The Last of the Secret Agents?

Just wanted to know if anyone else noticed William Petersen in an uncredited role. He appears in the restaurant/club about thirty or forty minutes in, with blonde hair or streaks. He looks good; appears to be a bouncer. I didn't mind the movie a bit, needs a few more good gags.

I really enjoyed this movie. Don't listen to the critics. The few reviews I've seen bash this film. I watched it before seeing any reviews and thought it was great. It's like a cross between Abbot & Costello and a Mel Brooks film with a little Marx Brothers thrown in there. The intro to the film was genius. You couldn't see anyone's face.

The first half hour is awesome, then it slows down a bit. Still, there's tons of slapstick nonsense comedy running through the film. Plus, there's a scene in a restaurant that I don't even want to talk about because I loved it too much. It's worth a look.

Art thieves in France are in for trouble when a couple of clumsy American tourists-turned-spies (Steve Rossi and Marty Allen) are assigned to expose their operation. Loud, poorly-written slapstick comedy might appeal to Three Stooges or Martin & Lewis fans. It isn't a bad-looking film, but it's shrill instead of funny. Director Norman Abbott (who also co-wrote the script and produced!) seems to really believe Marty Allen is the next Jerry Lewis or Lou Costello (he isn't) and there's far too much of him. Linking this to later spoofs like "The Naked Gun" is really doing this movie a favor. It has some snap, but it's a bit long and bumbling. Good supporting cast features Nancy Sinatra, who also sings the title cut penned by Lee Hazlewood (which is more clever than anything else in the picture). *1/2 from ****

Paramount must have been trying to recapture the success they had with Martin and Lewis by releasing this Allen and Rossi effort a decade after the Martin/Lewis breakup. Marty Allen is a funny guy; anyone who remembers his 70s appearances on "Hollywood Squares" and "The Merv Griffin Show" can attest to that. But the Allen humor does not translate well to film; either that, or the script is just mediocre at best.

There are genuinely funny moments in the film, the best being Harvey Korman's appearance as a German officer. But there are some plain silly moments as well, such as costume changes on board a train every time it goes through a tunnel.

Nancy Sinatra fans will be disappointed in that she doesn't have much to do here...however, she looks as great as ever.

As a kid, I really enjoyed this movie. But that was the 70s. While still having positive feelings for it, that is from memory. I don't blame Allen and Rossi. Their humor did not translate to the big screen and were let down by a script written by someone who had no understanding of the spy genre, nor how to spoof it. It seems to me you have to have a plot that makes sense within the context of the story and then introduce humorous characters and twists that have no business being there. After an entertaining opening sequence, which goes on a bit longer than it should, the first half hour is fun, introducing Allen and Rossi and setting up the story. What follows after is slow, unfunny and nonsensical. More staid 50s than the hip 60s. Too bad Mel Brooks wasn't brought in to save it.