Seth Holt directed this but no one was happy with it - not him or Amicus. I've got to say though I didn't mind it.
You can tell it was a tricky production - the movie doesn't have a cohesive feel. Characters come and go. It's like it needed to be in black and white and made five years previously or something. It seems unsure how violent to be, or how sexy, or how cynical. Dr No when it came out felt confident of its tone - this doesn't.
Still there are pleasures - the opening scene of the government agent whispering the job, the novelty of Richard Johnson as a hero. Carol Lynley isn't really at home in this sort of movie - the voice lets her down. Barbara Bouchet has the perect looks - she's a stunner - but not the voice. Maybe Bouchet and Lynley's part should have been combined. They should have had different hair.
Gordon Jackson is excellent as an agent; Maurice Denham isn't bad, Harry Andrew is reliably excellent as are Sylvia Syms and Sam Wanamaker. The meet cute between Lynley and Johnson - where they pretend to know each other but actually do - predates the similar one in Butch Cassidy.
Doris Doris is always fun to see - here she's an aging housekeeper, plump, nice, lonely and horny, with a husband in Australia looking "after sheep". Her scenes with Johnson do slightly feel like they're in a different movie to the rest. She would've been better than Lynley in her part but she would've been considered to be too old.
The action scenes aren't particularly well done. This is a movie that got away. But it was late 60s spy stuff with some great actors and twists - I went with it.
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