Super 7 appelle le sphinx

Although the film was directed by the Italian veteran director Umberto LENZI, it is only a very weak representative of the EuroSPY wave of the 1960s, which began after the great success of the first James Bond films DR. NO, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, GOLDFINGER and THUNDERBALL.

A highly radioactive material is stolen and hidden in a camera lens. Agent SuperSEVEN (Roger BROWNE) chases the whole thing from London to Cairo, Locarno and Rome. Fabienne DALI and Massimo SERATO complete the all too colorless cast.

Only 281,000 tickets were purchased in West German cinemas (source: InsideKino). Not surprising!

After a new radioactive metal has been stolen secret agent "Martin Stevens" (Roger Browne) is assigned the mission to recover it. The problem is that the metal has been melted down and made into a camera lens which was then accidentally purchased by a tourist who has subsequently gone to Cairo. Needing information he comes across a female operative named "Faddja" (Rosalba Neri) who is working for the other side who inadvertently points him in the right direction. It's then that he teams up with a female agent by the name of "Denise" (Fabienne Dali) and together they attempt to track down the mysterious tourist as he visits one exotic site after another while at the same time having to contend with Russian agents who want this new metal as much as he does. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an okay James Bond clone which suffered somewhat due to poor character development and the fact that it jumped too quickly at times from one scene to another without sufficient preparation. It also didn't help matters that the script was rather bland as well. In any case, while certainly not a great spy film by any means, I suppose it was adequate for the time spent and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

I saw this recently, and it was the first time I have ever seen the actor Roger Browne. He's very striking-looking: six feet tall, and very strong and fit. No one would be eager to tangle with this guy! He makes a good secret agent.

You can tell from the first scene that the filmmakers are trying to follow the format of a Bond movie, and they manage that sometimes. One of the fun things watching 1960's Euro-spy movies is to enjoy what makes them of their time, and especially the European touches. That mostly means Italian, as here, though there were French and German Euro-spy movies, too.

For example, there is an interesting scene of a full-figured belly dancer in a Cairo club. She's a wonderful dancer, but a U. S. film of the time, I think, would never have featured a dancer who wasn't slender.

The movie has some great scenery of Cairo and Egypt. There's an amazing shot of a huge hotel swimming pool and you can see minarets in the background. I wondered if this hotel had been a palace; I've never seen such an enormous pool.

Rosalba Neri is in the movie and has a good role. I wish her part had been even bigger. She brings beauty, energy and star quality to every scene she's in. When she's on screen, it's just more interesting.

There are a fair number of action scenes. I think some should have been longer. The music is very European, a bit tongue-in-cheek! I liked it. On the whole, this is one of the better Euro-spy movies.

Roger Browne is competent enough here in this pretty shameless hybrid of all things "007" with a bit of "Man from U. N. C. L. E." thrown in for good measure. The suave agent "Super 7" is tasked with tracking down a newly discovered metal that is being smuggled inside of a pocket camera that cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands! His investigations take him to the magical city of Cairo where he encounters dangers a-plenty and has no idea who he can trust. It's all pretty procedural, this, with a few gadgets and gizmos to liven it up as it moves along, quickly, to a conclusion that has it's tongue firmly in it's cheek. There's not much jeopardy and a bit too much script/score but it's still just about watchable if you accept it's production values and budget do not compare with it's more illustrious contemporaries in the genre.

The most remarkable thing about this Italian James Bond knockoff is how astoundingly bad it truly is. If it is a spoof, someone forgot to tell the filmmakers that a spoof is supposed to be funny. If it was intended to be serious, they failed in epic proportions. Filled with cliches and tired tropes, it is devoid of witty dialogue what stands out most is its utter lack of originality or creativity. The characters lack motivation, most of the actors appear to be performing under duress, as if their loved ones are being held hostage to force them to participate in this slop. Fight scenes have choreography stiff as the Lee Harvey Oswald prison transfer. This film leaves the viewer not only feeling cheated, but literally being dumber for having watched it. On the positive side, some of the cinematography is good, notably the police chase scene, and highlights the exotic locales used in the film well.