Services spéciaux, division K

The main problem with this slow-moving spy film is that it can't make up its mind whether to aim for the world of James Bond or Michael Caine's Harry Palmer movies. Stephen Boyd's spy, a relaxed genial man-about-town figure in the style of Roger Moore and his immediate associate, a rather shabby civil servant operating from an empty office, played by Michael Redgrave, seem to belong in two separate films. And 'Q' would certainly look down his nose at the home-made bomb his counterpart, played by Geoffrey Bayldon, comes up with here.

The usually reliable Val Guest has to take most of the blame, both for the uneven direction and contribution to a script that has pretensions to being taken seriously at times, but is nowhere strong enough to be. As he had just been worked into the ground shaping, with some success, the chaos that was CASINO ROYALE, he was probably a little jaded with the genre. He also wastes excellent character actors Jeremy Kemp and Leo McKern, though the latter does make an impression against the odds. The revelations at the finale lack any impact. In fact a much bleaker ending had been filmed, with Camilla Sparv's Toni being thrown into the river and drowned, her stunt-double being none other than the future star of saucy seventies' comedies, Sue Longhurst.

I quite enjoyed the 1960's ambiance, including the relationship between Boyd and the alluring Sparv, set against the glamorous background of Kitzbuhel ski resort. Much of it is quite engaging, but ultimately neither exciting nor memorable.

It has zippy music, attractive locations and Camilla Sparv as an affable boytoy, but that world is not enough. Hits all the action man buttons of the 60s, race car driver, MI6, spy, playboy, and on. But he's not Bond and not Harry Palmer, and therein lies the problem.

Stephen Boyd miscast so the tone of the movie was not dark enough to sustain strong interest. The ending was good as she plays both Scott and Harris off each other and gets both of them, and her cohorts, out of the spy game. A better script would have concealed then revealed complex betrayals and alliances and, perhaps, who Sparv really worked for and to what purpose. Forty or so years later Casino Royale got it right.

A surprisingly stylish spy flick, based in Munich and London.

It has a few twists (some of them predictable) but the aspect that intrigued me most was the information exchange.

It's all done with tremendous subtlety, and you could easily watch the entire film and miss most of the exchanges.

I had a similar experience with "Funeral in Berlin".

That's what I like about a spy film, when you can watch it superficially and miss what is really going on. So the film becomes a shill for real life spying, where the public see relative normality, but the spies, though present in the normal life of the public around them, are functioning on a completely different level.

I would have to watch this film several times to pick out and understand all of the communications.

The film was made in 1968, and is very much of that era (which I like).

ASSIGNMENT K is yet another British spy flick inspired by the success of the Bond films, although this one's closer in tone to THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD but nowhere near as dark. It reminded me a lot of the Laurence Harvey-starred A DANDY IN ASPIC but is better than that film, mainly because it's more lively in the hands of Hammer director Val Guest. Stephen Boyd is slightly miscast as the lead, a spy whose cover is blown leading him into the clutches of Leo McKern's arch villain. There's a great cast in this one including Michael Redgrave in an M-type role and Jeremy Kemp as a heavy; there are some slow spots but things pick up for a suspenseful climax.

Long time since I saw this but remember liking it.

I don't think it is out on dvd.

Certainly it is never on tv anymore.

I try not to be nostalgic but in the 1970s and 1980s broadcast tv in the UK showed lots of films and I sat and watched them.

There is a British cable channel that shows old films,and I love it but it hows mostly British films,where are the old Hollywood films?

Anyway I am a spy/war/crime film fan so dvd companies get this one out there.