L'Homme d'Istanbul

I saw this on late-night broadcast TV in the early '80s, when old spy movies were a dime a dozen on New York City-area TV. I remember boyishly handsome Horst Buchholtz doing a pretty poor job of aping Sean Connery/Robert Vaughn/Robert Culp as the cool, suave secret agent; Horst came off as annoyingly smug. There was enough good action (including a fun chase through the sewers) and exotic '60s atmosphere, though, to make it enjoyable fluff for fans of the genre. If this diehard spy movie fan could find it on video, she'd pay $10 to own a copy.

This movie is funny, if campy. Think Peter Sellers meets Sean Connery. It's sometimes serious, sometimes satirical, always a little odd. If you're in the mood for something a bit off-key, this is your movie. "What, me worry?" Classic!

It's a really cool thing that the German-French television station ARTE is including this EuroSpy classic with Berlin star Horst BUCHHOLZ (1933-2003) as a James Bond blend. Especially since ARTE can no longer only be seen in France and Germany, but also in other European countries.

Of course, this Bond imitator doesn't come close to the original, but that's not a bad thing. The Berlin world star Horst BUCHHOLZ impresses as a smart secret agent in Istanbul. At that time, 3.745 million visitors wanted to see it in West German cinemas. Of course, the beautiful women in the form of Sylva KOSCINA (LE FATICHE DI ERCOLE with Steve REEVES) and the enchanting Christiane MAYBACH should not be missing. EUROPEAN FILM AWARD nominee Mario ADORF (he was nominated for ROSSINI in 1997) and villain from the service Klaus KINSKI are also there. You can tell that Horst BUCHHOLZ had a lot of fun with his role. In the nineties he achieved another real global success with his role in "LA VITA E BELLA" by ACADEMY AWARD winner Roberto BENIGNI.

I caught this last week on the German 3rd / regional channel RBB, unaccountably included on a Spanish hotel cable TV service. Unfortunately for me, with a lot of work to do the following day, I couldn't bear to turn it off, so got to bed rather late. Why? Because as most of the other reviewers have noted, it's really rather good. The action just keeps flowing and the entirely watchable cast imbue the whole thing with a decent slickness.

Spanish director Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi captured the emerging glamour/spy zeitgeist with style, underpinned with a workmanlike eye for detail (I forgive him the wrecked car replacements, I'm sure the budget was not over generous). The occasional asides of the Tony Mecenas hero are fine in the context of the time and probably soften the otherwise implausibly super-human aspects of the character. It's a technique already pioneered in similar genres, e.g. Roger Moore's "The Saint".

Mid-sixties Istanbul comes across as very Euro-Mediterranean and serves as an excellent backdrop for most of the action. The plot was a satisfying mix of set pieces (meaning that one felt at home with the genre) and unexpected twists (meaning that there was no way the viewer could foresee the eventual outcome). Like a number of other reviewers, I also found the relatively low profile of Sylva Koscina for much of the action to be a bit of a shame, having fallen for her somewhat after watching the excellent "Deadlier Than The Male" recently.

P.S. Retro-discovering these decently constructed sixties Euro-thrillers, particularly those made totally outside the Anglo-American sphere, has become a real pleasure in recent years.

With the explosion of James Bond on to the film world in the early 1960's every producer tried to duplicate that genre. This multinational European effort is relatively fast paced and doesn't take itself too seriously.

A $ I million ransom has been paid for kidnapped American nuclear scientist Dr. Pendergast (Umberto Raho) but he has not been returned. American secret agent Kenny (Sylvia Koscina) goes to Istanbul, Turkey to investigate. There she teams up with expatriate American gambling club owner Tony Maecenas (Horst Buchholz) and his henchman Brain (Gustavo Re) and Bogo (Alvaro de Luna). They trace the missing scientist through a trail of villains; from Hansi (Gerard Tichy) to Gunther (Agustin Gonzalez) to Bill (Mario Adorf) to Schenck (Klaus Kinski). Along the way they compete with Chinese agents and rescue a kidnapped heiress Elisabeth (Perrette Pradier). Trust me, reading the plot here is a lot clearer than trying to follow the movie!

One of the attractions of this movie is the continuous action. It keeps moving, covers a number of locales (i.e. gambling clubs, mosques, ferries, public baths, hotel pools, boats) and involves a lot of fights. While obviously not having the budget of the James Bond movies it does its best to exploit the Istanbul scenery.

The movies doesn't take itself to seriously and Tony is a font of one liners. Whether you enjoy the movie is largely dependent on how to like Buchholz's performance. Another commentator described him as "annoyingly smug" and, if you don't relate to the tongue in cheek humor, that is how you may find him. Koscina starts off as central to the movie but quickly fades into the background as action scenes with Buchholz take over. The performances of the other actors are hard to judge given that you have German, Italian and Spanish actors dubbed into English. However I enjoyed, who wouldn't, the impeccably dressed and throughly nasty Kinski.

I can't really comment on the technical credits inasmuch as the video copy was very "washed out" but, even when I have seen it on TV, I have yet to see a really decent print.

The imitation James Bond sub-genre have their own rules and by that standard this faced paced and action filled film is an acceptable treat.