077 intrigue à Lisbonne

Like b-westerns, many 60's European spy films have a number of interchangeable elements--from this film's opening scene of the hero in bed with a lovely lady and getting a phone call from the head of the spy service for whom he works, to the inevitable electronic gadget or invention of some eccentric scientist the intelligence services must protect, to the double-and-triple crosses where we aren't sure who is working for whom until the explanatory denouement. Director Tulio Demicheli was responsible two of my favorite Italian Westerns: THE BIG GUNDOWN with Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian, and GUNMEN OF THE RIO GRANDE with Guy Madison (in GREAT FORM!!!) as Wyatt Earp, and he's effective here although this film does not reach the heights of those two. Brett Halsey is an actor with a lot of charm, and he is perfect for the smirking yet tough role of agent "George Farrell." I won't go into further details except to say that I, unlike the other reviewer, enjoyed the music (the lounge-flavored organ improvisations are Walter Wanderly-like, and there are a few fine bossa-nova pieces worked into the club scenes), and there are some lovely location shots of Lisbon included. If you like this kind of fare, ESPIONAGE IN LISBON is an above-average entry, with a colorful and attractive star. If you don't like dubbed 60's European spy films, you probably wouldn't have read this far already. Check it out if you are a fan of the genre.

Brett Halsey is George Farrell, agent 077. (There were at least ten spy films made in the sixties having to do with agent 077, some explicitly titled as such, some not so, that starred several different actors in the role. In this one, someone writes `0-7-7' on a piece of paper during a casino scene. Clue!) Halsey is literally dragged out of bed, where he was entertaining a lady, and sent to Lisbon to find a missing scientist. He never does find him but it's a lot of fun anyway as he and fellow agent Terry Brown (Marilu Tolo) put the pieces of the puzzle together.

The score by Daniel White is pretty bland big band jazz stuff and is sometimes grossly inappropriate to the action, like having organ music as men with guns are chasing our hero. A good score is one thing this film lacks. There are a few gadgets used by both sides, some more successfully pulled off than others.

There's a fun sequence when Tolo finds a dead double agent in her hotel room and Halsey helps her get rid of him by taking him through the raucous party next door. There are some genuine laughs here. We never see the party, only hear it, but an extra treat is the unbilled cameo by George Nader as a drunk who stumbles into the bathroom and mistakes the corpse as a fellow inebriate.

The film runs a bit long, like this review, and culminates in a gun battle with really bad foley effects for the guns used by Halsey and Tolo. Anyway, I recommend this film by director Tulio Demicheli (The Killer Lacks a Name) as a good teaming of Halsey and Tolo despite its shortcomings.