Estambul 65

With the explosion of James Bond on to the film world in the early 1960's every producer tried to duplicate that genre. This multinational European effort is relatively fast paced and doesn't take itself too seriously.

A $ I million ransom has been paid for kidnapped American nuclear scientist Dr. Pendergast (Umberto Raho) but he has not been returned. American secret agent Kenny (Sylvia Koscina) goes to Istanbul, Turkey to investigate. There she teams up with expatriate American gambling club owner Tony Maecenas (Horst Buchholz) and his henchman Brain (Gustavo Re) and Bogo (Alvaro de Luna). They trace the missing scientist through a trail of villains; from Hansi (Gerard Tichy) to Gunther (Agustin Gonzalez) to Bill (Mario Adorf) to Schenck (Klaus Kinski). Along the way they compete with Chinese agents and rescue a kidnapped heiress Elisabeth (Perrette Pradier). Trust me, reading the plot here is a lot clearer than trying to follow the movie!

One of the attractions of this movie is the continuous action. It keeps moving, covers a number of locales (i.e. gambling clubs, mosques, ferries, public baths, hotel pools, boats) and involves a lot of fights. While obviously not having the budget of the James Bond movies it does its best to exploit the Istanbul scenery.

The movies doesn't take itself to seriously and Tony is a font of one liners. Whether you enjoy the movie is largely dependent on how to like Buchholz's performance. Another commentator described him as "annoyingly smug" and, if you don't relate to the tongue in cheek humor, that is how you may find him. Koscina starts off as central to the movie but quickly fades into the background as action scenes with Buchholz take over. The performances of the other actors are hard to judge given that you have German, Italian and Spanish actors dubbed into English. However I enjoyed, who wouldn't, the impeccably dressed and throughly nasty Kinski.

I can't really comment on the technical credits inasmuch as the video copy was very "washed out" but, even when I have seen it on TV, I have yet to see a really decent print.

The imitation James Bond sub-genre have their own rules and by that standard this faced paced and action filled film is an acceptable treat.

This movie is funny, if campy. Think Peter Sellers meets Sean Connery. It's sometimes serious, sometimes satirical, always a little odd. If you're in the mood for something a bit off-key, this is your movie. "What, me worry?" Classic!

I caught this last week on the German 3rd / regional channel RBB, unaccountably included on a Spanish hotel cable TV service. Unfortunately for me, with a lot of work to do the following day, I couldn't bear to turn it off, so got to bed rather late. Why? Because as most of the other reviewers have noted, it's really rather good. The action just keeps flowing and the entirely watchable cast imbue the whole thing with a decent slickness.

Spanish director Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi captured the emerging glamour/spy zeitgeist with style, underpinned with a workmanlike eye for detail (I forgive him the wrecked car replacements, I'm sure the budget was not over generous). The occasional asides of the Tony Mecenas hero are fine in the context of the time and probably soften the otherwise implausibly super-human aspects of the character. It's a technique already pioneered in similar genres, e.g. Roger Moore's "The Saint".

Mid-sixties Istanbul comes across as very Euro-Mediterranean and serves as an excellent backdrop for most of the action. The plot was a satisfying mix of set pieces (meaning that one felt at home with the genre) and unexpected twists (meaning that there was no way the viewer could foresee the eventual outcome). Like a number of other reviewers, I also found the relatively low profile of Sylva Koscina for much of the action to be a bit of a shame, having fallen for her somewhat after watching the excellent "Deadlier Than The Male" recently.

P.S. Retro-discovering these decently constructed sixties Euro-thrillers, particularly those made totally outside the Anglo-American sphere, has become a real pleasure in recent years.

This is one of the best action spy thrillers I saw, and believe me I've seen a lot.

Even by today's standards, it would be good, provided someone cared to restore it's brightly colour, perfect editing, and natural sound. The alternate soundless shots of a knife fight inside the hotel swimming pool, where he can see each detail of two athletic actors actually going at it, and the merry sounds of tourists on the esplanade above while still unawares of the drama close-by, has NEVER been recreated in any film, possibly because it was too much trouble, or there were no Horst Buccholz and Mario Adorf around.

The dialog was OK, and true grit, real lines, and delivered with realism. In that not only Buccholz was good, but the other actors, too, therefore grabbing the spectator into a quite realistic scenario. The story develops from a predictable ending into something quite different, therefore we miss the presence of Koscina in the later part of the story, but it is all for the best of the film.

The director was defending his name and career, but also his money in more ways than one, as he was one of the producers investing in the project through Isasi (Barcelona, Spain). It is a pity that there was never a VHS around that I know of, and that no DVD is made of such a precious B jewel.

Germany's answer to James Bond is not that much bad :handsome Horst Buchholz has plenty of go and of humor ; his acrobatics (hats off to the stuntman!) are impressive and makes you giddy .

Actually the secret agent is statuesque Sylva Koscina , but ,as the macho hero says to her while he locks her in the cupboard "it's a man job" ,and her role is boiled down to a decorative one ; French Perette Pradier ,herself a spy thriller habituée ("Furia à Bahia pour OSS 117""le judoka agent secret" "house of cards" )provides the obligatory second female "Bond" girl .....

There are several nods to OO7 : Istambul will remind you of "from Russia with love" ;the scrapyard of "Goldfinger" ;and the fight in the pool under water is pure "thunderball" ,though the latter movie was not yet released .

The cinematography is fine, the screenplay knows only one tempo :accelerated,and there's never a dull moment.

Buchholz and Koscina would team up again the following year in Yves Allégret's "Johnny Banco " but this once great director was only the ghost of himself and it was a fiasco.