More down’n’dirty Eurospy than the more pervasive high-gloss alternative and with some interesting directorial touches, especially in relation to POV, a narrative that leads you a merry dance but mostly down the road of grubby international politics, plus an eclectic score from Nora Orlandi. Even with actors I’d never heard of, and no idea how the DVD even ended up in my collection, it works well.
Opening Parisian sequence a standout. Gunman bursts through an office door, marches older occupant towards the exit. Outside, however, it’s the older man who emerges, climbs into a waiting car and again it’s he who comes out of that, leaving slit throats in his wake. The survivor, with a ramrod-stiff demeanor, turns out to be Col Segura (Gianni Solaro), wanted by the authorites for clandestine activites in Cuba in 1961 and for instigating too many apparent suicides.
Agent OS47 Cooper (Lang Jeffries), drafted in to track him down, does so by means of a letter supposedly written to his mistress Claire Beckett (hence the title) who is nowhere to be found. Next best thing is her secretary, blonde bombshell Helen (Nathalie Nort), who is already on Segura’s radar and is promptly kidnapped and then used to lure Cooper to a breaker’s yard where various tough guys want to beat him to death. Beckett, it transpires, ain’t going to be found unless you fancy digging graves.
The good guys are as villainous as the villains, torturing a suspect. As you might expect, there’s a heap of double-crossing, another agent as well as a cop in the pay of the opposition. Cooper’s sidekick Paulette (Krista Nell) is as tough as anyone, her beauty belying her fighting skills. The plot’s somewhat complicated and leads Cooper to being hired by Segura to assassinate a Nicaraguan leader, the notion of liberating Cuba just a front to mislead Segura’s pursuers.
Action sequences are more limited than the normal run of spy pictures, but when they come they pack a punch. The tussle in the breaker’s yard might appeal more than that in Mickey One (1965) for resisting the temptation to go down the existential or metaphorical route. Like the rest of the film it’s a down’n’dirty scrapyard. In the best action sequence, with an idea I’ve seen later stolen, the music playing that you assume to be the film’s score abruptly ends halfway through the fighters destroying an apartment, because they’ve trashed the object emitting the music. That takes a moment to digest so the sudden silence after the loud music strikes a stylistic note.
While Cooper isn’t as active sexually as James Bond, he does, like 007, get intimate with woman who might prove useful. Segura is good bit more normal than your usual espionage supervillain, with more flaws than you’d expect, especially after our introduction to him. There’s also unusual depth in subsidiary characters, Helen jealous of her boyfriend, secondary villains seeking social advancement and not always following orders, Paulette proving more than a second-potato character.
Theoretically set in France, Switzerland and South America, only the first locale appears authentic, with many outdoor shots, but not reliant on steeotypical tourist tapestry.
One of the alternative titles, The Spy Pit, better catches the tone of the picture, everyone caught in an espionage trap, and, ironically, given the constantly changing world of international politics, much of the background here has been superseded by real events. I’m putting the moodiness down as deliberate not just the state of the DVD.
Canadian Lang Jeffries (The Revolt of the Slaves, 1960) is a decent ersatz Sean Connery, Austrian Krista Nell (The Million Eyes of Sumuru, 1967) a capable sidekick, Gianni Solari (Seven Seas to Calais, 1962) comes across as efficient businessman rather than demented villain, Mali-born Nathalie Nort (Succubus, 1968) proves equal to an enlarged supporting role.
While you wouldn’t call it a directorial triumph, and it could do with some narrative clarification, Osvaldo Civirani (Return of Django) has more stylistic flourishes in his armory than you’d expect. Written by veteran Roberto Gianviti (Zorro and The Three Musketeers, 1963) who had over 100 movie credits.
Interesting take on the Eurospy subgenre.
The Magnificent 60s 