Il nostro uomo a Marrakesh

BANG BANG YOU'RE DEAD aka Our Man In Marrakesh seems a low budget homage to the talents of director Alfred Hitchcock and actor Cary Grant. Imagine, if you will, a blending of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and NORTH BY NORTHWEST, and you might have BANG BANG.

Tony Randall is very appealing as the much harried, put upon innocent who is caught up in a series of misadventures (his character Jessel actually says something like "We're suspected of being murderers, and we're being chased by murderers"). Randall is certainly not someone you would cast as the romantic lead, but you can readily accept that he and Senta Berger will become lovers.

Ms Berger's characters is very fond and adept at telling lies, and shaping the truth as she sees fit. She does it well, and is charming, and everyone likes her, not least the wily Arab truck driver Achmed (Gregoire Aslan), who twice saves the couple.

I had mistaken Margaret Lee for another Italian starlet but apparently she was born in Wolverhampton, England in 1943. She plays the sex kitten very well, and again, has some good lines.

The script is actually very good, the dialogue especially, with more memorable lines than I expected. The line-up of character actors is also fine, though Klaus Kinski's thug is nowhere as effective as the one he displayed in GRAND SLAM.

Locations are well chosen, the action good for its day, and the music by Malcolm Lockyer (someone who doesn't seem to have worked much in film) catches the flavour of Marrakesh, Morocco.

All in all, highly recommended (If you can find it!)

`I think there's been some foul play' says Tony Randall upon discovering a dead body with a knife in its back stashed in the closet of his hotel room. Comedy is hard and although this one spends too much time as a chase movie, it is still largely successful thanks to a great cast and good script.

Director Don Sharp, in his only spy outing, has crafted an enjoyable and funny film that doesn't resort too often to slapstick or other forms of cheap laughs. It manages to tread the line between humor and danger keeping the viewer interested enough to evoke plenty of hearty chuckles. A light and entertaining spy comedy, this is one of the best of the bunch.

Quickie producer Harry Alan Towers had a set routine when making films in the 1960s: he'd assemble an all-star cast, whisk them off to an exotic (typically hot) location and proceed to film a sub-par story designed to make maximum use of the familiar faces he'd gathered together. Such films are invariably disappointing, although film fans will probably want to watch them for the casts alone.

OUR MAN IN MARRAKESH is a case in point, a quirky caper that mixes together three different genres. The first is a spy flick, with the rubber-face Tony Randall playing a man mixed up with scheming villains and beautiful femme fatales (Senta Berger). The second is a Hitchcock 'wrong man' thriller, with plenty of nods to the director's output a la THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. Finally, Towers can't resist adding a little 'whodunit' aspect to make the most of his famous cast members, although technically this is more of a 'who is it' as identity plays a key part.

Inevitably the script is disappointing and the various action sequences are routine to say the least, but the cast members make this worthwhile. Herbert Lom is the villain and Klaus Kinski his creepy henchman; also along for the ride are an out-of-place Wilfrid Hyde-White, Terry-Thomas, and John Le Mesurier, their upper lips stiff and quivering with indignation. OUR MAN IN MARRAKESH isn't particularly bad - although the comedy has certainly dated - but in comparison to Bond or Hitch it just looks dumb.

British-made film (released under a variety of different titles around the world) concerns an American hotel-builder, newly-arrived in Morocco, who becomes involved in a $2M plot to change votes at the United Nations. Despite poster art designed to look like a spy spoof (with Randall an unlikely substitute for James Bond), this minor, droll offering is more in keeping with the latter-day Hitchcock films ("North by Northwest", in particular), with the dryly-resolved star getting deeper into hot water with every plot turn. Senta Berger is a very attractive mystery woman, and she matches up surprisingly well with Randall (grounded and more affable than usual), but the supporting cast of old pros is never given anything especially exciting to do. Director Don Sharp, working from a wayward, rudderless screenplay by Peter Yeldham, does decent work, yet the finale is confusing instead of suspenseful, and the overall air of familiarity is wearing. ** from ****

Tony Randall has been a favorite of mine since his recurring appearances on David Letterman's late-night talk shows. The guy was such a good sport about putting over any gag the writers came up with, deploying equal parts debonnair charm and lack of self-seriousness. He shows the same sensibility here - his character knows he's in a spot of bother, works hard to work his way out of it in the same charming way Cary Grant does in North by Northwest, mixes in a fair amount of sly humour, yet somehow manages to avoid any campiness or ham. Director Don Sharpe helmed The Avengers TV show with a similar touch. The whole ''money for votes at the UN" plot is basicaly a McGuffin. It just helps move things along, layers of the onion peeling away in a pleasant fashion. The location shooting was a pleasant surprise, too, given the reportedly small budget. This was a fun way to spend time in front of the tube re-visiting the work of an old ''friend."