Gibraltar

An average but passable -at times - thriller with explosive conflict of world-shattering espionage , containing suspense , intriguing events about sunk ships when they stop at Gibraltar and turns . Gibraltar (1964) includes thrills , frantic action , plot twists , several villain roles , fist-fights , various international locations , shootouts with high body-count and being middlingly entertaining from start to finish . An international espionage gang located in Tangier and led by a woman, a nasty mastermind named Elinor van Berg (as Hildegarde Neff) is dedicated to the sinking of the English Navy ships that transport troops from England through Gibraltar to the Middle East. The Intelligence Service high command (led by Admiral Luis Induni) is alarmed by the turn that events are taking and sends lieutenant Frank Jackson (Gérard Barray) with the mission of drawing up a plan to contact the gang and enter it . Along the way , Jackson falls in love for two gorgeous women : the good wealthy girl Cathy Maxwell (Geneviève Grad) and the suspect bad girl , dancer Lola (Elisa Montés).

The story is a fun mess starting with a twisted plot with pursuits and thrills along the city of Tangier and some spectacular locations from Gibraltar , Spain and France . Happening mutual spying and disconcerting confrontations with a lot of violent fights , treason , crossfire and explosions . It displays a charming cast , but the uneven filmmaking falters in film that wavers from mystery , thriller and necessary action-packed . Colorful and so-so rendition about European spy subgenre , a prolific genre during the sixties , not taking any situation seriously . A fashion , but pedestrian run-of-the-mill spy film at the time, meaning it stuck to a lot of what was currently popular , but here including some embarrassing and nonsense scenes . Inspired by the success of the James Bond films, as this spy sub-genre borrows heavily from the OO7 series that at the time starred Sean Connery , such as : Dr No (1962) , From Russia with love , Thunderball, and Goldfinger . At a time when espionage plots were very much in fashion thanks to the bursting onto celluloid of films about secret agent James Bond , Pierre Gaspard-Huit ("Captain Fracassa", "The Washerwomen of Portugal") returned to action and adventure cinema with this film starring one of the greatest European actors in adventure genre : Gérard Barray who was the leading hero in Adventure-Movies made in France - following Jean Marais and on his side in his starting-out-Movies . He became famous as D'Artagnan in "Les trois mousquetaires", Surcouf in ¨The Sea Pirate¨and ¨Le retour de Surcouf¨, as Hardi Pardaillan in ¨Le Chevalier de Pardaillan¨or ¨The Gallant Musketeer¨ and "Commissaire San Antonio". In 1969 he changed his profile to the dark side as Van Britten , partner of young Claude Jade in ¨Le témoin¨ (1969) - his most interesting part , but whithout great success . His come-back to popularity was the TV-Man Duvernois and a fundamental secondary role in ¨Open your eyes¨ (1997) by Alejandro Amenábar. Being well accompanied by one of the best post-war German actresses -and in her time equated with Marlene Dietrich- Hildegard Knef ("The Snows of Kilimanjaro", "Fedora") . The content remains similar other stories in this Euro-spy sub-genre : a ruthless villainous , this time results to be a relentless woman , some beautiful girls , alongside ridiculous , uptight and extremely silly action set pieces from a today's point of view . A Sixties-style film usually has a short sell-by date , and this flick isn't exception . The script doesn't help him either , as it consists of the habitual intrigue to take on a powerful organization , while our starring go around , stalking here and there , but actually tells no more than different people spying on and beating up each other in the hope of getting their ominous purports . Of course , with such a film from nostalgic and botcher ways , one does not count on high art work . It is staged in a hopelessly amateurish way , it shows us rows of bare fights and several confrontations with a number of dead people in the worst choreography . As our starring behaving in such an tough activity and so stupid manners so that committing usual mistakes on their own way . The screenplay works with unnecessary contradictions and implausibility , including absurd moments , and the story is thinner than it usually is in works of this kind , the Euro-spy sub-genre . It has some flaws and gaps , as it does tend to get a bit old , including repetitive nature of some fight scenes , and excessive nonsense , but it has a bit of fun , at times, so it cares . The main and support cast -with everyone having amusement- are passable , slightly adequate to their functional characters . Appearing some familiar faces from the Sixties who worked in the habitual 60s , 70s sub-genres : Peplum, Spaghetti Western , Giallo, horror, Euro-thriller , including Spanish actors : Jorge Martin , Luis Induni, Rufino Inglés , José Marco Dávo , Antonio Jiménez Escribano , Antonio Molino Rojo , Ramón Centenero , Luis Marín , Xan das Bolas , Lorenzo Robledo, Frank Braña and Italian ones : Claudio Gora , Fausto Tozzi . As well as some gorgeous girls : Geneviève Grad who starred Gendarme de Saint-Tropez series as Louis de Funes's daughter , Silvia Solar and Elisa Montés who shows her Flamenco skills by spectacular dances .

It contains an atmospheric cinematography in black and white by Cecilio Paniagua considered to be one of the best Spanish cameramen with International successes as 100 rifles, Hunting party, Patton, Last adventure Custer, Doctor Coppelia and Spanish films as Mi hija Hildegart , El hombre de la Isla or Sonatas . There are luminous outdoors by expert cameraman showing sightseeing from Gibraltar, African cities , sunny coasts and Mediterranean beaches . However , the worn-out cinematography spoils the spectacle , being really necessary a perfect remastering beacuse the film copy is really wasted . Likewise , it packs striking and evocative musical score by André Hossein . Financed in medium budget by José Gutiérrez Maesso and Serge Silberman who was Luis Buñuel's usual producer , the motion picture was middlingly written by Jacques Companéez , R. Thomas , Jean Stelli and director Pierre Gaspard-Huit himself . Pierre Gaspard was as a craftsman who worked as a writer , Editor , Second Unit Director or Assistant Director , producer and finally filmmaker . As he directed some international co-productions and being a good French artesan who made a lot of adventures, action and thrillers movies . This European spectacle was regularly directed by Pierre Gaspard-Huit who directed films in all kinds of genres such as Captain Fracassa, Les lavandières du Portugal, Gibraltar , Amoríos , Sophie et le crime , Liitle B. B. , Schereazade and several others . Rating : 4.5/10 . So-so but inferior Italian/Franch/Spanish Euro-thriller.