Operazione poker

Yet another of Roger Browne's half-dozen spy flicks and the first of two for director Civirani, who followed this up with a better one, The Beckett Affair. This is a rather middle-of-the-road film but it is unusual in that we get two adventures for the price of one. Both adventures center around a professor's new invention, of course.

The invention everyone is after is definitely of the science fiction type. It's a special tie-clip that when used with a pair of infra-red contact lenses enables the user to see through walls! The guy that stole them from the professor is putting it to good use by wearing it while playing poker and cleaning up! He should think bigger. The first thing Roger does when he discovers this little novelty is use it to spy on his girlfriend getting dressed! That's more like it.

This film really gets around. We travel from the Riviera to Geneva to Paris to Casablanca (the Casbah no less), and to Copenhagen. We even get a tour of the Tuborg brewery. There's a prolonged gun battle amongst the giant beer tanks. Talk about product placement!

For all its advantages, this isn't really a very good film. As I mentioned, it is middle of the pack stuff. You could do worse but you could definitely do better.