The film opens with an extended sequence. A man is trying to signal a helicopter at an old fort, one of Casablanca's tourist attractions we'll see in the film. The 'copter is being monitored by Halima (Janine Reynaud) and Moira (Mitsouko) at their secret headquarters. At the right moment, Halima triggers the explosion of the helicopter. The man on the ground takes flight only to discover assassin Mark (Goffredo Unger) waiting for him at his hotel. He gets away undetected but gives himself away on a bus. Mark follows him to another tourist attraction, a guns and horses show, where he kills him in the crowd. What the man was signaling, to whom, why, or what this has to do with anything isn't clear. Fun.
Worst job of hiding ever.
The big horse and gun extravaganza.
A trio of scientists have invented an alternative fuel source which someone, let's say the bad guys, wants suppressed as it will harm their interests in conventional carbon-based energy sources. Two of the scientists have already been sent to that great research lab in the sky and the last scientist standing, Coleman (Marcel Charvey), is in a hospital where he has undergone plastic surgery to disguise and protect himself. Enter CIA agent Bob Fleming (Richard Harrison) who plans to take Coleman into custody for his own safety. Coleman, unrecognizable, pretends he's a doctor and escapes but Fleming and another agent are in hot pursuit. They catch him at a cliffside nature walk, yet another tourist spot.The plan is to keep in isolation in Geneva. He will be transported in a coffin under the name Bob Fleming. In turn, Bob Fleming will keep Coleman's appointment in Casablanca. To make him a convincing corpse they ask Coleman to take a drug that will knock him out. Before he does, Coleman uses a ring that detects poison to see that the liquid is harmless. This is the only gadget in the movie that is set-up ahead of time. All the others we're just supposed to accept.
What ho! Pip, pip! Jolly good, sir!
When Moira arrives she is subjected to a search and scan by Halima. The scanning machine is nonsensical, and cheap, composed of two metal control boards opposite one another with a few buttons and knobs on them with a metal lampshade that lowers from the ceiling.Velka and Rod Steiger wannabe Tommy.
The other is Coleman's wife, Terry (Wandisa Guida), who we learn is running the whole show. And for a paltry $100,000. With all the thugs, femme fatales, guns, ammo, etc. how can she break even on the deal? Fleming kills Mark and mails him back to the bad guys in a cardboard box. Unique. He has a huge fight in his hotel room and you have to wonder how he explained all the damage to management. Velka spies on him with a mic she lowers from the balcony above his room where she's conveniently lodged. Velka's role is mysterious. Though she's obviously working with Tommy, who, as a Texan , owns huge oil fields, which ought to clue us in on why he's involved, she keeps saving Fleming's life.
Velka saving Fleming's life.
There's a puzzling scene when Fleming visits a bazaar and is surprised when a kid opens a small box and a very fake snake pops out. Fleming reacts as if its real.Some final faux suspense is generated when Fleming sends a telegram to Geneva instead of making a phone call and then has to rush there to beat Coleman's duplicitous wife from reaching him first. Fortunately, Coleman has his poison detecting ring.
What the movie lacks in production values via sets it tries to make up for with location shooting. We get to see a lot of the local scenery, especially the area attractions. A set of ruins features as our fourth tourist site. Richard Harrison was ubiquitous in Italian films around this time period starring in whatever genre was popular at the time, pepla, then Spaghetti Westerns, then spy films. He's an unremarkable actor but looks good on screen. He even appears to do some of his own stuntwork. Susy Andersen is lovely and appealing. She had a short film career but appeared in BLACK SABBATH and WAR OF THE ZOMBIES among others. Her only weakness in this role, which she plays with a delightfully bemused detachment, is that she isn't very convincing when breaking spun glass bottles over baddies heads. Janine Reynaud needs no introduction but in this picture she plays her bad girl role totally straight without any of her trademark humor or sexiness. Mitsouko was a beautiful Chinese actress with roles in the Eddie Constantine thriller LICENSE TO KILL, MISSION BLOODY MARY, CODE NAME: JAGUAR, and even a small part in THUNDERBALL. The icy blonde Wandisa Guida did her share of pepla before moving into the spy genre with SECRET AGENT FIREBALL. She appeared in that with co-hort Aldo Cecconi, another actor who thrived in pepla then moved into other genres. The biggest movies he appeared in were BEN-HUR (his first and uncredited) and WATERLOO. This cast accounts for most of the pleasure in this movie.
It should be mentioned that Carlo Savina's score adds a lot of value to the proceedings.
If you've got nothing better to do you could do worse than watching KILLERS ARE CHALLENGED.
statistics: Posted by ryanbrennan — 4:34 AM - 1 day ago — Replies 3 — Views 380