Recent discovery: Missione speciale Lady Chaplin

The echoes of Thunderball are impossible to ignore in Missione speciale Lady Chaplin (Special Mission Lady Chaplin), the last — and most enjoyable — of American actor Ken Clark’s three “CIA Agent 077” Eurospy entries. Even so — despite the best efforts of co-directors Alberto De Martino and Sergio Grieco — the entertainment value has little to do with Clark, whose athletic prowess cannot conceal his stiff-as-a-board performance. Both he and the similarly wooden Jacques Bergerac — as the villain of the piece, the aptly named Kobre Zoltan — are constantly out-classed by former Bond girl Daniela Bianchi’s enthusiastic handling of Lady Arabella Chaplin: celebrated fashion designer in the public eye, mistress-of-disguise assassin at Zoltan’s behest. She and a variety of cool spy gadgets propel this derivative saga, which gets additional bounce from Bruno Nicolai’s jazz-laden score, and a plot that starts in Madrid and then takes its characters to New York, London, Paris and Morocco.
 
Dick Malloy (Clark) and his boss, Heston (Philippe Hersent), head to Madrid after learning that somebody has been trying to sell a dog tag supposedly recovered from the USS Thresher, a sunken American nuclear submarine. This implies that the sub has been raised, a notion rejected as impossible when our heroes consult with Zoltan, a marine salvage gazillionaire who throws lavish parties and entertains his guests with dueling scorpions. It initially appears that Zoltan is right; when Malloy investigates via a bathysphere descent, the Thresher is at the ocean bottom two miles down, where it’s supposed to be. But a closer examination reveals that its 16 Polaris missiles — all armed with nuclear warheads — have been removed.
 
Zoltan is indeed behind the dirty deed; he and Arabella also orchestrate the heist of a heavily guarded propellant from a moving train, during a nifty sequence that showcases her resourcefulness. Needing a way to then smuggle the propellant across several borders, Arabella oversees a chemical process that transforms the compound into explosively flammable dress material (!) subsequently used in one of her fashion shows (!!).
 

Malloy quickly catches on to Arabella’s double life, and seems rather forgiving of her lethal tendencies; by this point we’ve seen her cold-bloodedly execute at least four men. More crucially, Malloy constantly remains a step or two behind Zoltan’s activities, while evading assassination attempts by dozens of gun-toting lackeys — almost always decked out in black turtlenecks — during reasonably well-staged action sequences. (One wonders how Agent 077 has maintained his excellent reputation.)

Recent discovery: Upperseven, l'uomo da uccidere

Writer/director Alberto De Martino was granted a better than average budget for 1966’s Upperseven, l’uomo da uccidere, released in the States as The Spy with Ten Faces (only four, actually, if my count is accurate). This Italian/West German Eurospy entry offers a reasonably credible storyline that takes ample advantage of production designer Francesco Cuppini’s lavish sets; cinematographer Mario Fioretti also is kept busy during a globe-trotting adventure that sends its characters to London, Copenhagen, Rome, Capetown, Johannesburg and Basel (Switzerland). Best of all (for our purposes), De Martino grants plenty of space to Bruno Nicolai’s often vibrant jazz score, which has strong echoes of John Barry’s Bond work, without being slavishly derivative. On the other hand, the title character’s smug over-confidence often feels condescending; one wishes he’d get bloodied a bit more, to instill some humility.

 

The dastardly Kobras — a well-sculpted villain, played with calmly sinister panache by Nando Gazzolo — cooks up a complicated scheme to disrupt a Pan-African alliance being financed by South African diamonds. The gems are to be traded for American dollars, at which point Kobras and his minions will break into a Swiss bank and steal the currency, leaving an equal amount of counterfeit bills to cover their tracks. Kobras intends to use the stolen funds to further bankroll a concealed missile base on behalf of Chinese partners. Determined to save the day: Agent Paul Finney (Paul Hubschmid), code-named Upperseven — senior to 007, one assumes — a master of molded mask disguises, accompanied by useless CIA agent Helen Farheit (Karin Dor, soon to bedevil James Bond, in You Only Live Twice). Finney also makes ample use of a weaponized cane, perhaps borrowed from The Avengers’ John Steed.

