR EYE aka BANG YOU'RE DEAD has the lowest budget, seeming as if filmed on 16MM as Dana's an eye-patched operative provided a glass eye in its place and, unbeknownst to him there's a camera inside care of villainous surgeon Gastone Moschin, who'd later become the most formidable, deserving-to-die baddie The Black Hand in THE GODFATHER 2...

But like most situations when big (or once big) veteran actors get star treatment, there's a young buried lead here in Brett Halsey, whose mission, including taking a train aided by an intrepid cohort with a hunchback that's actually a knife, is to... well...

He travels around a lot and winds up in Arabic countries (supposedly) with intriguing blonde ingenue Pier Angeli, holding back a few mysteries and countered by a brunette femme fatale in Tania Béryl, whose actually more vulnerable than wicked since Gastone, her boss, is as bad as they get.

Meanwhile, an expository Andrews merely bookends the adventure, leaving the action sequences... which actually flow pretty well... to Halsey in a curio too obscure for a cult following but that's, overall, surprisingly satisfying, fitting neatly into Dana's other 1965 low-budgets BRAINSTORM, TOWN TAMER and CRACK IN THE WORLD.

Dana Andrews was one of those second rank movie stars who was finding roles becoming scarce in the USA and went to Europe for work. He's top billed and the title character in Spy In Your Eye, but the action and possible romance are left to Brett Halsey and Pier Angeli.

Halsey is given the assignment to bring out from behind the Iron Curtain Pier Angeli who is the son of a scientist who's been doing all kinds of work before he died in lasers developing that death ray gun the tool of so many futuristic space heroes like Flash Gordon and Rocky Jones.

In the meantime Andrews has sacrificed for God and country one of his eyes. But not to worry Dana has had a bionic eye installed which not only makes him see better, but it transmits video when needed. When the Reds start pirating his eye broadcasts things go wildly wrong for our intelligence before they're set right. Lee Majors never had these problems.

This is James Bond type stuff on the cheap. The film is also badly edited and you have to read between the lines a lot to figure out what's going on.

One thing though a lot of European and Mid Eastern cities were used for location shooting. On travel the budget did not stint.

James Bond this is not.