Missile X

Set in Iran just before the revolution,this film is a low budget spy adventure,which I saw as Cruise Missile, that wastes a good cast in a cliched movie.Peter Graves plays an American agent sent to investigate the murder of a fellow agent who was investigating an international businessman known as The Baron,played by Curt Jurgens. The Baron has obtained a Soviet nuclear missile with which he intends to attack an international conference being held in the Persian Gulf.John Carradine had a pointless role as a Russian scientist who was aiding the Baron.It was not his finest hour. The most curious thing though, were all the references through background news broadcasts to the Ayatollah Khomeni causing trouble in Paris. I gave this movie a 4.If you're looking for James Bond or Mission:Impossible(TV) don't see this film.If you want to count cliches you might find this funny.

Peter Graves is the iconic 70's agent material, and MISSLE X is one of his lesser features exploiting the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE persona. However, the non-Hollywood production atmosphere fills this one up with highly paid stars doing some exploitation work that you can't usually see under the major studio banner.

MISSILE X delivers violence, menace and a few neat Packinpah influenced shootouts in this noirish and yet very Bondian tale o stolen Soviet cruise missile being smuggled into Iran and put on wholesale.

The whole American male agent alternately versus and with Russian female agent fighting the villain played by Kurt Jurgens makes MISSILE X look like a THE SPY WHO LOVED ME rip-off. And that definition holds. However, this film is derivative that it simply cannot stand such singled out rip-off allegation.

Tehran is well used as a location and the mixture of Iranian luxury juxtaposed on very poor suburbs precisely explains why the revolution eventually took place there. This film, with its' unashamed Western jive and aim to exploit the Persian setting may as well be used as the epitome of Iranian revolution and the Shah's decadence.

Overall, MISSILE X is the ideal programmer for the 70's superagent fare hounds. It may as well be worth the search.

A US secret agent and his Soviet counterpart are hot on the trail of a madman with a stolen nuclear missile. The meet-up in Iran and decide to work together to save the world.

This is yet another case where I readily admit the movie in question isn't very good. To me, however, there is some (some - not a lot - just some) entertainment to be had in Missile X: The Neutron Bomb Incident (we'll shorten that to Missile X for the rest of this). Granted, much of the enjoyment I derived from Missile X wasn't what the filmmakers were going for, but this film is quite often unintentionally hilarious. I'll limit this to three examples. First, there's Peter Graves as the Bond-like hero, Alex Franklin. It's near impossible to take him seriously. He's far too old for the role. And watching him put the moves on some young woman is just plain hysterical. Next, Missile X features some of the worst (and funniest) fight choreography I've seen. There's a hotel casino fight that had me laughing out loud. Or the shoot-out between the good guys and the bad guys where they're no more than 10 feet apart, yet no one gets hit. Third, there's the ridiculous music accompanying almost every scene. It has 70s feel to it that is totally out of place in Missile X. It's hard not to giggle when even the most mundane events, like getting in a taxi, are backed by a loud, funky organ riff.

I suppose that one of the most interesting aspects of Missile X are shots of pre-Revolution Iran. Other than the Iran bits and laugh or two, there's not much here to recommend.

4/10

Missile X the neutron bomb incident, also called incident in teheran. Peter graves, john carradine. American spy travels to the east to find out who has the stolen missile, and what they plan to do with it. It's just awful. Bad script. Bad acting. Cheesy music. Terrible sound quality. Casinos in tehran?? Doesn't seem very likely. The trivia section states this was actually filmed in tehran, iran in 1978. This was just before the revolution there. And just before graves did airplane. He had been in the biz for 35 years by this time. Missile x was probably not his best choice of scripts. Directed by leslie martinson. Looks like martinson did a lot of television between the occasional films.

It was a great campy spy film.

I was sad to find out Pouri, the actress who played the undercover police captain, didn't get out of Iran in time and spent a year in Islamic jail and never acted again.