 

There’s no title sequence; the credits appear as Finney cleverly trails a car driven by Kobras’ primary henchman, Santos (Guido Lollobrigida), while chanteuse Paolo Orlandi delivers a saucy reading of the bold, brass-heavy title song (apparently crooned by a love-struck lass who prays that Upperseven will “set her free,” because he no longer wants her). It’s a vibrantly percussive tune that warrants placement alongside Barry’s best 007 power anthems.

 

Once at their destination, Finney employs a mask to invade Kobras’ smuggling operation; he assesses and photographs the situation, while backed by a swinging instrumental arrangement of the title theme, which favors muted trumpet and throbbing bass. Finney then calls in reinforcements, sets a bomb and blows everything to smithereens: a sequence that introduces Nicolai’s secondary action cue, which opens with a drum roll and a powerful, mid-tempo 1-4-1-2 motif. (It reprises a few times as the story progresses, notably when Kobras helps a colleague escape from prison.) Police round up most of the surviving bad guys — Santos departed earlier — but Kobras escapes when he’s spirited away by resourceful gal pal Birgit (Vivi Bach, far more capable than Helen Farheit) and Chen, their Chinese partner.

Recent discovery: Kiss Kiss - Bang Bang

Apparently unable to fully exercise his inane side while co-scripting 1965’s James Tont operazione U.N.O., Bruno Corbucci and a more cooperative pair of lunatic writers went full-bore bonkers for 1966’s Kiss Kiss – Bang Bang. Its pretentions toward spy spoofery notwithstanding, this can’t be considered more than a dim-bulb children’s movie … and a very bad one, at that. Most of Bruno Nicolai’s score veers from cartoon effects to silent movie chase cues, with plenty of mickey-mousing intended to help sell sight gags that nonetheless fall flat. Even the title song — gamely crooned by Nancy Cuomo, against a credits sequence clearly modeled on Maurice Binder’s Bond efforts — is an obnoxious pop trifle that gets nowhere near the power anthem status to which it aspires. That said, patient jazz fans will be rewarded by Nicolai’s tasty arrangements of the primary theme and two love themes, mostly combo readings with the melody taken by sultry sax or trumpet. A few run at pleasant length behind flirty bedroom sequences.

 

Former British Secret Service agent Kirk Warren (Giuliano Gemma) went rogue and stole $1 million, a crime for which he’s about to hang, as the film begins. He’s granted a last-second pardon by his former handlers, because they believe him the only agent capable of locating a crucial secret formula before nefarious terrorist “Mister X” can get his hands on it. Warren agrees, and is joined on this mission by three trusted associates: security expert Professor Padereski (Antonio Casas), who literally “sniffs out” death traps; mousy, accident-prone Dupont (Manuel Muñiz), a talented safe-cracker who works wonders with a corkscrew; and Chico Pérez (George Martin), a skilled acrobat nimbly able to bounce over electrified fences.

Snatching the formula from a safe deep within a heavily guarded stronghold proves simple, at which point Warren and his minions decide to bypass the British and sell it to Mister X … for $4 million. This scheme repeatedly runs afoul of comic book villain Tol Lim (Daniele Vargas), who — as if his faux Asian appearance isn’t offensive enough — minces about in caftans and roller-skates on the deck of his yacht. (Just because, y’know.)

 

Director Duccio Tessari and his writers insert numerous Bondian nods. British agents 003 and 008 come to bad ends, and Warren cheekily adopts the iconic Sean Connery pose — arms crossed against his chest, one hand holding a gun — with a knowing grin. The bare-bones plot lurches along for an interminable 112 minutes due solely to kitchen-sink excess: a surveillance agent concealed in a cylindrical trash can (shades of TV’s Get Smart!); Warren’s MI6-issued pistol, which shoots laughing gas; an impressively verbose parrot entrusted to remember and recite the complex secret formula; numb-nuts thugs who repeatedly shoot each other by mistake; collapsing beds, closets and other furniture; a cake in the face; and an MI6 contact that happens to be a talking pigeon (which, no doubt, shares a flat with the talking mouse from James Tont operazione U.N.O.). 

Everything climaxes during a protracted chase and knuckle-bruising melee taking place on various deserted amusement park rides, within a hedge maze and mirror maze, and atop an historic oceanside landmark. If it all sounds like classic Keystone Kops territory, be advised: This film isn’t that good.