‘Women in my line of work always help men on the run.’
A special agent is killed in Hong Kong after picking up a mysterious envelope at a midnight rendezvous. One of his Interpol colleagues is sent to investigate. The trail leads to Milan, where the murdered man’s twin brother seems to be involved with both the Mafia and Chinese agents…
Brisk, efficient espionage adventure from the dying days of the Eurospy outbreak, when every handsome actor who looked good in a suit was running around the continent as ‘Bond On A Budget’. Cashing his meagre expenses this week is Paolo Gozlino, appearing under the more box-office friendly name of Paul Stevens.
It’s a bad day all around for Interpol when Al Monks (Rubén Rojo) gets iced after collecting an envelope in the backstreets of Hong Kong. Bossman Harry Jones (Francisco Sánchez) isn’t pleased because the envelope contained either the location of all the enemy agents in the region or all the friendly agents (it’s a bit unclear, blame the subtitles!) Anyway, it’s a big enough deal to interrupt the vacation plans of his top agent Bill Howard (Gozlino), who was about to go on holiday as all secret agents are contractually obliged to do at the start of a movie.
Diverted to Hong Kong, Gozlino is on hand when Rojo’s wife Karin (Nieves Navarro) identifies the agent’s body at the morgue. When she skips for Milan, ostensively to start work in a nightclub owned by Mafia man Max Cargo (Mario Donen), he’s on the next plane. Gozlino’s problem is that he was in the army with the murdered man, and he believes that the corpse might be that of his twin brother Domenico Lomonaco (Rojo again, of course). After touching base with local agent Mike Russo (George Hilton), he visits the doppelganger’s office on a pretext, where he hooks up with secretary Virna Montesse (the wide-eyed Betsy Bell). No one is quite who they seem, of course, and Gozlino has to work out friend from foe to stay alive and secure that envelope.
There is little that’s remarkable about this Spanish-Italian production directed by Ramón Fernández. Lacking the more outlandish qualities of the most memorable Eurospy vehicles, it delivers the typical thriller tropes of one man’s search for a MacGuffin instead. However, the script, by Fernández and three other writers, does provide a decent level of intrigue, with its mixture of stolen identities, shifting loyalties and the occasional double cross. Furthermore, it’s delivered at a good pace and has plenty of story and action crammed into its brief 78-minute running time.
Espionage enthusiasts will probably enjoy the conventions and clichés on display as well. Gozlino goes to a late-night meeting with an informant, only to find him already dead and then gets attacked by two of the assassins. Gozlino only has to be in the vague vicinity of a beautiful woman for them to fall into his arms. Gozlino shoots villains dead on the first try after they have fired past him from the same distance. Gozlino is such a great agent that he takes the bullets from two separate crime scenes and sends them away for analysis after juggling them around in the same hand. I hope they were clearly labelled!
The fight scenes are energetic but have no sense of realism or danger due to the ridiculous over-the-top sound effects accompanying every punch and kick. There’s plenty of gunplay, but spy gadgets are limited to the usual communication and surveillance gear. However, there’s a nice security add-on for Rojo’s wall safe; a guillotine blade that drops down if you reach inside. One minor villain finds out about it the hard way and probably had a devil of a time explaining things at the emergency room afterwards. The low budget shows through from time to time, mainly with the terrible process shots that appear when actors deliver dialogue in a moving vehicle.
The performances are adequate, if not particularly inspired. Gozlino is not tremendously charismatic in the lead, but he’s likeable enough to keep the audience invested. However, Navarro did a far more interesting nightclub act in ‘Death Walks On High Heels/La morte cammina con i tacchi alti’ (1971). Hilton has fun machine-gunning villains while flying his helicopter but mostly looks bored, obviously realising that he’s not landed the most challenging assignment in his acting career. Unfortunately, although the combination of Mafia and Chinese villains looks interesting on paper, none of the roles is sufficiently well-written to make them count.
Gozlino broke into movies as a dancer and choreographer and got his first significant dramatic credit with a supporting role in Riccardo Freda’s fantasy adventure ‘Jason and the Golden Fleece/I giganti della Tessaglia’ (1960). More prominent roles in historical and costume pictures followed before he landed the title role as Mino Loy’s low-budget, costumed crimefighter ‘Flashman’ (1967). He had previous Eurospy experience, too, backing up Ken Clark in ‘Fuller Report/Rapporto Fuller Base Stoccolma (1968), but became largely familiar as a second lead in Spaghetti Westerns. In the mainstream, he had a part in Vittorio De Sica’s segment of ‘The Witches/Le streghe’ (1967) and played a Muleteer in Arthur Hiller’s ‘Man of La Mancha’ (1972), which starred Peter O’Toole and Sophia Loren.
Routine in many ways, it’s still a decent time passer for fans of the Eurospy.