Guet-apens à Téhéran

Stewart Granger is at his most dapper, suave, best in this otherwise completely unremarkable effort that offers a hybrid "Bond" meets "UNCLE" scenario. Luckily for us, it has the consummate baddie Curd Jürgens as his deadly foe and the scenes they have together, mostly towards the end, are what redeems it from serious mediocrity. It's all about "Sandra" (Karin Dor) who meets our charmer on an aircraft. He ("James Vine") has to land the thing, saving all the passengers, and soon discovers that she is about to come into $70-odd million on her 25th birthday and that there are moves afoot in certain quarters to try and prevent that anniversary from happening. What ensues are a series of fun escapades and the pair try to stay one step ahead of their pursuers who have a habit of using brain-washing as their preferred means of controlling their subjects. The ending is rotten, but there is certainly some fun to be had en route. The cast are enjoying themselves and the production is reasonable, if hardly one that would trouble Messrs. Broccoli and Saltzman. Speaking of them, Adolfo Celi makes an appearance too (sans eyepatch), and we've a bit of Klaus Kinski at his malevolent best too. Aim low and you ought not to be too disappointed - it's all about the stars.

Two great actors which I like very much, Adolfo Celi and Klaus Kinski, are wasted in a mediocre production. With the help of a few other famous names of the movie world, Stewart Granger, Karin Dor, Curd Jürgens. The script is completely stupid and the interpretation of all leaves it desirable for a better chance in another movie. Those who manage to hide the best how disagreeable and ungrateful are their roles, are Kinski and Jürgens. Granger is too bombastic, like in all his movies. Dor is not credible, her acting is forced. And Celi, who has the most unfortunate role, is eaten by a bunch of hungry rats, he does what he can in such a situation. Manfred R. Köhler, the director, has achieved a much better film a year earlier, "Thirteen Days to Die"(1965)Der Fluch des schwarzen Rubin (original title), with another German specialist in villain roles, Horst Frank.

Stewart Granger is after a generally evil organization run by Curd Jurgens but the real story has to do with Jurgens' efforts to kill Karen Dor and get the money she is soon to inherit.

Granger is again an FBI agent and indeed, is even supposedly the same man who thwarted the smuggling racket in "Red Dragon" but he has a different name; James Vine. Luckily, this time the results for viewers are much improved as the groovy credit sequence will attest. Hip graphics and a cool rock song kick things off nicely. Here Granger isn't quite the smarmy character he was in "Red Dragon" but he is still the unlikely beneficiary of a relationship with a pretty young thing, even pledging to marry her in the end!

Director Manfred Kohler (From Beirut With Love) has made a vast improvement on Granger's previous spy outing and the talented cast is a real asset to the film's modest successes.

I have always been since my teens an avid fan of Stewart Granger, eagerly waiting for his next film to hit the screen. And I have been on the alert for films of his post-Hollywood period, to complete my collection. When this film came my way, I snapped it up eagerly. My disappointment was all the greater. What a waste of talent. Stewart Granger, Curt Jurgens, Adolfo Celli, Klaus Kinski in a minimal role, Karin Dor, all of them mixed up in a nonsensical and incomprehensible story, with any connection to reality being by pure chance. An awful soundtrack completed the disaster. I gave the film 3, not that it was worth it but for purely sentimental reasons. What a pity! I am sure that with better direction and a straightening up of the story, the film would have been quite a good one.

The story is dumb (pilots of airplane bail out while passengers don't even notice), the setting is usually inside a studio, but the number and combination of extraordinary actors is quite unusual. Karin Dor and Stewart Granger make such an intriguing couple that one would just wish they should have been used much more often. The more precious is this rare specimen of their and Curt Juergen's artistry. - A piece of historical interest to the old movies enthusiast.