Super 7 appelle le sphinx

Another of the numerous Bond like spy films of the sixties, Italian made I think so it's dubbed in English. I know a lot of people don't like this but in this case it's done pretty well.

Roger Browne plays Martin Stevens, aka Superseven is sent to Cairo to recover sensitive equipment before the Soviets get their hands on it. There's not many people he can trust, especially the many beautiful ladies that frequently turn up. Whilst the storyline and characters are pretty formulaic the location work is not. It's fantastic to see Paris, Rome and Cairo in the mid sixties before mass tourism arrived, for that alone this is worth a watch.

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.

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.

Roger Browne is another Eurospy "heavyweight", making 6 films which can be considered part of the Eurospy genre in a general sense. "Operation Poker", "Password - Kill Agent Gordon", "Rififi In Amsterdam", "Last Man To Kill" and two as secret agent "Martin Stevens", "The Spy Who Loved Flowers" and this one.

Although all the Eurospies I seen have been romantically inclined, none of them has come close to challenging the alpha male bedroom exploits of Sean Connery era James Bond, in fact most of them are lucky if they manage to bed even a single lady over the course of a movie. That changes here, as when we are introduced to Roger, he is already in bed with a female of the species and, soon after, he kills her with his trusty fountain pen gun (before she can shoot him). Ten minutes in and he's bedding his second, after the obligatory "what are you doing in my room" scene. He's busy working on his third prospect when he comes across an old girlfriend, so he has to forgo a possible reunion there. However the third one never quite works out for him, so he comes up short of attaining the level of sexual prowess achieved by Connery-Bond or Moore-Bond (usually 2 or 3, occasionally as high as 4)

I think Roger is the first pipe smoking "International Man of Mystery" I've come across, but alas, it has no alternative function. However he does have a radio transmitter in his shaver, in addition to the trusty pen gun, both of which get plenty of use over the course of the movie.

This a polished production, sturdy and dependable, but somehow uninspired, missing some spark of energy which allows the better Eurospys to punch above their weight. The dialogue is functional but lacking any particular wit or sophistication. They have an occasional stab at "Avengers" style whimsy (with the Napoleonic mannequins) or "Swinging 60s Psychedelia" (when the henchmen put on swimming goggles and overpower Roger with infra-red light in some unexplained way) but those moments seem out of place with the rest of the film, which is a bit more "grounded".

The McGuffin is a sample of a newly discovered element called "Baltonium", which was hidden inside a camera lens, that has accidently been passed on to an unsuspecting tourist, while in the process of being smuggled.

There are plenty of exotic locations on show. Stock footage takes us to Paris (for the prologue), London (for mission assignment and fight training), Cairo (for all the expected spy movie activities), Locarno, on Lake Maggiore (in lieu of the Riviera) and finally Rome (although, in fact, none of the outdoor events in "Rome" take place in the historic city centre). I think the production probably did actually pay a visit Cairo and the lake in order to supplement the stock footage.

The casting provides a decent villain with a suitable array of distinctive henchmen and beautiful women.

Action arrives at suitable intervals, but is more enthusiastic than well-choreographed. The music performs its function, supporting the mood of onscreen events. However the ending is a bit of a disappointment. The villains' boat breaking down out of the blue, for no good reason, is very lame. The rom-com epilogue is clunky, like much of the rest of the movie.

Overall this is competent but unremarkable.

One of the better and more serious James Bond rip offs. The film has low budget but takes itself seriously and avoids camp. Superseven needs to track down a rare radioactive material hidden in a camera. This sends him off to Cario where most of the film takes place. Meanwhile, the bed guys want get the material first, or at least let Superseven lead them to it. There he meets Rosalba Neri's Faddja, who is forced to help the bad guys to pay off her debt to them. Rosalba gets decent screen time here and looks great. Her role is a bit more involved in the plot than many of her films. It's hard to tell if she's with the hero or against him, which is an plus given the majority of the characters she played. A huge surprise for me here was the female lead, Fabienne Dali. She played the old woman Ruth in KILL BABY KILL under a load of make up. She's a femme fatale here and 180 degrees from Ruth. I watched a dreadful looking full screen English dubbed print. There is a widescreen German DVD I would love to see sometime, a good looking copy would improve the film's pleasure tenfold.