Keine Rosen für OSS 117

After a series of high-profile assassinations the United States decides to assign OSS Agent 117 "Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath" (John Gavin) to investigate. To that effect, in order to obtain some credibility with this unknown organization and help him to gain access within it he has plastic surgery to resemble a wanted and very dangerous criminal. Sure enough, he is accepted rather quickly but what he doesn't know is that the person in charge-known simply as "The Major" (Curd Jurgens)-is quite suspicious and has his own internal network which continually maintains surveillance on everyone. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was the first film in which John Gavin appeared as OSS Agent 117 and he performed quite admirably in that regard. Along with that, I thought that the plot was quite entertaining with Margaret Lee (as "Aicha Malik") also putting in a credible performance. Admittedly, I was rather disappointed with the limited screen time for both Luciana Paluzzi (as "Maud") and the aforementioned Curd Jurgens but all things considered I found this to be a solid EuroSpy film and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

The American Secret Service sends their best agent, OSS 117, to investigate a number of political murders that the police was not able to prevent. Disguised as a ruthless killer, 'William Chandler', OSS 117 will penetrate the terrorist organization just when it is preparing the murder of Heindrich Van Dyck, the UN delegate to the Middle-East peace process. OSS 117 will use a fake killing of Van Dyck, and substitute corpses, trying to dupe the criminal master mind, Dr. Saadi.

Only, the Major is too clever, abducts Aicha, and OSS 117 must fight both for his life (as he must take a daily antidote for a drug he was injected with), Aicha's endangered life, and passing the information of the whereabouts of the terrorists headquarters to the Army before it's too late... Too much for OSS 117?

To get Bond villain Stromberg and Bond bad girl Fiona Volpe (Curd Jorgensen and Lucianna Palluzzi) in one film is quite a feat, and the Bond connection doesn't stop there - John Gavin, who was James Bond for a short time and was meant to be in Diamonds are Forever, plays the hero, acquits himself quite well; he's athletic, thinks on his feet, has a smoothness, especially with the ladies, and has a sense of humour. There's some good one liners.

OSS 117: murder for Sale is a decent Eurospy film which moves quite leisurely, the plot has some sort of drive, the production values are good - it's not a spy spoof, though, but there's some gadgets like the canister linked to a helicopter spewing sleeping gas, a lie detector device, the rooms in the château which are inescapable ( well, not for our hero), and a lethal injection contain slow acting poison- the hero is injected with this and has to have an antidote at certain times. This is done so he would comply and do the assassination and not run off- nice idea, a neat hook. Nice looking girls, scenic Tunisian location. The music can be annoying, though. Remember seeing this on LWT in 1991 ( UK TV)

This is one of the later entries in the Eurospy, and more specifically in the OSS 117, cycle, and it's probably one of the better ones as well. The two main reasons for that are: 1) The cast. John Gavin is one of the most capable "pseudo-Bonds" of the era, with a good comic flair; you can see why he actually came very close to being the REAL Bond once, in 1971, before Sean Connery changed his mind and came back for "Diamonds Are Forever", Margaret Lee is playfully attractive, Curt Jurgens makes a suitable villain (just like he would a decade later in "The Spy Who Loved Me"), Robert Hossein plays another soft-spoken evil doctor (just like he did in "OSS 117: Panic In Bangkok"), and even the luscious Luciana Paluzzi of "Thunderball" fame is around, though only for about 10 minutes and then she vanishes. 2) Unlike many Eurospy films, this one is not driven by fight scenes at every opportunity. There are some fights, to be sure, and they're pretty good, but most of the time the film is just trying to tell a story. Admittedly the climactic fall of the criminal "Organization" should have been more spectacular - maybe the producers ran out of budget by that point? **1/2 out of 4.

James Bond rip-offs were all the rage in mid-60s cinema, and here's a fairly good one. John Gavin is OSS 117, America's greatest secret agent, who must foil the attempted assassination of a peace broker. Apparently, 'billions' of dollars of arms sales are at risk, even though the warring 'tribes' apparently consist of about two dozen besworded Arabs. Nonetheless, Gavin is off on a mid-East jaunt, where he is pitted against...not much in the way of villains, really. He meets the beautiful daughter of a local mucky-muck, played by a most attractive Margaret Lee, and in between wooing her and killing the odd bad guy he manages to save the day.

This review is based on the Media Home Entertainment video of almost 20 years ago, and as would be expected, the print quality is fair to poor. Obvious screen compression ruins a number of shots and we can only look forward to the day when Anchor Bay chooses to restore this film to all its widescreen splendour.

....So OSS 117 has nothing to complain about.Director André Hunebelle ,who used to direct Jean Marais in watchable swashbucklers had become a spy thriller drudge. It's his fourth Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (OSS 's real name ,for those who care) .He used first Kerwin Matthews ,then Frederick Stafford .

The cast of "Pas de Roses..." is by far the most interesting: gathering one of his talented compatriots (Robert Hossein) earnest German thespian Jürgens,an ex-James Bond Girl (Luciana Paluzzi,remember Fiona Volpe?)and John Gavin ,the hero of Douglas Sirk's last great works ("Imitation of life" (1959) and " a time to love and a time to die") not to mention "psycho" where he was completely overshadowed by Perkins anyway.

The story is routine itself but there are some good ideas ,such as the poison .More somber than "furia à Bahia" but,unlike the precedent 0SS, humorless.

Like this?Try these (James Bond " A La Française")

"OSS 117 se déchaine" Hunebelle 1963

"Banco à Bangkok pour 0SS 117" Hunebelle 1965

"Furia à Bahia pour 0SS 117 " Hunebelle 1965

"Atout coeur à Tokyo pour OSS 117" Boisrond 1966