Superseven chiama Cairo

Although the film was directed by the Italian veteran director Umberto LENZI, it is only a very weak representative of the EuroSPY wave of the 1960s, which began after the great success of the first James Bond films DR. NO, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, GOLDFINGER and THUNDERBALL.

A highly radioactive material is stolen and hidden in a camera lens. Agent SuperSEVEN (Roger BROWNE) chases the whole thing from London to Cairo, Locarno and Rome. Fabienne DALI and Massimo SERATO complete the all too colorless cast.

Only 281,000 tickets were purchased in West German cinemas (source: InsideKino). Not surprising!

Roger Browne as in the other movies with him, the same gestures, same looks, same movements, boring, boring, boring. And, that's what I say, a big fan and consumer of the Eurospy genre, I grew up with Eurospy movies, they influenced my whole existence and now, at the age of wisdom (I hope...), I realize how stupid I was, or still am, watching them. They all seem to be shot at xerox, the same template, airport, pursuit, hotel, microfilm hidden in an object, pursuit again, a few fights, a few shots, a torture scene, one or two beautiful girls, the good one remains with the hero at the end, the evil girl must die.

After a new radioactive metal has been stolen secret agent "Martin Stevens" (Roger Browne) is assigned the mission to recover it. The problem is that the metal has been melted down and made into a camera lens which was then accidentally purchased by a tourist who has subsequently gone to Cairo. Needing information he comes across a female operative named "Faddja" (Rosalba Neri) who is working for the other side who inadvertently points him in the right direction. It's then that he teams up with a female agent by the name of "Denise" (Fabienne Dali) and together they attempt to track down the mysterious tourist as he visits one exotic site after another while at the same time having to contend with Russian agents who want this new metal as much as he does. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an okay James Bond clone which suffered somewhat due to poor character development and the fact that it jumped too quickly at times from one scene to another without sufficient preparation. It also didn't help matters that the script was rather bland as well. In any case, while certainly not a great spy film by any means, I suppose it was adequate for the time spent and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

One of the better and more serious James Bond rip offs. The film has low budget but takes itself seriously and avoids camp. Superseven needs to track down a rare radioactive material hidden in a camera. This sends him off to Cario where most of the film takes place. Meanwhile, the bed guys want get the material first, or at least let Superseven lead them to it. There he meets Rosalba Neri's Faddja, who is forced to help the bad guys to pay off her debt to them. Rosalba gets decent screen time here and looks great. Her role is a bit more involved in the plot than many of her films. It's hard to tell if she's with the hero or against him, which is an plus given the majority of the characters she played. A huge surprise for me here was the female lead, Fabienne Dali. She played the old woman Ruth in KILL BABY KILL under a load of make up. She's a femme fatale here and 180 degrees from Ruth. I watched a dreadful looking full screen English dubbed print. There is a widescreen German DVD I would love to see sometime, a good looking copy would improve the film's pleasure tenfold.

Roger Browne is another Eurospy "heavyweight", making 6 films which can be considered part of the Eurospy genre in a general sense. "Operation Poker", "Password - Kill Agent Gordon", "Rififi In Amsterdam", "Last Man To Kill" and two as secret agent "Martin Stevens", "The Spy Who Loved Flowers" and this one.

Although all the Eurospies I seen have been romantically inclined, none of them has come close to challenging the alpha male bedroom exploits of Sean Connery era James Bond, in fact most of them are lucky if they manage to bed even a single lady over the course of a movie. That changes here, as when we are introduced to Roger, he is already in bed with a female of the species and, soon after, he kills her with his trusty fountain pen gun (before she can shoot him). Ten minutes in and he's bedding his second, after the obligatory "what are you doing in my room" scene. He's busy working on his third prospect when he comes across an old girlfriend, so he has to forgo a possible reunion there. However the third one never quite works out for him, so he comes up short of attaining the level of sexual prowess achieved by Connery-Bond or Moore-Bond (usually 2 or 3, occasionally as high as 4)

I think Roger is the first pipe smoking "International Man of Mystery" I've come across, but alas, it has no alternative function. However he does have a radio transmitter in his shaver, in addition to the trusty pen gun, both of which get plenty of use over the course of the movie.

This a polished production, sturdy and dependable, but somehow uninspired, missing some spark of energy which allows the better Eurospys to punch above their weight. The dialogue is functional but lacking any particular wit or sophistication. They have an occasional stab at "Avengers" style whimsy (with the Napoleonic mannequins) or "Swinging 60s Psychedelia" (when the henchmen put on swimming goggles and overpower Roger with infra-red light in some unexplained way) but those moments seem out of place with the rest of the film, which is a bit more "grounded".

The McGuffin is a sample of a newly discovered element called "Baltonium", which was hidden inside a camera lens, that has accidently been passed on to an unsuspecting tourist, while in the process of being smuggled.

There are plenty of exotic locations on show. Stock footage takes us to Paris (for the prologue), London (for mission assignment and fight training), Cairo (for all the expected spy movie activities), Locarno, on Lake Maggiore (in lieu of the Riviera) and finally Rome (although, in fact, none of the outdoor events in "Rome" take place in the historic city centre). I think the production probably did actually pay a visit Cairo and the lake in order to supplement the stock footage.

The casting provides a decent villain with a suitable array of distinctive henchmen and beautiful women.

Action arrives at suitable intervals, but is more enthusiastic than well-choreographed. The music performs its function, supporting the mood of onscreen events. However the ending is a bit of a disappointment. The villains' boat breaking down out of the blue, for no good reason, is very lame. The rom-com epilogue is clunky, like much of the rest of the movie.

Overall this is competent but unremarkable.