Tiffany memorandum

In the steel network of the secret services: Ken CLARK as a frenzied reporter in West Berlin

This time Ken Clark (1927-2009) does not act as a secret agent, but as an investigative journalist he rather involuntarily gets caught up in a cold war between the secret services. After witnessing the murder of a politician and a terrible train accident (a very cute trick from today's perspective), the lushly hairy snout polisher (which is probably what the inappropriate "Gorilla" from the German rental title also refers to) finds himself in wintry West Berlin. Of course, beautiful women like Irina DEMICK (The Longest Day), Loredana NUSCIAK (Django) and Solvi STÜBING (as a cheeky maid) also cross his path here. But there are also enough opponents that Ken Clark can really bend their faces.

So nothing new on the EuroSpy front! Experienced director Sergio Grieco provides enough variety so that an hour and a half of good entertainment is guaranteed. The interesting pictures from West Berlin in the 1960s are also well worth seeing.

Neither Ken Clark nor Irina Demick is great , but as they are not asked too much,they do nicely in their parts of a journalist (?) and a secretary (?)."Tiffany Memorandum" is certainly the best of all Ken Clark's spy thrillers ;not that the screenplay is particularly original.It must be the direction.The obscure director (at least to my knowledge) shows sometimes something of Mario Bava's talent .Some scenes are remarkable ,with an unusually inventive sense of space :the clockmaker's workshop with its insistent ticking,the ending in the radio studio with the killer in the place and on the screen (the trick which would be also used in "targets" feat Boris Karloff (Bogdanovitch ,1968)).If you should see one of Dick's adventures,this is definitely the one to choose.You can do without the other sub-James Bond flicks.

I admit, I have always been fascinated by the Eurospy genre, I grew up with Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill(1966) and Kommissar X - Drei grüne Hunde(1967) with Tony Kendall and Brad Harris, Deadlier Than the Male(1967) with Richard Johnson, Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina, The Viscount (1967)Le Vicomte règle ses comptes(original title) with Kerwin Mathews, Coplan prend des Risques(1964) with Dominique Paturel and Virna Lisi, Me faire ça à moi(1961) with Eddie Constantine, Special Mission Lady Chaplin(1966) with Daniela Bianchi and Ken Clark. The same Ken Clark is in Tiffany Memorandum. The best thing in the film is the music of talented Riz Ortolani, in the style of Lalo Schifrin. Then the professional cinematography by Stelvio Massi, later in the '70s, the director of some Italian thrillers. That's all. The story, well, we don't have one, the actors are not really actors, the film is poor, worthy to be seen only by hardcore fans of the genre.

By the time all the plot twists come together you just won't care anymore. This is my least favorite Ken Clark Spy movie. Clark (Dick Hallam) and Irina Demick (Sylvie Meynard) do not have a wit of chemistry and everyone else is just OK. There are too many other good Ken Clark Eurospy movies to watch rather then to waist your time with this low energy dud. IMHO

While not the best of Ken Clark's spy adventures, Tiffany Memorandum is by no means the bottom of the lot. It has a great score by Riz Ortolani, some good locations in Paris and Berlin, lots of exciting fisticuffs, and death by clock. TM's main failing is the complicated and not very exciting plot. There are so many twists and false identities that it is sometimes hard to tell who is doing what and to whom.

This time, according to the English-dubbed print anyway, Ken is Dick Hallan, a journalist for the Herald-Tribune. He gets mixed up in international politics through a series of incredible coincidences and is finally coerced by the CIA (not really) to follow the intrigue to its unremarkable end.

This one's for fans of big Ken and I know you're out there.