Die Falle von Singapur

I've been a fan of mindless action flicks, since those old '60s TV syndication packages ground them out on my local Cleveland station. FIVE ASHORE IN SINGAPORE is a typical example, pure time-waster for the fans.

Errol Flynn's extremely handsome son Sean toplines as a secret agent sent to Singapore to investigate undercover the disappearances of many U.S. marines. He's no Mark Harmon, but finally with the help of four marines on his team trying to get kidnapped he discovers an evil plot involving freezing the jar-heads in a mad-scientist experiment.

Lowbrow, slapstick hijinks on location are fun, if tedious, as film's 102-minute running time is way over the limit. One of my all-time favorite starlets Marika Green (aunt of current star Eva Green) gets lead billing but an underwritten role as a British agent, affording the fans one sexy non-nude but revealing getup scene.

It's almost quaint when the marines resort to torture to get info, but generally director Bernard Toublanc-Michel is merely traffic cop, not auteur. The mad scientist's maniacal laughter at the film's climax is beyond camp, as is the overdone cliché spotlighting local B-girls in slit skirts.

The print I watched prominently displayed the Paramount logo, but I'm not sure in which territories the Hollywood major distributed the film.

First thing to bear in mind is that the screenplay is based on Jean Bruce's novel and is part of the OSS 117 spy novels ;However the movie (directed by a French and a French /Italy co-production) does not feature Hubert Bonnisseur De La Bath alias OSS 117 :he is replaced by an American secret agent Art Smith (played by Sean Flynn ,whose short career essentially took place in Italy.)Part of the reason can be found in the numerous OSS 117 films which were produced at the time in France ,portrayed by Kerwin Matthews,John Gavin ,Frederick Stafford...before being brilliantly parodied by Jean Dujardin in recent years: Flynn would have been another OSS 117 ,so they changed his identity.Actually Toublanc-Michel was not allowed to use the character :he would have infringed copyrights.

As for the story itself ,it is an implausible story of marines ,mysteriously disappearing:your disbelief must be suspended when you discover what terrible fate lays in store for them;nevertheless,it has become some kind of cult movie ,weren't it only for its title (the word game ,present in all Bruce's titles,"Cinq Gars Pour Singapour" (=five guys to Singapore)which is lost in translation and its extravaganza.A female part (gorgeous Marika Green) was fleshed out and became European.