Kiss The Girls And Make Them Die (1966)

Rio…when it swings – right from the ground! Rio…where it’s really happening, baby!

A super villain plans to render the world impotent with a secret weapon and repopulate it himself. A crack CIA agent tracks him down to Rio and then teams up with a British spy and her chauffeur to foil his nefarious schemes.

Silly but entertaining James Bond spoof from Italian super-producer Dino De Laurentiis. The action opens on the statue of Christ the Redeemer over Rio and it’s an impressive sequence that the rest of the movie never matches. But fun is to be had along the way to the explosive climax as megalomanic Raf Vallone (excellent) orchestrates a fiendish plot involving kidnapping, murder and mayhem. Vallone plays it straight, which helps the comedy and there are many knowing references to the idiotic spy gadgetry of the time.

Our heroes are American agent Mike Connors and ‘British’ counterpart Dorothy Provine. She’s assisted by the wonderful Terry-Thomas as chauffeur James and it is their relationship that provides most of the entertainment. It’s obviously based on the Lady Penelope-Parker dynamic from ‘Thunderbirds’ and both of them play it to the hilt, Provine sporting the most spectacular English accent since Dick Van Dyke sang about chimneys in ‘Mary Poppins’ (1964). Connors is also good, managing to walk the line between charm and smarm much more effectively than many other Bond clones of the 1960s. Apparently, he’d only just lost out to Dean Martin for the Matt Helm series and you can see why it would have been a close run thing. In another connection to those films, series regular Beverley Adams (‘Lovey Kravezit’) also appears here and there’s also an appearance from Eurospy regular Seyna Seyn.

I know my English accent was terrible but this is going a bit far…

The film is too long at an hour and three quarters but is quite lively and has its fair share of guns, gadgets and girls. Some might regard proceedings as a little on the misogynist side but it doesn’t take itself remotely seriously and hits its comedy targets pretty effectively. After all, it’s not easy to spoof something that could be regarded as somewhat of a spoof in the first place.

Not a wonderful viewing experience by any means but a definite cut above the slew of Euro-spy/Bond knock-offs that were flooding the market from the continent at the time.