O.K. Yevtushenko

The main enticement to watch this obscure 1968 film is to see Tom Adams reprise the role of British secret agent Charles Vine (which he created in the 1965 film Second Best Secret Agent In the world. The latter was an amusing James Bond spoof and, on recent viewing, continues to hold up quite well despite the years. He repeated the role in Where Bullets Fly and thus this film represents the third and final film but I hesitate to say in the series. This film is largely made in Spain, with local talent and without the directors or writing talents of the earlier films.

Aside from those of us who want to say we watched all the Charles Vine films there isn't any real reason to see this movie. The plot is confusing, as with most James Bond type films, but not particularly interesting. The performances are flat, whether due to the Spanish actors in an English language film, or simply due to the script and budget. The latter largely limits the action scenes to fist fights and firing off guns. More importantly Tom Adams, without the wit of a script, simply comes off as stone faced and one dimensional.

For the record, the plot starts with the kidnaping of Russian ambassador Yevtushenko (Bernabe Barta Berri, the only actor with a glint in his eye and willing to have fun with the material) from a ship. Apparently the Russians are supposed to blame the British and vice versa. Actually its the Albanians (Major Kovacs played by Tim Barrett) in conjunction with the Chinese (Lycee played by Gene Reyes). British secret agent Charles Vine (Tom Adams) is called in to investigate. He tracks them down to a yacht and attempts to free Yevtushenko ensue before Vine is also captured and shipped off to Albania. There he is tempted by General Borodin (Antonio Molino Rojo) to defect to Albania. Naturally Borodin's assistant Galina (Diane Lorys) commits her body to convincing Vine. However, what Albanian girl can resist a British secret agent and, just as naturally, she joins Vine and Yevtushenko in escaping to the Greek border (pursued by a motley collection of Albanian tanks). I've left out a few sub-plots (i.e. poisoned darts, WW11 OSS agents left behind German line (don't ask!) and multiple females throwing themselves at Vine) but I don't think it makes much difference.

Technical credits were poor on the tape I obtained but, since I doubt this film ever had a commercial North American distribution, who knows the history of the original print. I should also note that this tape was advertised at 84 minutes runtime and the IMDB database lists an original runtime of 108 minutes.

Obviously the producers took an off-the-shelf spy script and tried to commercialize it by exploiting the Charles Vine character. However, without a script or dialog Tom Adams performance is strictly dead faced instead of deadpan.

The (?) in the summary means that this flick sits awkwardly between two chairs, the straight spy flick and the spoof, being neither exciting enough nor funny enough to succeed as either. There is one novel idea (the inside of a truck disguised as a submarine!), a fairly impressive tank. vs car collision (hint: it doesn't go well for the car), and the otherwordly beauty of Diana Lorys, but the male lead is just passable and the script is often sloppy in its flow. Apparently this is the third Charles Vine film made in the 1960s, the earlier two are pretty hard to track down, but when I do, hopefully they will be better than this one! *1/2 out of 4.

Tom Adams makes his third and final appearance as secret agent Charles Vine, which qualifies him for membership of a very select club of Eurospy actors who have played the same agent more than twice (club members being Connery, Moore, Ken Clark (as Dick Malloy, 3 times), Tony Kendall & Brad Harris (in the 7 Kommissar X movies).

All three films were produced by James Ward and the second two had screenplays by Michael Pittock. However, while the first two were set in England, for this third edition the action shifts to Spain and Portugal, with a Spanish director / writer left to fill in the gaps in what may have been an unfinished script. Tim Barrett, who played a comic assassin in the second film, also returns, in a different role, playing it straight this time, but meeting a similar fate.

The first film was conceived as a serious spy / action movie, with spoof aspects subsequently tacked on later, in response to the misguided fashion for spy spoofs that had emerged. The second leaned into the spoof style even more, so I was surprised to find that this third edition goes back to playing it mainly straight, with far fewer spoof like moments.

An important Russian spy has been captured by Albanians, working under the supervision of the Chinese, who also wish to confuse the Russians and the West into blaming each other. Sadly the script is not as good as previous editions, which at least provided some decent sexual innuendo dialogue for Tom and co to deliver.

In this one the same situational opportunities are still there, but every time I was anticipating the imminent arrival of an amusing line, there was only banality or a complete void instead. The screenplay runs out of ideas to recycle around the hour mark and becomes a complete mess. Eventually the director decides that enough time has been padded out and the overly long and circuitous chase sequence is concluded abruptly. Without further ado we jump straight into the rom-com epilogue, which includes a surprisingly callous and casual death, coupled with a final forlorn attempt at a one liner which, like all those before it in this film, is devoid of wit and fails to raise even a smirk.

There are some gadgets in this one, the villains have cigarette holders that fire tranquiliser darts and Tom has an array of watches that are time fuse bombs, which he carelessly keeps leaving lying around on his bedside table

The theme song is another good one for the series, this time in the style of Gene Pitney rather than Shirley Bassey.

If you've ever wondered what an M41 Walker Bulldog tank would do to a 1940s Cadillac 62 series (or similar) this is the film for you. The staging of a helicopter crash in this third film remains unconvincing, but shows more ambition and much better technique than the director of the first film managed.