Target for Killing

I have always been since my teens an avid fan of Stewart Granger, eagerly waiting for his next film to hit the screen. And I have been on the alert for films of his post-Hollywood period, to complete my collection. When this film came my way, I snapped it up eagerly. My disappointment was all the greater. What a waste of talent. Stewart Granger, Curt Jurgens, Adolfo Celli, Klaus Kinski in a minimal role, Karin Dor, all of them mixed up in a nonsensical and incomprehensible story, with any connection to reality being by pure chance. An awful soundtrack completed the disaster. I gave the film 3, not that it was worth it but for purely sentimental reasons. What a pity! I am sure that with better direction and a straightening up of the story, the film would have been quite a good one.

Of the numerous James Bond knock-offs produced in the 1960s, A TARGET FOR KILLING is a guilty pleasure. It may sport an unoriginal and tedious story line, but makes earnest stabs at satirizing Bond movie cliches, and features an excellent tongue-in-cheek performance by Stewart Granger, as James Vine, suave and debonair FBI agent.

We find Vine on a passenger airplane with Sandra Perkins (Karin Dor), construction company publicist and heiress who will inherit millions on her upcoming 25th birthday. The plane's pilot is played by familiar character actor Klaus Kinski, and the stewardess pouring poison into Sandra's drink is played by Erika Remberg. She, Kinski, and the co-pilot parachute out of the plane in mid-flight, leaving Vine and Sandra to land the plane.

Vine's intervention upsets the plans of The Giant (Curd Jürgens), an evil mastermind hiding out in a decrepit monastery with an army of thugs dressed as yellow-hooded monks. Sandra's uncle hires The Giant to kill her before she can collect the inheritance, but The Giant wants the cash for himself.

In a story that is more confused and complicated than most spy flicks of the period, Sandra continually dodges bullets and with Vine's intervention simply won't be killed. This frustrates The Giant no end. He resorts to kidnapping her, chaining her to an electrified cage (powered by electric eels!) and subjecting her to mind control via a telepathy expert.

This Austrian-Italian co-production, shot mainly in Yugoslavia, boasts a superior supporting cast of busy continental actors. Rupert Davies appears as a police inspector who enjoys handling poisonous snakes; Adolfo Celi is Sandra's uncle, who is eaten by starved rats; and Mollie Peters, a former Bond girl from THUNDERBALL, appears in a brief nude scene.

Around the same time A TARGET FOR KILLING was made, Granger appeared in a short run of spy thrillers that included THE TRYGON FACTOR and CARNIVAL OF KILLERS. Only THE TRYGON FACTOR saw any wide theatrical release in the U. S,. In 1968. A TARGET FOR KILLING was sold directly to American TV in 1969, where it played on the late-late-late show for years.

Manfred R. Köhler also wrote and directed AGENT 505: DEATH TRAP IN BEIRUT, also a spy thriller, the same year.

Two great actors which I like very much, Adolfo Celi and Klaus Kinski, are wasted in a mediocre production. With the help of a few other famous names of the movie world, Stewart Granger, Karin Dor, Curd Jürgens. The script is completely stupid and the interpretation of all leaves it desirable for a better chance in another movie. Those who manage to hide the best how disagreeable and ungrateful are their roles, are Kinski and Jürgens. Granger is too bombastic, like in all his movies. Dor is not credible, her acting is forced. And Celi, who has the most unfortunate role, is eaten by a bunch of hungry rats, he does what he can in such a situation. Manfred R. Köhler, the director, has achieved a much better film a year earlier, "Thirteen Days to Die"(1965)Der Fluch des schwarzen Rubin (original title), with another German specialist in villain roles, Horst Frank.

The story is dumb (pilots of airplane bail out while passengers don't even notice), the setting is usually inside a studio, but the number and combination of extraordinary actors is quite unusual. Karin Dor and Stewart Granger make such an intriguing couple that one would just wish they should have been used much more often. The more precious is this rare specimen of their and Curt Juergen's artistry. - A piece of historical interest to the old movies enthusiast.

A secret agent (Stewart Granger) is charged with preventing a crime syndicate's plot to assassinate a young heiress (Karin Dor).

Stewart Granger is one of those actors who could make anything enjoyable- his charisma and charm is impressive as always and he's no different here in this fairly entertaining Eurospy thriller; the pace is brisk, and I liked the scenes where Granger and Karin Dor were interacting or Granger knocking out the villains, and Curd Jorgensen is quite menacing; definitely a warm up audition for his role as Stromberg in a future Bond film. Matter of fact, there's a bevy of actors - Molly Peters, Adolfo Celi, and the pretty Karin Dor. Klaus Kinski is good as a henchman with a conscious.

However, it's the budget that makes things appear tacky/ cheap. It's a bit rough around the edges and lacks stylishness. The execution, of lets say, the hero landing the aircraft wasn't tense enough. The guitar music became annoying after a while. Bond films would've been tacky without its significant budget and production design.

Bearing that in mind, there's some OTT stuff in here that you might like - Villainous monks, a listening device in an egg shell, brainwashing, a chess playing villain, a sadistic hench lady, and a snake loving Commissioner- there's some tongue-in-cheekiness, thanks to Granger, and some ok action. The ending, though, felt rushed and flat.