Seeber selbst

This is one of those movies that made the German cinema of the 1960ies and early 1970ies infamous. Knowing the person of writer/director Rolf Olsen, he was a master in his class giving the audience exactly the movies the wanted or - in this case - deserved. It is a pity you don't see Olsen as an actor here, because his intended overacting gives most of his movies a touch of an vaudeville act. Nevertheless most of this movie is not worth to mention, but compared to today's teenager-aimed uhm... comedies this one stands at least for some laughs, thanks to the performances of Gunther Philipp, Ruth Stephan and (Dr.) Kurt Nachmann. Besides that, Hansi Kraus is once again Hansi Kraus, and the rest is not worth mentioning.

The story itself is a weird mish-mash and has neither point nor punchline, but obviously the movie did its job in its days.

Besides all that it's an interesting fact that the movie - although set in Upper Bavaria - was shot entirely in Carinthia/Austria.

Alas, Carl Spiehs, what have you done this time? This is sort of a Western, and quite a bundle of scenes look quite familiar, you could swear you have seen them before. You are right. This film's effort is to copy known scenes of other westerns and to copy even the names of other films (the german title is related to a famous Terence Hill/Bud Spencer movie, the italian title to a well known 60ies Italo-western). It must have been fun for the actors - or a racket (at least it was for co-producer Spiehs). The whole film is quite a lukewarm business, every scene that begins promisingly looses quite every charm and drive until it's end - well, the end is always quite near. But I must admit that I enjoyed some fighting scenes which were intended to be funnny and in a way, they were. (These scenes were arranged by some cracks who also did these T.H./B.S. movies). If you can see it in TV, do so; if you'd have to rent it (and spend money) - beware.

This German/Italian spinoff of the 60ie's James Bond-wave shows another trial to find another smart agent as Connery performed it. Paul Hubschmid does his job as "Super Seven" quite smartly, a bit too smart sometimes, but as an secret agent man quite acceptable. In the movies from that time you'll never miss the masks made of some "special" or "secret" material, and you'll find them here as well - we encounter only 5 or 6 of them although the title promises a 1000 masks. The trick of changing someones identity is done ...hm... as usual (Mission Impossible-like). The problem was the quite typical face and profile of Hubschmid, which makes the identity changes a bit implausible (like Jean Marais as Fantomas, where all Marais-parts look quite the same).

Apart, there are some other things you never miss at that time: first, a song - here with some childish lyrics and catastrophal dubbing; second, a villain who works for an asiatic enimy; third, some explosions in the final showdown; fourth, some fist fighting; fifth, some well known or exotic cities; sixth: Karin Dor. This movie is quite consumable (apart of some "atomic center" scenes which indeed were shot in some engineering hall). The part I most enjoyed was the chase in the area of Rome, where Hubschmid's motorbike gets off the road; he comments that with a brief "Scheiss!" (which is in the German version). I never heard such a convinced "Scheiss!" again!