Opération Opium

The film begins in Iran where an agent (Stephen Boyd) deals with an opium smuggler (Hugh Griffith) . Later on , two United Nations agents (Trevor Howard, E.G. Marshall) arrive in Teheran airport and reunite with Iranian authorities (Yul Brynner , Omar Shariff , Jack Hawkins). They scheme to chase the smugglers by means of opium full of radioactive element and a 'Geiger counter set' to place it . The colonel (Brynner) along with a riding posse heads desert to crack the opium bandits , as they climb a mountain and attack . After that , the tracks lead to Napoli where encounter the radioactive opium and a suspect named Locarno (Eli Wallach) . Other clues lead to Stromboli club (there fights a wrestler woman , Senta Berger) , a ship commanded by a drunk captain (Anthony Quayle) , Niza , Montecarlo Hall (where sings La Bamba the actor-singer Trini Lopez) and a magnate named Serge Marco (Gilbert Roland) . At the end happens some spectacular struggles into a train ('From Russian with love'-alike).

Trevor Howard and his partner Edgar G Marshall are a couple of hard-noised narcotic detectives who stumble onto what turns out to be one of the biggest opium rings of all time , involving mastermind well played by Gilbert Roland . Trevor Howard's portrayal is good and the teamwork with E.G. Marshall is special . Based on a story outline by Ian Fleming who died before he could complete the script . Production with quite budget by United Nations to get funds for world fight against drug , however did not obtained success at the box office ; furthermore uninterested collaboration of actors and technicians . Colorful cinematography by Henry Alekan , Terence Young's usual, and atmospheric musical score by George Auric . All characters , places and events in this film are fictitious : any similarity to any persons, places or events is purely coincidental and based on an Ian Fleming story , shot on location in Iran , Napoli , Niza, Monaco.

This dope-trade thriller is professionally directed by Terence Young and being dedicated to the memory of Adlai Stevenson, the American politician who was US Ambassador to the United Nations. Terence realized three of the first four James Bond films , as ¨Dr No¨, ¨From Russia with love¨ and ¨Thunderball¨, such successful blockbusters were hard to continue , though he attempted in search of more box office hits . His biggest film was , beyond doubt , ¨Wait in dark¨ with Audrey Hepburn and Richard Crenna . However , his last period was largely unsuccessful , full of failures and duds as ¨Amazons¨ , ¨Klansman¨ , ¨Blood line¨, ¨ Inchon¨, ¨Jigsaw man¨, ¨Takeover¨ , though some action scenes remained undiluted.

Another surprisingly bad film from director Terence Young (did this guy really make such greats as Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Wait Until Dark?) What's more surprising about Poppies Are Also Flowers is the calibre of the cast. Trevor Howard, E.G Marshall, Omar Sharif, Angie Dickinson, Yul Brynner, Jack Hawkins, Senta Berger, Rita Hayworth, Anthony Quayle, Eli Wallach, Trini Lopez, Marcello Mastroainni, Stephen Boyd and Hugh Griffith all make appearances in the movie - and virtually every one of them is guilty of rampant bad acting. I challenge anyone to find this talented a cast in a more badly acted film. The story is pretty poor too.

Narcotics agents Lincoln (Trevor Howard) and Coley (E.G Marshall) arrive in Iran to investigate the death of another agent, Benson (Stephen Boyd). They learn that Benson had struck a deal with a tribal chief (Hugh Griffith) to buy his opium crop, but a disgruntled rival buyer attempted to seize the crop in transit, killing Benson in the process. In order to track down the killers, Lincoln and Coley agree to let another opium crop leave Iran bound for an unknown European drug lord. However, they put a radioactive element into the opium, meaning that they can track its progress with geiger counters, all the way to the head man. The trail leads from Iran to Switzerland to Italy and, finally, to France.

The film is based on an idea by Ian Fleming (yes, the Bond creator). However, there is little of the flair in this film that you would find in the Bond books and films. The very concept of contaminating opium in order to track its whereabouts seems rather unconvincing and implausible, but the film doesn't suffer too much because of it. The problem here is more fundamental - it's a badly scripted film. A plethora of characters come and go without proper introduction or development, and various events and actions are patched together without sufficient explanation. Such under-cooked ingredients do not make for a satisfying viewing experience. Other than Georges Auric's stirring music and E.G Marshall's performance (the only good one in the whole film) as the hero, Poppies Are Also Flowers is a failure.

The opening dose of earnest monologue from Princess Grace of Monaco gives us a clue as to what we might be in for here. It's a clunkily stitched together series of cameos built around the process of identifying and stopping those bent on exporting opium from Iran to, ultimately via Europe, the United States. Yul Brynner ("Col. Salem") starts off the process working with the Imperial authorities in Iran where poppy farming is completely outlawed. Needless to say, though, if the money was right then there were those who would bend the rules and here we can look "Salah Khan" (Hugh Griffiths - a performance straight out of "Ben Hur"). The police, though, have devised a plan to inject his resin with a radioactive isotope enabling it to be tracked and them to destroy the distribution network. Helping the colonel with his task is the doughty "Sam Lincoln" (Trevor Howard) and as they follow the trail we are introduced to a cast of dozens of famous faces adding their visage, if little else, to the potency of the message set out by HSH at the top of the film. It's quite an interesting theory, the journey is well documented as are the difficulties faced by those trying to thwart this most lucrative of trades, but the style of presentation is so very disjointed and the narrative spends just a little too much time pontificating and not enough time engaging the audience. After about forty minutes I had the gist and the baddie firmly in my sights - the remainder delivered little better than an half-baked "007" adventure (Ian Fleming was involved here too). It is not without it's tragedies - this is not a sterile depiction and characters do get bumped off to illustrate just how ruthless these dealers are - but none of that really enlivened what is essentially rather a dull drama.

"Poppies Are Also Flowers" is a high-budget movie that does not work. The stellar cast has names such as Senta Berger, Stephen Boyd, Yul Brynner, Angie Dickinson, Rita Hayworth, Trini López, Marcello Mastroianni, Grace Kelly, Omar Sharif and Eli Wallach among many others. Locations in Iran, Montecarlo, Naples, Monaco and others fancy and exotic places. However the lame story and screenplay associated to non-charismatic and unfunny lead characters make this film a turkey. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Ópio também é Uma Flor" ("The Opium Is Also a Flower")

Poppies Are Also Flowers is an all star amalgamation of two previous films on the narcotics trade. Sharp eyed fans of the cinema will spot plot elements from those two Forties era films, To The Ends Of The Earth and Port of New York. Of course both those films were infinitely better.

Still a whole bunch of international stars lent their names and got a fat paycheck for this muddled episodic film which tries to make E.G. Marshall an action star. Talk about ridiculous.

Best in the film by far are Yul Brynner as an Iranian general and Rita Hayworth as the dope addicted wife of Gilbert Roland who is one of the villains. Roland plays it rather straight and that ever present twinkle that I love in him is missing.

The filming was done on actual locations including some of the harder to reach regions of Iran. Of course that was back in the day of the Shah's pro-western government and you can see photographs of the Shah in some of the shots. I also liked Hugh Griffith as I always do with those wild eyes of his, the wildest this side of Jack Elam. Griffith just dusts off his Sheik Ilderim portrayal from Ben-Hur and hams it up to beat the band. There wasn't much else the man could do, he knew he was in a Thanksgiving special.