"In a time when fear of Atomic war grips the world, when the slightest shift
in the balance of super powers might threaten the destruction of the planet."
Sound familiar? So begins this first in the two Kerwin Mathews films as the
CIA Agent Hubert Barton. Directed by André Hunebelle and shot very
crisply in black and white. Both these two French films with Mathews have
very solid scripts which in the Euro-spy genre is not a given. Often they
have huge holes in them or a dreadful lack of continuity. But these are plain
old-fashioned spy films with no snazzy weapons or big action set pieces.
Barton just follows the clues and beats up or kills a bunch of bad guys on
the way. He literally has a killer karate chop which comes in handy a few
times. The film does keep a few of the characteristic spy traits - he woos
every woman he sees and there are always beautiful ones. This one shows its
age when he rents a car from Hertz and tries to get the female employee (Gisèle
Grimm) to have dinner with him. When she says no, he grabs her and gives
her a lengthy kiss. Hertz may put you in the driver's seat but it won't go
to dinner with you. Instead of suing him she says "You have a gift with the
French tongue".
Barton is in Corsica trying to find out what happened to a fellow agent who
died while scuba diving. He was looking for the Russian base that was installing
listening devices so that they could pick up the location of nuclear subs.
He begins with the skipper of the boat that took the agent out and didn't
return with him. His female mate Brigitta is played by American actress Nadia
Sanders with the wonderful Francoise Hardy type of strong facial bone structure.
She was in a few Peplums but with that spectacular bone structure I am surprised
she didn't go further. Barton of course lays on the boyish charm. Much of
the pleasure of the film is the location shooting in Corsica and then Nice
- Corsica is built for spy films with its narrow cobblestone streets lit
only by rundown apartments and shadows that could hide a circus.
The bad guys keep tabs on him and every now and then try to silence him.
In some good hard fights he comes out ok and of course when they have him
as a prisoner they don't immediately kill him. Another common characteristic
of spy films. This is more like a Quiller spy film than a Bond one - no fireworks
- slow and methodical - he just keeps digging until something
or someone shows up. I like both types of spy films but as ridiculous as
spy films have become this felt refreshing. A Cold War spy film with a few
good bad guys - with Roger Dutoit as the cool as a cucumber head of the organization
and Daniel Emilfor as Sacha, the narrow-faced cruel-eyed assassin.
