We return to our running series on Transcontinental International Pictures with a pair of Eurospy films.
Commencing in 1967, twice a year, TIP would make trips to Europe, once in May hitting the Marche du Film (Film Market) at the Cannes International Film Festival, and then in September to Italy and Germany to meet with other companies looking for US distribution.
Oliver Mitchell: It was overwhelming at times, so many films, and you can’t watch them all the way through. So, we’d just have the projectionist play the trailers, then of those we liked, we'd watch, film, if it didn’t hold our interest by that point, we’d move on to the next, the ones that we made it through to the end, we made a deal. I recall many horror, westerns, musclemen and spy films.
When James Bond became a phenomenon with movie goers around the world, producers wanted a piece of the spy pie. Hundreds of Bond knockoffs were soon in production and continued strong into the later part of the decade.
One of the better was CODE NAME: CODE NAME aka CODE NAME: DOOMSDAY aka DOOM BOMB 1970 (1966), starring former Brylcreem spokesman Kerwin Madison as Herk Henson Agent 788.
PLOT: Secret agent 788, Herk Henson, looks good in a suit. We are told that he is fluent in nine languages (only speaks English in this movie), is an expert marksman, with a gun, cross bow, and judging by the satisfied looks on his ladies faces, his winky. The movie starts with Henson on vacation, poolside in Mallorca, surrounded by a bevy of curvaceous ladies who swoon at his feet and laugh at every joke he tells. He is about to head back to his room with a trio of the lovelies when he receives a call on his watch phone. His boss tells him to drop whoever he’s doing and return to London. It seems that a new master criminal has crawled out from the ooze to threaten the world with destruction.
The bouncy theme song will have you singing for days and retching for weeks:
Who do you call in times of trouble?
Herk Henson! Herk Henson!
Who do you call when you have a struggle?
Herk Henson! Herk Henson!
Who do you call, when the writings on the wall
and the world is as good as gone?
Herk Henson! Herk Henson!
British actor, Kerwin Madison starred in two other Agent 788 films, SPY HUNT: BAALBEK TO BANGKOK (1965) and INTRIGUE IN SRI LANKA (1966). He began his acting career with small parts in Italian Peplum films, such as THE COLOSSUS OF BABYLON (1962) and BOBO AND SIR ARTHUR TILLINGHAST MEET HERCULES (1963).
Alfredo Blades plays a master of disgust, as a bald baddy with an out-of-control twitch, who indiscriminately mows down innocent bystanders, including a geriatric lady in a wheelchair and a young boy flying a kite.
In addition to the trio of Agent 788 films, Director Sergio Canfora helmed THE WICKED SISTERS OF TROY (1962), TROVA LA SQUAW DALLA TESTA BIONDA (1966) aka FIND THE BLOND HEADED SQUAW aka A BOUNTY FOR A BEAUTY, TI INGINOCCHIERAI ALL'OMBRA DELLA MIA PISTOLA aka YOU WILL KNEEL UNDER THE SHADOW OF MY PISTOL (1967), THE WILDMAN FROM KATMANDU (1972) and LA SUA PISTOLA ERA VELOCE, LA LORO MORTE FU LENTA aka HIS GUN WAS FAST, THEIR DEATH WAS SLOW (1973).
TIP then followed with THE DDOUBLE TTTRIPLE CROSS, an Italian/German/Swiss/Ohio co-production. More a heist film than a spy adventure.
Here we have a caper comedy starring Italian hunk Romano Monti, who plays Adam Prescott, a career criminal, who stumbles and bumbles his way from one ill-conceived heist to another. When we first meet him, he is in the process of robbing a circus, but instead of driving away with the circus' currency, he ends of with a cargo box full of elephant dung. For his new caper, he is joined by Marisol, a gum chewing, loudmouth American, who has more curves than a F1 racetrack. Udo, an alcoholic safecracker that Wade coxes out of retirement (read drunk tank) and Aldo, a weapons and vehicle expert, who has become a pacifist, and doesn't know how to actually drive.
Adam has one other issue. Anytime he is around huge sums of money or even speaks about large sums of money he starts to stutter. Hence the film’s title.
The location shooting stands out, with picturesque exteriors lensed in Venice, Bern, the Rhine Gorge and Toledo is a highlight, as well as Marisol fighting of a masked killer in her hotel room.
One aspect of the film that is top notch is the soundtrack by Ennio Borsato, it is light, bubbly and breezy jazz which lends a playful mood to the proceedings.
Borsato lent his composition talents to over one hundred movies; THE KILLER WITH THE FLOUNDER TATTOO (1963), THE DEAD HAVE EARNED THEIR REST (1968), IDAHO JOE ARRIVES AT DAWN AND LEAVES WHEN EVERYONE IS DEAD (1969).
“Idaho Joe, where are you going?
Idaho Joe, where have you been?
Idaho Joe, where are you off to?
I’d really like to see you again.”
RINGO AND SARTANA VS DJANGO AND SABATA (1974), A GAME THAT ENDS WITH DEATH (1976), WHO KILLED THE MURDERER? (1977), ENTER THE VIRGIN, EXIT THE WHORE (1978), L'HO VISTO PER LA PRIMA VOLTA, MA L'HO AVUTO PER L'ULTIMA VOLTA aka I SAW HER FIRST, BUT I HAD HER LAST (1980), THE STROMBOLI CONNECTION and THE FINAL SUSPECT (1981).
"You're the final suspect
The finger of suspicion points at you
you're the final suspect
what are you going to do"
He passed away in 2009 in a bizarre piano tuning accident.
Star Mariette Lee (Marisol) was a welcome presence in any film that she played a part in. Some of the films that she played parts in where THE LOVES OF MESSALINA (1963), SAINT TROPEZ SWINDLE (1965), 0SS 117 DEATH MISSION (1966) and SEVEN CROSSES IN LOS CRUCES (1971) Mariette retired from the film business in 1968 to become a fashion designer specializing in rubber and latex evening and church wear. Her best-known role was as the lead in THE BOUNTY KILLER WORE A PETTICOAT (1968). Her final film appearances were in two women on prison films, both directed by Umberto Forte in 1977, back-to-back utilizing the same sets, cast and crew. starring as an "extremely sociable" social worker at a women's prison in 1977's SCHNANIGAN ALTAMENTE SOSPETTI E ILLECITI SI STANNO SVOLGENDO NEL CARCERE FEMMINILE aka. HIGHLY SUSPECT AND ILLICIT SCHNANIGANS ARE TAKING PLACE AT THE WOMEN'S PRISON and IL GUARDIANO È DI NUOVO ALL'ALTEZZA DEI SUOI VECCHI TRUCCHI aka THE WARDEN IS UP TO HIS OLD TRICKS AGAIN. In which she played the sexually frustrated wife of sexually overactive warden of a women's prison, who gets her revenge by bedding the head guard and the cutest prisoners.
Romano Monti began his acting career by playing Sabre #5 in 7 SABRES LEAD THE REVOLUTION (1963), He graduated to leads in spaghetti westerns, HATRED IN HIS HEART, VIOLENCE IN HIS BLOOD, REVENGE ON HIS MIND! (1966), A NOOSE...AT NOON...FOR SARTANA (1968), LAST TRAIN TO TUCUMCARI (1970), WINCHESTER IN THE HANDS OF THE DEVIL (1972) and the gritty, late period Spaghetti Western RATTI DE CONFINE aka VERMINE DE FRONTIÈRE aka BORDER RATS (1973).
