Pas de roses pour O.S.S. 117

James Bond rip-offs were all the rage in mid-60s cinema, and here's a fairly good one. John Gavin is OSS 117, America's greatest secret agent, who must foil the attempted assassination of a peace broker. Apparently, 'billions' of dollars of arms sales are at risk, even though the warring 'tribes' apparently consist of about two dozen besworded Arabs. Nonetheless, Gavin is off on a mid-East jaunt, where he is pitted against...not much in the way of villains, really. He meets the beautiful daughter of a local mucky-muck, played by a most attractive Margaret Lee, and in between wooing her and killing the odd bad guy he manages to save the day.

This review is based on the Media Home Entertainment video of almost 20 years ago, and as would be expected, the print quality is fair to poor. Obvious screen compression ruins a number of shots and we can only look forward to the day when Anchor Bay chooses to restore this film to all its widescreen splendour.

Yet another of those made-in-Europe "spy thrillers" inspired by the success of the James Bond movies, "Murder for Sale" will evaporate from your memory even as you watch it.

John Gavin lacks the roguish charm, cynical edge, and tough-guy assurance needed to bring off this kind of part. He seems, as always, sincere and dutiful and anxious to please and one can't but help feel a bit sorry for him. But, hey, what other actor can claim to have been directed by Douglas Sirk, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Peter Ustinov?

The best scene comes early in the movie when the police come to arrest Gavin who's sleeping in a hotel room. Gavin jumps out of bed and, as music from "Carmen" plays on the soundtrack, fends off the cops by using his bedsheet the way a matador uses his scarlet cape. Gavin apparently sleeps "in the raw" and this scene gives him a chance to show off his bare and oh-so-beautiful chest.

The "French James Bond" OSS 117 and his fifth mission - this time with John Gavin

In the EuroSpy film series about OSS 117 released by the French mini-major GAUMONT, the main actors took the lead. After Kerwin Mathews and Frederick Stafford, Hollywood smartie John Gavin (Psycho) was already the third OSS 117. The Golden Globe winner (Time to Live, Time to Die) did so well that he was seriously considered James Bond -The successor to George Lazenby, who left the company, was traded. The attractive John Gavin would also have cut a good figure as 007. Under the direction of experienced director Andre Hunebelle, filming took place in Rome (gorgeous images of the Eternal City) and Tunisia.

This time OSS 117 has to deal with a gang that hires out hitmen and is called "The Organization". To get in there, the super agent with a freshly operated face (that's how the change in actors is explained in the film) pretends to be a bad bank robber who likes to shoot tons of people. This brings him to the attention of the organization and quickly frees him from the clutches of the police, who were able to arrest him after an hour with the lovely dancer Conchita Esteban (Rosalba Neri). He is prepared for his work in a strange villa. The beautiful doctor Maud (Bond villain Luciana Paluzzi) is responsible for his physical needs, including in bed, of course! There (in the villa, not in bed!) he also gets to know the boss of the gang, called the Major (strangely slippery: Curd Jürgens), and his tall assistant Karas (George Eastman). Soon we're off to the Orient for our first job, which is fraught with all sorts of complications. Love is once again not neglected (Margaret Lee as Aicha), but there is also a really nasty colleague (Robert Hossein as Dr. Saadi) of the cuddly Maud. Will OSS 117 succeed in preventing the planned assassination attempt on the scientist van Dyck? Will the Major's gang of criminals be defeated?

Beautiful ladies who tie the attractive hero to the bed in rows, lively fistfights (including with George Eastman), beautiful pictures and a humorous plot - you can't expect more from a EuroSpy classic. 316,000 tickets were still sold in West German cinemas; the heyday for this type of film was certainly over. This film is still fun to watch in the home theater today.

James Bond style film made in Europe -that is professionally made but without the Hollywood touch that gave James Bond series or -in a minor way- Matt Helm ones their lust. Maybe John Gavin was not the best choice for the role -even him seems to think he is miscast- and his acting is unconvincing. Curd Jürgens is totally wasted as the villain with only a couple of scenes and not much to do with them. Margaret Lee with her limited acting abilities does not convince as the lady in distress. The film also lacks of some humoresque touches and when -scarcely- they do appear seem to be out of place.Fight scenes are rather bad (maybe with the exception of the last one on the mansion roof). They could have got the most out of the poison/antidot matter: it is supposed that a so experienced secret agent would surely expect some trick about it and consequently had a better plan far than expecting a last minute antidot that could finally not be such so. Plot is rather poor and characters too plain to succeed. Maybe a better script and dialogues and a more talented director's work would have made a better film but that's something we will never know. By the way, the blu ray edition is really nice: bright colors emphasizing fab. locations and high definition image that sometimes give the impresion of watching a 3D movie. The OSS117 series had two enjoyable same style remake versions in 2006 (OSS117: Le Caire nid d'espions) & 2009( OSS117: Rio ne répond plus), both directed by Michel Hazanavizius with Jean DuJardin as Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath -same team that did The Artist.

This is one of the later entries in the Eurospy, and more specifically in the OSS 117, cycle, and it's probably one of the better ones as well. The two main reasons for that are: 1) The cast. John Gavin is one of the most capable "pseudo-Bonds" of the era, with a good comic flair; you can see why he actually came very close to being the REAL Bond once, in 1971, before Sean Connery changed his mind and came back for "Diamonds Are Forever", Margaret Lee is playfully attractive, Curt Jurgens makes a suitable villain (just like he would a decade later in "The Spy Who Loved Me"), Robert Hossein plays another soft-spoken evil doctor (just like he did in "OSS 117: Panic In Bangkok"), and even the luscious Luciana Paluzzi of "Thunderball" fame is around, though only for about 10 minutes and then she vanishes. 2) Unlike many Eurospy films, this one is not driven by fight scenes at every opportunity. There are some fights, to be sure, and they're pretty good, but most of the time the film is just trying to tell a story. Admittedly the climactic fall of the criminal "Organization" should have been more spectacular - maybe the producers ran out of budget by that point? **1/2 out of 4.