S.077 - Espionagem em Tanger

This short film, the English-dubbed print only runs about an hour, is by-the-numbers spy stuff but it is never boring. It doesn't have time to be! Luis Davila (Ypotron, Make Your Bets Ladies, The Viscount) is agent Mike Murphy (for us English speakers) and he's after a ray gun that completely disintegrates whatever gets in the way of its blue beam.

The ratio of action per minute is way up there. Four people are killed in the first five minutes! The last of these is unfortunate enough to have his head caught in a car window and is then dragged down the street! There are plenty of fights (contrary to the short blurb on the back of SWV's tape box, the fights are actually pretty well staged and exciting), car chases, gun battles, torture, and people getting slapped around.

You could actually do a lot worse than this little adventure, believe me. Director Gregg Tallas (Assignment Skybolt) has made a pretty fun no-budget thriller that falls into the so-bad-it's-good category.

This is a wonderful example of the Super Spy genre, where a secret agent must reclaim a dangerous 'invisibility ray' from a gang of criminal masterminds. Everything you want is here: beautiful Continental women, outrageous cars, spy gadgets, and fistfights galore (not to mention a rather uncomfortable looking belt tightening sequence). Films like this were once staples of late night TV, and now thanks to AMC's more adventurous programming policy we can see them again, widescreen to boot. Recommended.

When a gang of crooks steal a disintegrating ray gun -- unlike the cartoons, it disintegrates what it's aimed at, not itself -- the authorities call in the right man for the job: a handsome man who has lots of sex with the ladies and drives a nice sports car, Luis Dávila.

This Italian-French co-production has a lot of bad stuntwork, although the tyically distracting dubbing may well have some effect on my reaction. There are lots of pretty girls -- including one of the lead villains -- some decent camerawork by Alvaro Mancori and Rafael Pacheco, and a certain amount of slapping around and torture by all hands. Not as elaborate or, really, as funny as the James Bond stuff, it has a lot of energy.

The uncut version of Espionage In Tangiers is now available as part of Dark Sky Films' Drive-In Double Feature series. Coupled with Assassination In Rome, which stars Cyd Charisse (!) and Hugh O' Brien, these two unpretentious, old-fashioned flicks make for an entertaining double bill of 60s kitsch. Espionage is a Bond-influenced, convoluted, low-rent Euro-spy pot boiler, while Asassination is more in the spirit of Charade, although it's more of a mystery/thriller than a caper.

Espionage is surprisingly violent; the producers clearly embraced the amorality, casual sadism and misogyny of the early Connery Bonds but failed to grasp the wit of the 007 movies (Mark Murphy, "Agent 077," our "hero," thinks it's funny to throw a knife into the throat of a would-be assassin, for example). The film has its slow moments but there's a constant flow of fights involving groin kicking, throat chopping, and even a torture scene Jack Bauer would approve of, all set to a groovy jazz soundtrack. All in all, not a bad way to spend 90 minutes -- especially as the two-film disc comes with drive-in material including concession ads for hot dogs and pizza and two sets of trailers of coming attractions.

Assassination In Rome is a much slower film, but is superbly shot.

Thanks to Dark Sky, who are consistently delivering when it comes to restored, remastered editions of old B movies (e.g. their recent release of Slaughter of the Vampires), both films look and sound better than a pair of obscure 42 year-old flicks deserve.

This is an entertaining and amusing Bond rip-off from the 60's. The characters are laughable and the plot is like something out of an Austin Powers movie. And just when you think this old 60's Bond spoof can't get any more hilarious, along comes George Lazenby in the film. This is one of the classic Bond spoofs without a doubt.