Cartes sur table

One of, Jess Franco's more immediately entertaining, far-out Euro-Spy romps is blessed with an eye-catching moniker and a bona fide star in, Eddie Constantine. The audaciously pulpy feature finds debonair Sir Percy (Fernando Rey) and his exquisite partner in robot-making crime, Lady Cecilia Addington Courtney (Françoise Brion)instigating a wild plot to kill prominent world figures for their own nefarious purposes! Unlawfully appropriating viable human subjects with the rare blood type of rhesus zero, and utilizing bespoke, world-dominating technology these programmable super-strong,'subjects' become subservient, spectacle-wearing, remote controlled assassins!

The prodigious talents of the boundlessly inventive Spanish filmmaker are zestfully expressed in this bullet-paced, dynamically shot, way, way-out Euro-Spy spectacular. An especially kinetic montage introduces these inscrutable, dark-suited assassins as they rapidly dispatch their targets with a merciless efficiency. With the free world approaching crisis, perhaps, only the exceptionally gifted, preternaturally hardy, uncommonly suave Super spy, Al Pieria (Eddie Constantine) is capable of rooting out these reprehensible robot wrangling rapscallions. Not long on the case, Pieria is very soon up to his handsomely weathered features in Machiavellian Asian gangsters, delightfully perky double-agents, exploding umbrellas, and haemoglobin heisting hucksters. Submerged into the turbulent murder vortex from whence these programmable devils were spawned, our resolute hero's espionage skills are sorely tested!

'Attack of the Robots' is a sleekly sexy, pan-continental Sci-Spy spectacular that coolly assassinates the competition!!! Buckle up thrill seekers as dramatic dynamo, Jess Franco will dynamite your boredom with his well-oiled, non-stop B-Movie barrage of murderously mechanized mayhem! Maestro, Jess Franco is clearly having a ball with these Fumetti-inspired histrionics, playfully creating a Martini-stirring symphony of scintillating 60s super spy suspense! Frequently on target, 'Attack of the Robots' will expunge your ennui and exterminate your apathy in 90 bravura minutes of explosive entertainment!

1966's "Attack of the Robots" (Cartes Sur Table or Cards on the Table) was a French-Spanish example of the growing Eurospy genre spoofing the James Bond films, scripted by director Jesus Franco and Jean-Claude Carriere after their previous collaboration "The Diabolical Dr. Z." A more lighthearted affair for European star Eddie Constantine, most popular in France as detective Lemmy Caution (over a dozen films since 1953), here as Interpol agent Al Peterson, whose rare blood type makes him the perfect bait for an organization requiring only susceptible test subjects to become unwitting human assassins of prominent political figures. The picture opens with a slew of such killings, the perpetrators identified by their dark complexion, pressed suits, and horn rimmed glasses, ultimately the work of Lady Cecilia (Francoise Brion) and her obedient husband Sir Percy (Fernando Rey), avoiding detection by sending their automatons across the globe but nervously eyeing Peterson on their Spanish turf of Alicante. Sophie Hardy as Cynthia keeps tabs on Peterson through a one way mirror in her closet, while Chinese spies led by Lee Wee (Vicente Roca) involve themselves by offering a generous bribe for whatever Peterson uncovers. Constantine wears a bemused look as he blunders from one location to another, finally tracking the villains to their hidden island lair by donning the glasses of a dead killer, which only work to subjugate the will of his specific blood type (their dark skin turns white after death, never regaining their lost humanity). Unencumbered by the zoom lens that would ruin many a later Franco effort like Christopher Lee's "Count Dracula," this is much like his entire 60s output, highly watchable if undistinguished, granting Fernando Rey less to do than in his earlier stint as "Goldginger" opposite Franco and Ciccio. Plots to use robot duplicates in place of people was a highly popular one at the time, from Frederick Stafford's "OSS 117 Mission for a Killer" to Richard Johnson's second Bulldog Drummond update "Some Girls Do," usually laced with humor.

Attack of the Robots (1966)

** (out of 4)

Spanish sci-fi/spoof about a mad scientist who creates some robots to kill off those with Type-O blood. Like many early films from director Jess Franco, this one here is technically well made but, as with the others, it offers nothing original and in the end it comes off rather slow and boring. We've seen this type of film so many times that this one here really doesn't have a single thing going for it.

Also, to be fair, I must admit that I prefer Franco's work from the 1970s, which is another reason why I didn't care for this one as much as others.

I happened to catch this foreign-made film by accident, many years ago, when I was just a kid. It came on TBS some time after midnight, and I started watching since it had something to do with secret agents. Later on, the old man asked me what I was watching, and I told him that I wasn't sure but that "this guy" was pretty good.

