The French producers ,noticing (it did not take'em long to notice),that James Bond was becoming a huge blockbuster ,began to look for a French counterpart:in the sixties,lots of movies were made :OSS 117,Coplan,Le Vicomte and more ,each one lousier than the one before (with the eventual exception of "Coplan Sauve Sa Peau" which was directed by Yves Boisset) Enter Maurice Cloche: needless to say,his previous career had nothing (and I mean nothing) to do with the spy thriller.He began his career in 1937 and there are only two good movies in his career :"Monsieur Vincent" and" Le Petit Chose" an acceptable adaptation of the Daudet novel.The rest of his movies are either Saint-Sulpician edifying works ("Un Missionnaire" ) or melodramas dealing with the prostitutes' plight,which put him in the same league as his colleague Leo Joannon for that matter.
What can be said for this first effort in the cloak and dagger field?(two more "works" were to follow ,in the same "vein" so to speak)There's a horrible song during the cast and credits (which is heard again at the end) performed by yeah yeah boy Frank Alamo called "Copain Coplan" ;a Z-movie actor who obviously does not speak French at all (anyone can't be Jodie Foster ,can they?),and who is dubbed in French Mediocre starlets ,who are not even that beautiful ,compared to Bond's girl's canon;an earnest FRench thespian,Daniel Ceccaldi,as the villain,who wish he weren't here;and a story the average viewer has seen one hundred times or more.
