Top-class cast and occasional stylish direction get in the way of a thriller that can’t make up its mind whether it is in reality just a spoof. On the one hand we have a killer in a white suit complete with straw boater and a secret service boss who sells Turkish Delight, on the other hand a story not so much from James Bond but from Bond imitators.
Agent Robert Ford (Christian Marquand) is on the trail of black boxes that prevent missiles launching. When wife Shanny (Jean Seberg) is framed for his murder she determines to uncover the real killer, aided by Dex (Maurice Ronet), and find the maker of the boxes.
But that’s an over-simplification of an over-complicated plot so it’s best to concentrate on the highlights. For example, when customs officials stop a magician they find white rabbits and doves in his vehicle and, despite severe interrogation, he can, magically, release himself from his bonds enough to swallow a concealed cyanide pill. Instead of the usual cute children that proliferate in these kind of films, there’s a really annoying one. Shanny, imprisoned, has to make dolls. Greek Orthodox priests play a significant role.
Throw in kinky secret service boss Sharps (Michel Bouquet) who relishes being slapped for his inappropriate overtures to Shanny, a porn film starring Madame Phiphi, the heroine dangled from a crane and later lashed down to a dumper, and a villain willing to throw up is villainy for the love of a good woman.
But mostly it’s a picture in a rush. There are chases galore and nods to Hitchcock and lush Greek scenery.
It would be easy to assume that in eye-catching outfits Jean Seberg (Moment to Moment, 1966) is mostly there to provide eye candy but she does manage to outwit her pursuers from time to time although she seems equally to have a knack for being caught. Maurice Ronet (Lost Command, 1966), Christian Marquand (The Corrupt Ones, 1967) and especially Michel Bouquet (La Femme Infidele, 1969) bring an air of quality to the proceedings.
Apart from the occasional stunning image, this is not the Claude Chabrol (Les Biches, 1968) that lovers of his thrillers would expect.
Ode to the male gaze. Once a cult vehicle, this will struggle to find favor these days what with its backward attitudes. Virtually impossible to excuse the rampant self-undulgence. The sexually exploited naïve Ewa Aulin in the title role didn’t even have the benefit of being turned into a star. The satire is executed with all the finesse of a blunderbuss. And while, theoretically, picking off a wild range of targets, if this movie has anything to say it’s to point out how easy it is for men to deify themselves at the slightest opportunity.
Not much of a narrative more a series of sketches slung together with the slightest connecting thread. Most its appeal lies in watching huge marquee names make fools of themselves. Or, if you’re that way inclined, seeing how much nudity will be imposed on the star, intimacy rarely consensual, clothes usually whipped off her.
Teenager Candy (Ewa Aulin) has father issues, daddy (Jack Austin) being a dumb angst-ridden teacher. Randy poet McPhisto (Richard Burton) drives a class of schoolgirls into a frenzy with his lusty reading, inveigles Candy into his chauffeur-driven car, ends up in her basement drunkenly humping a mannequin while Mexican gardener (Ringo Starr) with an accent as coruscating as that of Manuel from Fawlty Towers assaults her on pool table. Scandalized father packs her off to his twin brother in New York, that notoriously safe haven for nymphettes, while on the way to the airport they are almost driven off the road by the gardener’s vengeful biker sisters (Florinda Balkan et al).
For no apparent reason she is hitching a lift on a military plane commanded by randy Brigadier Smight (Walter Matthau) who, on the grounds that he hasn’t had sex for six years, commands her to remove her clothes for the good of the nation. In the Big Apple, rock star surgeon Dr Krankheir (James Coburn), entering the operating theater to the same kind of waves of acclaim as McPhisto, finds an excuse to have her undress and submit to him, this just after she’s managed to avoid the attentions of her randy uncle. It should come as no surprise that Krankheit treats women as his personal property to the extent of branding them like cattle.
In due course, she encounters a gang of mobsters, an underground movie director and a hunchback (Charles Aznavour) who, in return for her showing pity for his condition, proceeds to rape her. She is arrested. Guess who wants to frisk her. Naturally, when she escapes she runs into a bunch of drag queens.
Then she finds sanctuary in a semi-trailer truck, home to guru Grindl (Marlon Brando). He’d be convincing enough as a mystic except he, too, finds an excuse to rip her clothes off. There are more cops to contend with and another guru, facial features obscured by white clay. If they’re going to have sex then naturally it must be in a Hindu temple. Turns out the latest person to take advantage of her is her father but he’s been handed a get-out-of-jail-free card because by now he’s brain damaged.
This might all be a dream/nightmare. Candy might even be an alien. It’s dressed up in enough psychedelia to sink a battleship and its highly likely that any lass as gullible as Candy will find herself at the mercy of any man, so in that context it carries a powerful message. I’m sure many beautiful young girls will attest to the truth that men feel they have the right to paw anyone who comes their way without asking permission. And the other message is just as powerful – how many young actresses have been seduced by thoughts of fame to disport themselves in this fashion only to find that all the industry wants is their nudity not their acting talent.
You might say that the target is so obvious it hardly needs pointing out but the MeToo campaign will beg to differ and you would hope that Hollywood has wised up. It’s just a shame that the satire is so heavy-handed. The military and the medical profession are sorely in need to answering tough questions. Unfortunately, this picture doesn’t ask any. It’s like an endless casting couch.