"This guy" that was referred to was Eddie Constantine. At the time, I thought he was just some minor European actor appearing for probably the first or only time in this minor spy caper. What came across was a certain attitude behind the coarsened, roughhewn character, which let you know that the actor did not take himself or the material too seriously. Constantine's hero stolidly made his way through the plot, doggedly determined to get the job done while showing as little emotion or concern as possible, and winning the viewer over in the process.

In the years since, I was surprised to learn that Eddie Constantine was born in the US, and eventually became a singing star in France during the late 1940s-early 1950s, before becoming a film star in 1953. Until the close of the 1960s, he played numerous detectives, secret agents, gangsters, etc., in a string of European (mostly French) action-adventures that were often shot in the fast-moving style of American B-pictures.

ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS was made in 1966, when Constantine's stardom was coming to an end (he would still have a long career ahead of him as mostly a supporting player, until his death in 1993). If his mere presence could raise the level of this material, it would be interesting to see some of the other action films from his heyday. Unfortunately, with the advent of infomercials, and scarcity of old European-made films such as these, you won't be finding them on the late, late show any longer.

In any event, it's a lesser spy film to be sure, but if you're a true fan of the genre you will find some entertainment value even with this. There is the usual fantastic plot, here a nefarious scheme in which the evil organization seeks to control people of a certain blood type. Hence, Interpol is called in and agent Al Pereira (Constantine) is on the case. Also, included in the plot are the requisite megalomaniacal villain (played by Fernando Rey, five years away from FRENCH CONNECTION), and a not-so-innocent heroine (played by sexy Sophie Hardy).

All in all, ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS is reasonably enjoyable on its own terms, taken for nothing more than what it was meant to be. But it is also a good introduction to the unique persona of Eddie Constantine, who managed to make the film a good deal more enjoyable.

Enjoyable early Franco film (which I watched via a recording off Italian TV), an espionage tale with tongue-in-cheek and the first of Franco's several Al Pereira adventures.

It is given an extra edge by the presence of tough-guy Eddie Constantine who effectively parodies his image here, and seems to be having a ball doing it! Another major asset to the film was the screen writing credit of Jean-Claude Carriere who contributes intermittent touches of wacky humor, satirical barbs and wonderful dialogue – as in the scene where the Chinese statue 'speaks' to Al, and he thinks he may be hearing voices like Joan of Arc; or when his superiors showcase the various improbably lethal devices he will have at his disposal on his mission, and he quips that it's evident they've been watching the James Bond movies a lot lately! Robert Monell's 'Dark Waters' review captures this essence extremely well, I think:

'ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS is a Spanish-French co-production made by the same creative team responsible for THE DIABOLICIAL DR Z (1965). Both movies were given a tremendous boost by the imaginative screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere (who had worked for the great Luis Bunuel on many of his French productions). This perhaps explains the sarcastic French-style humor in ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS, which differentiates this from the more slapstick orientation of Franco's later Eurospy efforts (such as LUCKY THE INSCRUTABLE and KISS ME MONSTER [both 1967]). For instance, the opening assassination scenes include the murder of an ambassador and then a high church official, scenes that are staged with a slightly absurd, surreal touch which anticipates similar scenes found in future Carriere-Bunuel projects, THE MILKY WAY [1969] and THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE [1972].'

Unfortunately, the film loses steam around the middle where the basically dreary (and fairly silly) plot takes center-stage. In fact, the 'robots' are the film's least successful element: amusingly attired but also lacking a distinct air of menace; this was perhaps intentional but I felt it weakened the suspense considerably, because in this way Pereira was never really in any danger! Still, there are plenty of other diversions on hand, not the least of which are the film's two leading ladies – Francoise Brion and Sophie Hardy – who manage quite a nice contrast between them, apart from providing the obligatory (albeit chaste in this case) eye-candy!

Curiously enough, the film was shot in color but released outside Spain in black-and-white (which fact is given away by the plot-point of having the robots change their skin color when they die, but this element obviously does not register on-screen!). Still, as it stands, the film elicits comparison with any number of internationally-produced film noirs of the 50s and early 60s, and especially the work of Orson Welles as well as Jean-Luc Godard's almost-contemporaneous ALPHAVILLE (1965) – no doubt Paul Misraki's scoring credit was no mere coincidence – which also starred Constantine as another detective, Lemmy Caution, who was featured in a long-running series of films on the big screen.

The climax is hurried and hardly exciting (despite some lavish interiors, the film's production was all-too-obviously a cheapjack affair) – but the sight of super-villain Fernando Rey (not quite in his element here) getting his just desserts Moreau-like is reasonably satisfactory, in my opinion. Put simply, CARTAS BOCA ARRIBA is good, unpretentious fun most of the way and I certainly would not turn down an opportunity to watch some of the other films Franco made featuring his favorite detective – Al Pereira!