Asesino a sueldo

Unfortunately his back was turned when Trevor Howard was helped out of a bad jackpot during the liberation of Paris by Rod Taylor. If he had actually seen just how Taylor saved his life, he might never have thought of him as a perfect candidate for being The Liquidator.

It's what British Secret Service needs as Wilfrid Hyde-White tells his number 2 who is now Howard and 20 years later after the end of World War II. At that time the British government was getting embarrassed routinely with the number of defections and the number of spies caught. The answer is forget those democratic trivialities like due process. When you have a suspect, just shoot them, no questions asked. And Howard thinks is wartime savior is the perfect candidate for the job.

Not that Taylor is all that hip to the idea. He's a bar owner in some rural part of the United Kingdom. But he reads those James Bond novels and sees those movies and he knows what perks come with being an operator. Certainly Howard knows them too and he provides generously even overlooking the fact that his secretary Jill St. John is being tapped by Taylor.

Taylor finds an interesting way of subcontracting the work which I won't go into. But in the end he finds he's being beautifully set up for a major score by the other side. If the bad guys succeed the United Kingdom will really learn what embarrassment is all about.

In the James Bond tradition with title song sung by Shirley Bassey, The Liquidator is an amusing spy spoof. Howard does a nasty slow burn in the tradition of Edgar Kennedy. Jill St. John who is also a Bond girl in good standing is just as beautiful with a role a lot more substantive.

Folks who like the espionage genre should like The Liquidator.

All the elements seem to be in place to make The Liquidator a success: a witty script, a strong cast, an over-the-top Shirley Bassey theme song, crisp cinematography in glorious 1960s Technicolor. But having said that, the whole package doesn't quite come off.

The basic idea is a clever one: to take the familiar secret agent movie premise and subvert it by making the central character a reluctant assassin who "wouldn't hurt a fly". The problem is, Rod Taylor is just too "straight" for the role. Like the Royal Air Force's new top secret spy plane, Taylor often seems to be running on automatic pilot.

The comic elements here should have been exploited for much greater effect. Comparisons with Connery's James Bond are wide of the mark, since this film does not aspire to match the serious thrill quotient of a Bond movie. But it does contain some delicious irony, and a couple of neat twists that even surpass the usual formula at times.

The scene in which Taylor, imprisoned in a cellar with his captor's floozy, is openly encouraged to escape, is neatly handled - until the poor girl is needlessly gunned down by another member of the gang to "silence" her. This provokes a cliff-top chase that culminates in a dangling moment of rare high tension, evoking the original Italian Job.

Younger fans of the Austin Powers series may enjoy seeing what actual swinging '60s films were really like. But where Mike Myers' films take the tiniest germ of a funny idea and magnify it over and over, The Liquidator does the reverse: a potentially promising humorous situation tends just to be left hanging in the air.

For connoisseurs of British pictures of the period, there are little treats on offer too, in the appearance of familiar faces like Trevor Howard, Eric Sykes, Wilfred Hyde White and Richard Wattis - although again, their talent is mostly wasted. The delightful Jill St. John (who would go on to do the "real thing" in Diamonds Are Forever) is eminently watchable throughout, and her performance raises the whole tone; indeed she and Howard are the best things on view here.

Overall then, whilst The Liquidator is certainly an enjoyable film, with the right leading actor, or perhaps a director with a keener eye for comic possibilities, it could have been a much funnier romp through contemporary spy film clichés. So while it must go down as something of a missed opportunity, for me it's better fun than Casino Royale - either the new version or the 1967 one.

When I saw this film 56 years ago, I wondered: Is this serious? It actually almost grows quite serious gradually, but until clouds gather for a storm when everything seems to go wrong, it's great fun and a wonderful spying game comedy all the way, although the humour can be quite sinister and black - joking about death is not a thing you do for laughs. There are many wonderful actors here, and they are all excellent, it was surprising to see Eric Sykes as a professional murderer and quite snug about his profession, and David Tomlinson for once as a perfect villain. Trevor Howard dominates the film by his very sinister character behind a rather amused but perfect stiff upper lip, and Rod Taylor for once makes a great comic character as a genuine playboy falling by chance into the wrong profession, and almost getting burned for it. Wilfrid Hyde-White is a jovial spy-in-chief, and Akim Tamiroff has a wonderful although comically grotesque supporting role. There is naturally more fun in Monte Carlo than in London, but that's where the sinister chapter starts off. After that you will be on for a ride which no one, not even the players, can know how it will end, but even if it ends with any probable disaster, there will always be another beginning.

While in Paris during World War 2 a bumbling American sergeant by the name of "Boysie Oakes" (Rod Taylor) saves a British secret agent named "Mostyn" (Trevor Howard) by accidentally killing his two attackers. Several years later Mostyn has moved up in his intelligence career and is confronted by several embarrassing intelligence leaks within his agency. So, his boss formulates a plan to stop these leaks by killing the suspected spies working in their midst. Since they need an assassin, Mostyn immediately thinks of Boysie. Anyway, they hire him unaware that he is not the cold-hearted killer they think he is and give him orders to kill. Now, rather than going over the whole plot and risk ruining the movie for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this was an interesting movie from that time period. Admittedly, it starts off a bit slow, but it does pick up a bit after that with Jill St. John (as "Iris") providing some good scenery along the way. Unfortunately, there isn't much humor, action or suspense to really get excited about, so essentially, she is about the only thing that keeps this film going. As such I rate the movie as pretty much average.

"The Liquidator" was such an amusing film. I loved the fact that Shirley Bassey sang the theme song a la James Bond. It was great to see a spy whose hormones were far more potent than his efforts with a gun. A particularly funny part occurs when Trevor Howard is rescued by Boysie, as Paris is being liberated. Howard thinks that Boysie is a killing machine when, in fact, he is a hopelessly clumsy young man. Rod Taylor is deliciously sexy in the film and displays his flair for comedy.