Licensed to Kill

Unexpectedly decent spy flick. I think it would have been a whole lot better if it had just been played straight. It is listed as a comedy - parody might have been a better description - but it holds up much better on its own merits. The Russians are the bad guys and the dialog among them gets a bit silly but the rest of the plot and the action is exciting. The storyline involves a scientist that has invented a device that produces anti-gravity when aimed at certain objects. He needs protection from the Russians while visiting the Brits to sell them the invention. Tom Adams is good as the unflappable 2nd Best Agent assigned to protect him. The rest of the cast is fairly nondescript. The ending has some unique twists. A decent watch.

The Charles Vine character made quite an impression on me at 12 (maybe 13) years of age. The "other guy" 007 we are lead to believe, has some sort of distraction keeping him from the important task of protecting a defecting Soviet scientist with the secret of anti gravity or perpetual motion or somesuch breakthrough. Charles Vine will have to do. As Sammy Davis JR sings, He's The Second, Not the First, but The Second Best Secret Agent in The Whole Wide Worrrrld.

An "M" stand in looks Vine over and heartily disapproves of his hand cannon, a broomhandle mauser, in a special holster that covers his entire lower back. He has several scenes where he is blasting away with this great weapon. One car chase where he leans out the window with a long silencer on the ww1 vintage pistol "Thwipp, Thwipp, Thwipping" at the enemies car in the middle of busy daytime London traffic. Later, stoppped at an enemy roadblock, he does a trickey behind his back shot, shooting through his coat, then rolls into the middle of the road and from his back shoots the other enemies, shell casing flying. All of this action barely ruffles his hair.

His final battle places him against a master assassin with holey socks and his own silenced mauser. Charles Vine has to keep his cool and load the trickey top loading magazine of his mauser out of earshot of the close by Red assassin. The Gun was the co star. I have the very popular facsimile of the broomhandle mauser that is commonly used by fans of Star Wars to recreate the Han Solo blaster. What a horror to discover that this whole great memory of a blood thirsty intense spy drama is actually played as a super silly spoof. Completely tongue in cheek at all times. Catch it if you can. I have it on video tape and have no memory of how I came by it.

I viewed this film when it opened in the US in 1965 (right in the middle of the James Bond craze), and I never forgot it. The American title was " The Second Best Secret Agent In The Whole Wide World". And the tag line for it was, " He's only number two, but he's just as good as the higher priced agent".

The lead British actor, Tom Adams, plays the main character as though he was born to the role. In an easy laid back fashion that exudes a sincere confidence, his 'tongue in cheek' performance is just right for this film. He's believable, satirical and funny where it counts. In essence, he was perfectly cast for this well done, if not the best, of the James Bond Spoof's.

The plot is, at times, a bit confusing. But what the film lacked in story-line is made up for by the well paced action sequences. Just when you think you might become bored, something happens and you're caught up in the whole affair once again. And the black and white photography well captures the mood of the time.

For many who are devotees of the 1950's - 1960's espionage drama era, this film is a must see. If for no other reason, simply the pure fun of it.

Let's be frank. This is one damp spoof. I'll go into the details of this deadly dull affair if, for some reason, you're interested. Tom Adams is Charles Vine, an inexperienced agent whose assignment is to keep an eye on a scientist (Karel Stepanek) as he prepares his formula for Regrav, a process that reverses gravitational waves. Vine is `a double 0 number, licensed to kill' and he certainly does make use of that particular privilege. During the course of the film Vine kills more than a dozen people. It's not the number that gives one pause, it's the callous and somehow nonchalant way he goes about it that is perturbing. Vine is, by his own confession, in it for the money but one suspects he gets a certain pleasure out of taking lives as well.

Stepanek (Our Man in Havana), as the Swedish scientist, gives the best performance of the movie but that's not saying much. The entire production is so lifeless that the actors seem to just want to get it over with, and one can hardly blame them. The film starts off with a bad taste killing when a nanny pulls a machine gun out of her baby buggy and slaughters a man in front of her two infant charges. Then we are treated to a lame theme song by Sammy Davis Jr. and it's all downhill from here, folks. The film suffers from poor pacing, badly choreographed gun battles and worse fight scenes and the whole thing feels much longer than its 95 minute running time.

Wielding a heavy broomhandle Mauser, double 00 agent Tom Adams shows how to shoot down a helicopter by concentrating on its tail blades. Predicting an ambush, he sneaks to the rear of his enemies and shoots them summarily in the back of their heads without quarter or qualm. He shoots and kills a dozen or so people in this movie, some from a moving car in busy London traffic, with the nonchalance of Al Capp's Detective 'Fearless' Fosdick.

The action scenes are well executed and Tom Adams is better built than Sean Connery and certainly lacks the jocular effeteness of Roger Moore. He sort of looks like those goony secret service men who guard the President of the United States. In short, he looks like the real thing.

I understand from an IMDb correspondent that there was one sequel to this film. It turns out there are two but their reviews are not promising.

This was shown in the Philippines under the title Licensed to Kill.