Der Sarg bleibt heute zu

So wrote film critic Eduardo Geada, in a daily newspaper ("A Capital" 1970) at the film's premiere. At this distance, I can only remember a number of shapely women in mini-skirts, and half-nude in a massage parlour invaded by two fighting groups of spies, and a fast paced actioner, well photographed, and average as entertainment. It would be scheduled at noon on public TV now.

Chinos y... minifaldas (1967) or Der Sarg bleibt heute zu or Death on a rainy day is a routine , typical Euro-spy movie with usual components : pursuits , crossfire , struggles , state-of-art gadgets , strange artifacts , international conspiracy , explosive women and other tippings that used to show up in the genre. Two two-fisted agents (Adrian Hoven and the unknown Barth Warren) from the French counter-espionage fight a Chinese sect that aims to control the American Secretary of Defence via high-tech medicine . So our two secret agents try to seize a perfume contained in a flask that has been taken by a nasty criminal organization called Red Scorpion led by a villainous Chinese , Dr. Kung (George Wang) . The goal of this dangerous organization is to take over the world by injecting important politicians with a ribonucleic acid liquid . So it turned out that in Paris to take place a meeting between the leaders of NATO, participating world politicians and is among them the secretary of state of defense of the USA, the same Robert McNamara (in archive Footage Self -1960-1968 Secretary of Defense) , so the evil ones try to inoculate the acid in order to change his mind and administer his will at their own command so that they would start a world war.

Euro-spy movie with ordinary ingredients : thrills , noisy action , plot twists , several villain roles , bare fists fights , various international locations , shootouts with high body-count and being middlingly entertaining from start to finish . The story is a mess of mutual spying and silly confrontations with a lot of fights and crossfire . Colorful and so-so rendition about European spy subgenre , a prolific genre during the sixties , not taking any situation seriously . A fashion and run-of-the-mill spy film at the time, meaning it stuck to a lot of what was currently popular , but here including some embarrassing and nonsense scenes . Inspired by the success of the James Bond films, as this spy sub-genre borrows heavily from the OO7 series that at the time starred Sean Connery , such as : Dr No, From Russia with love , Thunderball, and Goldfinger . The content remains the same as the title : villain chinese , beautiful mini-skirt girls , along with ridiculous , uptight and silly action set pieces from a today's point of view . A Sixties-style film usually has a short sell-by date , and this flick isn't exception . Ultimately , as possible trivia , both the story and actors are doomed to fail from the start . The leading roles were played by Adrian Hoven and Barth Warren , both of whom forming an amusing buddy couple , while Gérard Landry is the demanding Chief Commander Ferni . The German Adrian Hoven was a popular as well as untalented player at the time , a mediocre actor who couldn't carry a rickety product like this . The script doesn't help him either , as it consists of the habitual intrigue a take a powerful formula , while our agents go around the world and actually tells no more than different people spying on and beating up each other in the hope of getting the doomed potion . Of course , with such a film from nostalgic and botcher ways , one does not count on high art work . It is staged in a hopelessly amateurish way , it shows us rows of bare fights and several confrontations with a number of dead people in the worst choreography and degrades agents to big children who visibly enjoy fighting , like teenagers in the schoolyard among buddies . They don't show the shred of maturity that would go into making them seem like believable agents . They behave in such an infantile activity and so stupid manners so that they are committing usual mistakes on their own way . The screenplay works with unnecessary contradictions and implausibility , including hilarious moments , and the story is thinner than it usually is in works of this kind , the Euro-spy sub-genre . There are colorful outdoors by cameraman Eloy Mella showing sightseeing from Hong Kong, China, Madrid, Spain , München, Germany , New York City, USA , Roma, Italy , Paris with sights from Seine river, and establishing shots of Champs Élysées and Eiffel Tower , but most of them are stock-shots . However , the worn-out cinematography spoils the spectacle , being really necessary a perfect remastering .It has some flaws and gaps , as it does tend to get a bit old , including repetitive nature of some fight scenes , and excessive nonsense , but it has a bit of fun , so it cares . The main and support cast -with everyone having fun- are regular , slightly adequate to their functional characters . Appearing some familiar faces from the Sixties as Gérard Landry , Wolfgang Preiss and George Wang as customary Chinese villain . As well as some gorgeous girls in mini-skirt as Claudia Gravy , Karin Feddersen and Teresa del Río .

The motion picture was middlingly written and directed by Ramón Comas. This unknown director was a craftsman who worked as a writer , production manager , producer and finally filmmaker . As he wrore some international co-productions such as : "Rififi in Amsterdam" , "Operacion Mogador" , "La Ley Del Colt" and directed four films as "Chinos y minifaldas" , "Nuevas Amistades", "Historias de Madrid" and "Padre Coplillas" . Rating : 5/10. Entertaining but average flick .