Berlin, opération 'Laser'

Of eight movies Dana Andrews appeared in from 1965, the unknown SPY IN YOUR EYE aka BANG YOU'RE DEAD has the lowest budget, seeming as if filmed on 16MM as Dana's an eye-patched operative provided a glass eye in its place and, unbeknownst to him there's a camera inside care of villainous surgeon Gastone Moschin, who'd later become the most formidable, deserving-to-die baddie The Black Hand in THE GODFATHER 2...

But like most situations when big (or once big) veteran actors get star treatment, there's a young buried lead here in Brett Halsey, whose mission, including taking a train aided by an intrepid cohort with a hunchback that's actually a knife, is to... well...

He travels around a lot and winds up in Arabic countries (supposedly) with intriguing blonde ingenue Pier Angeli, holding back a few mysteries and countered by a brunette femme fatale in Tania Béryl, whose actually more vulnerable than wicked since Gastone, her boss, is as bad as they get.

Meanwhile, an expository Andrews merely bookends the adventure, leaving the action sequences... which actually flow pretty well... to Halsey in a curio too obscure for a cult following but that's, overall, surprisingly satisfying, fitting neatly into Dana's other 1965 low-budgets BRAINSTORM, TOWN TAMER and CRACK IN THE WORLD.

Saw film at a double-feature second run house in the '60s. The spy-in-your-eye alternate title refers to an implanted micro television camera in a spy's eye. I can't remember if it was Dana Andrews. There's a tunnel under the Berlin Wall for the west to spy on the east that figures in the plot. Of course, the tunnel is discovered. There's a gimmick character who's hunchback deformity conceals a radio transmitter. Never understood why, if they could get the camera that small, why not the radio? I remember it fondly, but then I was 12 years old. Representative of '60's spy cycle, but at least they referenced real cold war players instead of made-up spy organizations. Don't know if its available.

"Colonel Lancaster" (Dana Andrews) is the director for a team of American spies during the Cold War who just happens to be scheduled to receive an eye implant so that he can regain his sight in one eye. What he doesn't know is that the Russians have invented an ingenious device which will not only give eyesight back to Colonel Lancaster--but will also transmit everything he says or does back to them which gives them invaluable information. One specific case involves a scientist who has invented a new weapon which the Russians, Americans and Chinese all want to get their hands on. Unfortunately, the scientist is killed trying to escape to the West and as a result his daughter, "Paula Krauss" (Pier Angeli) now becomes their main target because they think she has the vital information they all want. Now, rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it I will just say that this was a decent spy movie for the most part. One noticeable flaw, however, was the lack of character development which caused some confusion here and there. But other than that I suppose it was okay for the time spent and I rate it as about average.

Starting in the mid-1950s and continuing through the 1970s, Italian filmmakers would recruit American actors to star in many of their films. The logic was that by having an American in the lead, the films would have increased marketability internationally. This notion is most associated with the so-called 'Spaghetti Westerns' in which leading men, such as Clint Eastwood, would star with a cast that was mostly Italians. The films were then dubbed into various languages and these films were very successful. However, they didn't just do this sort of thing for Italian westerns...Fellini did this, there were tons of strong man films (such as Hercules or Machiste) as well as some crime films with American leading men. In the case of "Spy in the Eye", however, they used Dana Andrews to star in an espionage picture...not exactly the typical Italian- American hybrid.

Andrews plays Colonel Lancaster, a spy who works for the East AND the West at the same time. How could this be? Is he a double- agent? Well, not exactly. It seems that unbeknownst to Lancaster, the Soviets have placed a camera within the bionic eye he's just received. And using it, they can see and photograph EVERYTHING Lancaster sees--including work on a top secret death ray! While this idea might seem crazy, it does create an interesting spin on the "Six Million Dollar Man" story...and does it almost a decade earlier.

So is it any good? Well, it certainly is creative and unusual. However, I was surprised that the film was actually as dull as it was in spite of the location shoots. It mostly just seemed to consist of folks stabbing each other and never really lived up to the bionic eye gimmick. Not terrible but surprisingly ordinary at best.

I found this film on YouTube. The big plus is that I doubt if I could have found it any other way...the negative is that the print is completely yellowed and it's hard to tell that this was once a full color picture.

1965's "Spy in Your Eye" aka "Bang You're Dead" (Berlino = Appuntamento per le Spie) was theatrically issued by AIP on a double bill with Richard Harrison's "Secret Agent Fireball," an entertaining bit of fluff but little more. Brett Halsey's Bert Morris is on the trail of a formula for a powerful laser, his superior, Colonel Lancaster (Dana Andrews), unwittingly aiding the enemy after the surgical insertion of a glass eye that acts as a TV transmitter. Fast moving from one location to another, above average production values yet quite convoluted, the villains are an assorted lot of Russians, Chinese, East Germans, and Arabs, with varied twists and turns and a plethora of promising gadgets that often disappoint (an effigy of Napoleon boasts a fatal gift). The climax must be seen to be believed, an interrogation chamber transformed into an operating room in the blink of an eye before another breathless escape. Alas, once Lancaster learns of his traitorous orb he promptly vanishes for the remainder of the film, luscious Pier Angeli frequently absent for long stretches, though it's a bonus to see her kidnapped from a bubble bath!