Directed by Christian Marquand (Of Flesh and Blood, 1963) in, thankfully, his final picture, from a screenplay by Buck Henry (The Graduate, 1967) and Terry Southern (Dr Strangelove, 1962) based on the novel by Southern and Mason Hoffenberg. Nobody comes out of this well and it’s rammed full of cameos from the likes of Elsa Martinelli (The Belle Starr Story, 1968), John Huston (Myra Breckenridge, 1970), Anita Pallenberg (Performance, 1970), Marilu Tolo (Bluebeard, 1972) and boxer Sugar Ray Robinson.
Ewa Aulin (Start the Revolution Without Me, 1971) isn’t given much of chance, her character whimsical, pallid and submissive and she didn’t become a major marquee name.
Top-class cast and occasional stylish direction get in the way of a thriller that can’t make up its mind whether it is in reality just a spoof. On the one hand we have a killer in a white suit complete with straw boater and a secret service boss who sells Turkish Delight, on the other hand a story not so much from James Bond but from Bond imitators.
Agent Robert Ford (Christian Marquand) is on the trail of black boxes that prevent missiles launching. When wife Shanny (Jean Seberg) is framed for his murder she determines to uncover the real killer, aided by Dex (Maurice Ronet), and find the maker of the boxes.
But that’s an over-simplification of an over-complicated plot so it’s best to concentrate on the highlights. For example, when customs officials stop a magician they find white rabbits and doves in his vehicle and, despite severe interrogation, he can, magically, release himself from his bonds enough to swallow a concealed cyanide pill. Instead of the usual cute children that proliferate in these kind of films, there’s a really annoying one. Shanny, imprisoned, has to make dolls. Greek Orthodox priests play a significant role.
Throw in kinky secret service boss Sharps (Michel Bouquet) who relishes being slapped for his inappropriate overtures to Shanny, a porn film starring Madame Phiphi, the heroine dangled from a crane and later lashed down to a dumper, and a villain willing to give up his villainy for the love of a good woman.
But mostly it’s a picture in a rush. There are chases galore and nods to Hitchcock and lush Greek scenery.
It would be easy to assume that in eye-catching outfits Jean Seberg (Moment to Moment, 1966) is mostly there to provide eye candy but she does manage to outwit her pursuers from time to time although she seems equally to have a knack for being caught. Maurice Ronet (Lost Command, 1966), Christian Marquand (The Corrupt Ones, 1967) and especially Michel Bouquet (La Femme Infidele, 1969) bring an air of quality to the proceedings.
Apart from the occasional stunning image, this is not the Claude Chabrol (Les Biches, 1968) that lovers of his thrillers would expect.
There’s a print of this on Youtube. Amazon Prime has this for certain regions. Otherwise it will be Ebay.
Non-stop action as spy Robert Stack (The Untouchables tv series) battles a variety of crooks in Macao on the Chinese border as they seek the legendary Peking medallion. Stack hails from the James Bond school of espionage, duty bound to kiss every girl he meets. He might wonder at their compliance until he realizes they are only after his knowledge of the missing medallion.
The violence is criminally brutal – punch-ups, gunfights, samurai swordfights, murder, torture by blowtorch and acid and being dragged behind a motorboat. The string of sexy women is matched by handsome men (Christian Marquand and Maurizio Arena in addition to Stack). The thriller pitches helter-skelter through nightclubs, casinos, caves, temples and palatial mansions, the pace only slowing down for, naturally, a scene in a stately rickshaw.
As well as Stack who briefly – and unknowingly – has the medallion in his possession, others in the hunt include Elke Sommer, wife of the man (Arena) who passed it to Stack before being killed. Sommer is on the wrong side of the femme fatale equation. Once Stack is wise to her seductive charms he quips, “Maybe you’re telling the truth but I can’t trust you.”
The original title of the picture was “Hell in Macao” and that was used in Germany for example. It was called “The Peking Medallion” in the UK, Italy and Mexico and “The Corrupt Ones” in the US, France and Spain.
Also in hot pursuit are gangster Brandon (Marquand) and a Chinese mob headed by Nancy Kwan (The World of Suzie Wong, 1960). That’s on top of a corrupt cop (“I have never feared death only poverty” is his mantra) who doesn’t care who wins the prize as long as he gets his share. Double cross is the order of the day, alliances forged then broken. The action never stops long enough for one of those tension-building scenes of which Alfred Hitchcock or imitators like Stanley Donen (Charade, 1963, and Arabesque, 1966) were so fond.
Stack faces danger with a quip, a kiss or gritted teeth, an old-fashioned tough guy without the James Bond self-awareness. He carries out his manly duties until his brain kicks in and he realizes this isn’t a spy picture after all but a genuine treasure hunt with clues that have to be deciphered. As this causes the movie to sidetrack down another route, it looks like the picture has lost the plot. But then all hell breaks loose and we are back on the safe ground of fistfights, double-crossing and shooting.
The script by Brian Clemens deftly mixes a variety of genres. What might have been a definite change of pace for British director James Hill given his previous effort was Born Free (1966) was anything but since he was responsible for the most recent Sherlock Holmes thriller A Study in Terror (1965).
Fans of improbable storylines, exotic settings, action, interesting bad guys and twists and turns will love this. How can you fail to love a movie with a fight featuring a samurai sword versus a camera tripod?
Many of the films from the 1960s are to be found free of charge on TCM and Sony Movies and the British Talking Pictures as well as mainstream television channels. But if this film is not available through these routes, then here is the link to the DVD and/or streaming service.
The Magnificent 60s 