‘I’m not particularly impressed by this secret agent, spy novel type of rubbish.’
The CIA is concerned when evidence suggests that a sunken naval atomic submarine has been raised from the sea bed. Their top agent is sent to Madrid to begin an investigation, and it’s not long before the bullets start to fly…
Engagingly ridiculous Eurospythat was the final chapter in the trilogy starring Ken Clark as Agent 077, Dick Malloy. Some sources give usual director Sergio Grieco co-billing here, but most allocate sole credit to Alberto de Martino.
In a hilltop monastery, two monks meet their end, courtesy of a nun with a machine gun. The assassin in disguise is Lady Arabella Chaplin (Daniela Bianchi), hit woman in residence for supervillain Kobre Zoltan (Jacques Bergerac). Meanwhile, CIA Chief Heston (Philippe Hersent) and top agent Malloy (Clark) are concerned with the appearance of a set of identity tags belonging to a naval officer who drowned in the wreck of a nuclear submarine. The boat is supposedly still on the ocean floor, and its missiles have never been recovered.
Hersent and Clark go to see Bergerac as he’s the only man who has the available resources to try raising the sub, but the tycoon dismisses the task as impossible. Clark remains suspicious, but Hersent sends him to Madrid instead to pursue the investigation and recover the tags. When his only lead is killed, the trail leads Clark to Bianchi and her high-end fashion house. The agency place Jacqueline (Mabel Karr) undercover at the salon while Clark breaks into Bergerac’s estate, looking for evidence. Unable to find anything concrete, he decides to look for answers in the wreck of the submarine.
Gloriously silly spy-jinks with some wonderfully outlandish touches make it one of the most engaging of the genre. Clark’s journey takes him from Madrid to London and Paris to the ocean floor. The ejection system in his sports car shoots him out via the trunk; he takes a trip in a bathysphere and fights one of the villain’s henchmen on a train, who has a metal hook for a hand. Bergerac also has a pet scorpion called Genghis Khan, who fights as entertainment at parties. His silent partner turns out to be sexy enemy agent Helga Liné who also appeared in ‘Mission Bloody Mary/Agente 077 missione Bloody Mary’ (1965), Clark’s first adventure as Malloy.
Highlights also come courtesy of Bianchi’s Lady Chaplin. She uses a weaponised wheelchair to carry out one assassination while disguised as the old mother of the local Police Commissioner. Later, she subdues half a dozen soldiers in a train car and transforms missile fuel into a red dress, which is definitely not recommended as casual evening wear when the action hots up. She’s also thrown out of a plane in mid-air, but not to worry, her skirt turns into a parachute! Moments later, she hits the ground wearing a catsuit, accessorised with a machine gun!
There’s also a good interplay between Clark and Bianchi. However, Bergerac makes for a somewhat bland villain, and there’s not much for statuesque henchwoman Constance (Evelyn Stewart) to do other than look fabulous in some appropriately ‘Sixties’ creations. Although there are more than enough preposterous moments to catapult the entire enterprise into a spoof, beyond a definite twinkle in Clark’s eye, everyone plays it straight, which adds to the entertainment value. On the debits side, there’s little that’s dynamic or noteworthy about De Martino’s direction. Coupled with Bergerac’s underwhelming performance, it drains the energy levels a little and holds the picture back somewhat. It could have become a genuine cult item in other, more creative hands.
The careers of all the principals reached their peak in the 1960s. Clark was a leading man in Italian cinema for about a dozen years and is mostly remembered for his espionage exploits, although he appeared to good effect in a couple of Westerns for director Mario Bava, particularly ‘Savage Gringo/Ringo del Nebraska/Nebraska Jim’ (1966). Bianchi began on a high as Sean Connery’s romantic interest in Bond adventure ‘From Russia with Love’ (1963) but never overcame her problems with learning the English language and her thick Italian accent. Bergerac was most famous for appearing as Freddy the Fence on TV’s iconic ‘Batman’ show and, off-screen, as Ginger Rogers fourth husband. More successful on the screen than all three was Liné, whose busy career numbered almost 150 credits, including appearing with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee on the ‘Horror Express/Pánico en el Transiberiano’ (1972) and in the title role of Amando de Ossorio’s ‘The Loreley’s Grasp/Las garras de Lorelei’ (1973).
De Martino began his workmanlike career as a writer for television but stepped behind the movie camera for the first time with Peplum adventure ‘The Invincible Gladiator/Il gladiatore invincibile’ (1961). Other earlier projects included tiresome Spaghetti Western comedy ‘Terrible Sheriff/Due contro tutti’ (1962) and the wonderfully cheesy ‘Perseus Against The Monsters/Perseo L’lnvincibile/The Medusa Against The Sons of Hercules’ (1963). His other Eurospy projects credits were the superior ‘Upper seven, L’uomo Da Uccidere/The Spy With Ten Faces/Man of A Thousand Masks’ (1966) and bizarre spoof ‘OK Connery/Operation Kid Brother’ (1967), which featured Sean’s brother Neil and many refugees from the Bond franchise, including Bianchi. Following whatever trend was box office gold at the time, he spent most of the late 1960s delivering Spaghetti Westerns, helmed a couple of Giallo thrillers in the early 1970s and followed up with ‘Exorcist’ riff ‘The Anitchrist/L’anticristo’ (1974) and bizarre ‘Omen’ knock-off ‘Holocaust 2000’ (1977). One of his final projects featured the hilarious exploits of bargain basement superhero ‘The Pumaman/L’uomo puma’ (1980).
A fun Eurospy; one of the best examples of the genre.
Mark David Welsh 