Höllenhunde des Secret Service

A first installment in the "Superseven " (sic) adventures .And not the best of the two.The action takes place in London ,Superseven (stronger than 007!)is irresistible and all the girls fall for him even if they are evil.

Roger Browne was essentially known for his sword and sandals flicks but he also starred in spy thrillers and -you have to live!- photo novels for the Italian "Edital" group .He was one of the rare actors working in Italy who had an American name AND was actually American .

The screenplay is a nonentity: a radioactive new metal which all the spies covet ,and ,as the title reads ,action takes place in Egypt,but the director does not take advantage of the landscapes:even the pyramids are badly filmed .One of the villains worked in a Nazi concentration camp and it shows.

Lenzi would do a little better next time.

Roger Browne as in the other movies with him, the same gestures, same looks, same movements, boring, boring, boring. And, that's what I say, a big fan and consumer of the Eurospy genre, I grew up with Eurospy movies, they influenced my whole existence and now, at the age of wisdom (I hope...), I realize how stupid I was, or still am, watching them. They all seem to be shot at xerox, the same template, airport, pursuit, hotel, microfilm hidden in an object, pursuit again, a few fights, a few shots, a torture scene, one or two beautiful girls, the good one remains with the hero at the end, the evil girl must die.

Although the film was directed by the Italian veteran director Umberto LENZI, it is only a very weak representative of the EuroSPY wave of the 1960s, which began after the great success of the first James Bond films DR. NO, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, GOLDFINGER and THUNDERBALL.

A highly radioactive material is stolen and hidden in a camera lens. Agent SuperSEVEN (Roger BROWNE) chases the whole thing from London to Cairo, Locarno and Rome. Fabienne DALI and Massimo SERATO complete the all too colorless cast.

Only 281,000 tickets were purchased in West German cinemas (source: InsideKino). Not surprising!

Another of the numerous Bond like spy films of the sixties, Italian made I think so it's dubbed in English. I know a lot of people don't like this but in this case it's done pretty well.

Roger Browne plays Martin Stevens, aka Superseven is sent to Cairo to recover sensitive equipment before the Soviets get their hands on it. There's not many people he can trust, especially the many beautiful ladies that frequently turn up. Whilst the storyline and characters are pretty formulaic the location work is not. It's fantastic to see Paris, Rome and Cairo in the mid sixties before mass tourism arrived, for that alone this is worth a watch.

Roger Browne is another Eurospy "heavyweight", making 6 films which can be considered part of the Eurospy genre in a general sense. "Operation Poker", "Password - Kill Agent Gordon", "Rififi In Amsterdam", "Last Man To Kill" and two as secret agent "Martin Stevens", "The Spy Who Loved Flowers" and this one.

Although all the Eurospies I seen have been romantically inclined, none of them has come close to challenging the alpha male bedroom exploits of Sean Connery era James Bond, in fact most of them are lucky if they manage to bed even a single lady over the course of a movie. That changes here, as when we are introduced to Roger, he is already in bed with a female of the species and, soon after, he kills her with his trusty fountain pen gun (before she can shoot him). Ten minutes in and he's bedding his second, after the obligatory "what are you doing in my room" scene. He's busy working on his third prospect when he comes across an old girlfriend, so he has to forgo a possible reunion there. However the third one never quite works out for him, so he comes up short of attaining the level of sexual prowess achieved by Connery-Bond or Moore-Bond (usually 2 or 3, occasionally as high as 4)

I think Roger is the first pipe smoking "International Man of Mystery" I've come across, but alas, it has no alternative function. However he does have a radio transmitter in his shaver, in addition to the trusty pen gun, both of which get plenty of use over the course of the movie.

This a polished production, sturdy and dependable, but somehow uninspired, missing some spark of energy which allows the better Eurospys to punch above their weight. The dialogue is functional but lacking any particular wit or sophistication. They have an occasional stab at "Avengers" style whimsy (with the Napoleonic mannequins) or "Swinging 60s Psychedelia" (when the henchmen put on swimming goggles and overpower Roger with infra-red light in some unexplained way) but those moments seem out of place with the rest of the film, which is a bit more "grounded".

The McGuffin is a sample of a newly discovered element called "Baltonium", which was hidden inside a camera lens, that has accidently been passed on to an unsuspecting tourist, while in the process of being smuggled.

There are plenty of exotic locations on show. Stock footage takes us to Paris (for the prologue), London (for mission assignment and fight training), Cairo (for all the expected spy movie activities), Locarno, on Lake Maggiore (in lieu of the Riviera) and finally Rome (although, in fact, none of the outdoor events in "Rome" take place in the historic city centre). I think the production probably did actually pay a visit Cairo and the lake in order to supplement the stock footage.

The casting provides a decent villain with a suitable array of distinctive henchmen and beautiful women.

Action arrives at suitable intervals, but is more enthusiastic than well-choreographed. The music performs its function, supporting the mood of onscreen events. However the ending is a bit of a disappointment. The villains' boat breaking down out of the blue, for no good reason, is very lame. The rom-com epilogue is clunky, like much of the rest of the movie.

Overall this is competent but unremarkable.