Matt Helm traqué

Some think this is the worst. I say it is the best. A must see Austin Powers fans. Matt Helm inspired the rotating round bed. This movie had the gun in the bra (Fembots) and the Arab assassin. Co-star Janic Rule was great as a fellow agent. The dialog was like Steed and Miss Peale. Better than the past Helm females that were comic relief. The story was put together well, a bit silly about a flying saucer that only women can operate, but the plot line was solid. Not much filler action or girl scenes. Great location shot and the jazzed Mexican background music fit just right. Good action scene in the beer factory. The lifting machines used to lift kegs may have inspired the fight in the Alien film. A fun film.

Superspy Matt Helm is back in action.

My God! What a great UNDER-RATED movie! Where do I start? The opening theme song and the images that go with it get ten out of ten. Then after we are finished with the cool theme music we cut to the spaceship...with some cool Hugo Montenergo music playing over the spaceship footage. From this point I am hooked on this fun very 1960s movie! Dean Martin, Kurt Kasznar (pre-Land of the Giants) and Albert Salmi are outstanding!

The only thing I have against the film is the train-track scene where it is a bit too obvious that the actors are actually in the studio and not out on location at all.

I have seen all the 60s Matt Helm movies and they are all great. The Ambushers is my favourite of the bunch as it has more of a science fiction element than the others. It is too bad these films don't seem to get the expected TV reruns these days (atleast in my country of Australia) but I am guessing the sexist nature of them might bother some? But they are a product of the time so it is not something we should be upset about today. After all, 60s 007 movies still get screenings around the clock and nobody complains about them.

Frankly, I am not too big on Dean Martin as a singer so he will always be Matt Helm to me. I wonder how he would feel about that? The Ambushers is a must see!

Nice, entertaining movie -having in mind that this is not a serious film but a James Bond parody full of clichés, male chauvinism, sex object female characters and absurd situations. Still, it is a nice sixties movie full of colour, impossible groovy fashions and happy pop music. The final joke about Sinatra and Martin music is an eye blink to the rat pack films they made together. Dean Martin seems to be having a good time as watchers do. Light entertainment.

This Helm flick should be ranked slightly lower than THE SILENCERS or MURDERER'S ROW, but definitely better than that final train wreck - THE WRECKING CREW (great babes though). The Ambushers sports Janice Rule (great actress from the 60's - check her out in THE CHASE with Brando) and Senta Berger, a European beauty with exotic looks and voice. Beverly Adams is on hand again as the sweetheart assistant, Lovey Kravezit.

A 4 out of 10. Best performance = Janice Rule. Give this one a chance. It's not THAT bad! Dino is starting to show a lack of energy by the end of it, but the girls hold him up. If you're not a complete spy-spoof snob, this is a perfect way to waste 100 minutes.

The third of Dean Martin's Matt Helm adventures is generally considered to be the worst of the quartet but, while undeniably the silliest (especially in the film's relentless concession to go-go dancing), it's still never less than enjoyable; I'd say these goofy spy sagas were basically the rough template for the jokey version of James Bond as depicted throughout Roger Moore's tenure in that series!

While here we don't get the hero thinking in song per his usual custom (though Hugo Montenegro's lounge score is as infectious as ever), all of the character's other traits are allowed full sway: the constant intake of alcohol, the lethal attraction to women, the dubious gadgets (guns shooting heat rays or causing people to levitate, an inflatable tent complete with comfort accessories, cigars emitting laughing gas, while even the women spies are given the benefit of narcoleptic lipstick and bullet-shooting bra – the latter device has actually reminded me that I've yet to check out the Vincent Price sci-fi comedy DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE [1965]) that I've recently acquired.

The two leading ladies themselves are well chosen: Senta Berger (somewhat ill-used, though, as the obligatory duplicitous female – especially since she's eventually disposed off rather too quickly, and not even by Helm!) and Janice Rule (quite delightful as Martin's companion but who also gets to play an important role in the mission); besides, as ever, there's a plethora of other beauties on hand – including Helm's ubiquitous secretary Lovey Kravezit (Beverly Adams yet again). The villains, too, are notable: Albert Salmi and Kurt Kasznar; as for the action scenes, perhaps the most elaborate is the one inside Kasznar's brewery…and, of course, a jab at Martin's fellow Rat Packer Frank Sinatra never goes amiss! For the record, the best line in the film has Berger toasting via the traditional Scandinavian epithet of "Skol", with Martin's instant retort being "Sure it's cold – it's got ice in it!"

The plot, for what it is, involves the theft of a flying saucer (though we're never told just what Salmi intends to do with it and, in fact, is later visited by interested parties bidding for possession of it) which, it transpires, can only be flown by a woman – as the atmosphere inside is fatal to the male of the species (huh?). The comic-strip nature of the film extends to the climax – in which Helm chases the runaway saucer (speeding across a railway track with Rule still inside it) on a motorbike (he even goes underwater on top of it and comes up with an alligator seated in the sidecar!) – which, however, is rather marred by the rampant back-projection involved.