Trahison à Stockholm

The kind of movie you forget easily and quickly that you saw. Even if you see it again, it's not very clear what was about. Something with spies, Americans, Russians, English and no one knows who else. More than modest copy of the James Bond movies, so much imitated in the '60s, without success. Sergio Grieco tried the genre before, starring the same Ken Clark, a real American, tall, handsome, well-made man, not a very good actor, with previous productions like: "Tiffany memorandum" (1967), "From the Orient with Fury "(1965)," Mission Bloody Mary "(1965). Another one, "Special Mission Lady Chaplin (1966), starring also Daniela Bianchi, "borrowed" from a real Bond, is the most successful film he did. In this "Rapporto Fuller, based in Stockholm" the partner is another female beauty, something like Daniela Bianchi, not also as talented, the Serbian Beba Loncar, also seen in "The Long Ships" (1964). Armando Trovajoli's music is not great at all, on the contrary. Only for the ardent fans of the genre!

Ken Clark is such a lug. All he wants out of his visit to Stockholm is a Swedish girl but luckily for us he gets much more. I say luckily because this is a heck of a fun movie. Clark plays Dick Worth, an American racing driver in Stockholm to put on an exhibition that his boss Bennet (Jess Hahn) hopes will result in orders for cars. At least that's what Worth believes. Worth gets drawn into CIA business when he is mistaken for a spy and takes on the job of recovering the Fuller Report, CIA information about an assassination plot.

The entire production is visually impressive especially an interrogation and gunfight sequence that takes place in a lumber yard. It's an outstanding location chosen, no doubt, for the many horizontal lines that accent the action. It was even memorable enough to make it onto the Belgian poster! At the end of this sequence, after Worth and his lady have temporarily escaped the clutches of the bad guys, she says to him `I was afraid they would kill you' and he responds `Yeah me too.'

The racing car milieu makes for some fun but the hands down winner here is the killer score by Armando Trovajoli. It's practically non-stop jazzy spy pop that will have you humming long after the VCR has rewound. Look for this one, it's recommended.

Ken Clark plays a race car driver, who somehow gets mixed up with real spies. Ken keeps on trying to get them to leave him alone, but they keep involving him. He manages to fall in love with the lovely Beba Loncar , who is the central pawn in the conspiracy. After all the usual car chases and shootouts, all the answers are made clear. When I first heard of this move, I thought it was just a continuation of Ken Clark' run as a James Bond imitation, but it wasn't. After the overly complicated story line is unraveled, and the dust settles, the story actually makes some sense, sort of. In all TV versions and video releases, there is a 2 minute segment cut out, which has Ken Clark in a bath house were all the women are topless. That segment is only seen in the recent Italian/English re-release. Even though it is released under many titles, this movie is still hard to find. Larry Anderson.

Although most of the violence is not overly graphic there is quite a high body count in this this well paced Eurospy. Our Hero handsome race car driver Dick Worth (Ken Clark) just keeps getting pulled back into the Spy Vs Spy life, but with the lovely Ballerina Svetlana ( Beba Loncar) waiting for him he figures it's all worth it.

Jess Hahn is very good as the Race Car owner Bennet, but I was a little distracted as he is a dead ringer for Mike Pompeo. A lot of nice old cars including a 65 Mustang, a cool race car, and a stunning 63 XKE. A Very Good Eurospy.

One of the most unexpected things about the "Fuller Report" is that its central hero is NOT a secret agent, but a race car driver who gets caught up in the espionage business purely by chance. So he has to survive more on his wits and instincts rather than his skills. The plot itself is quite intriguing, though a little rushed near the end, with a couple of twists you probably won't see coming. Ken Clark is agreeable as the hero, and Beba Loncar is beyond gorgeous as the Russian ballerina about whom the (now missing) title report has been written and who may or may not know more than she is telling; seriously, even the word "gorgeous" is not adequate to describe this woman. Well-shot in Stockholm, Zürich and London, the film is no great shakes, but for fans of the genre, it does the job. ** out of 4.