‘One of these days, the trumpets will blow for Istanbul, and the city will vanish under the sea.’
A secret agent is unexpectedly summoned to Istanbul by an old love who warns that a superweapon has fallen into the wrong hands. However, before she can tell more, she is killed, and he sets out to discover the truth and avenge her death…
Offbeat Eurospy that’s the final big screen outing for special agent Francis Coplan, who’d been appearing in films since 1957. Claudio Brook takes on the mantle of this week’s ‘Bond On A Budget’ for director Yves Boisset and gets help and hindrance in various measures from Margaret Lee, Jean Topart and Hans Meyer.
Clik here to view.
Super spy Francis Coplan (Brook) hotfoots it to Istanbul when he gets a message from enigmatic old lover Mara (Lee), the proverbial ‘one that got away’. She needs his help after witnessing the murder of a scientist in a crowded marketplace. Although she hints that a new super weapon is ready for deployment, she has no time to explain further as the pair are viciously attacked, and she is beaten to death. Brook wakes up on a lonely beach, pulled from the water by passerby Yasmine (Marcella Saint-Amant). She takes him home to recover, and he links up with his old colleague Abdul Nascar (Bernard Biler). He finds out that Lee was married to an elderly archaeologist, Professor Saroghu (Jean Servais), who he suspects may be involved in her death. However, before he can get very far, he’s nabbed by the Turkish police and told to leave the country by Lieutenant Sakki (Topart).
Evading the police at the airport, he visits the grave of Lee’s dead brother, Hugo Gernsbach (Meyer), only to see a veiled woman placing flowers on the grave. Chasing her down at the nightclub where she dances, she’s revealed to be Mara’s twin sister, Eva (Lee again, of course). A return visit to Servais finds the scientist wounded and on the point of death. His last words suggest that Meyer is still alive and the man behind everything. Unfortunately, Topart and the police are on hand again, and Brooks is arrested for suspected murder. However, the Lieutenant arranges his escape as part of a deal to clear up the case. Saint-Amant is kidnapped by Meyer’s thugs, and Brook is drawn to the isolated castle headquarters to attempt a rescue and defeat the supervillain for good.
Clik here to view.
Francis Coplan was the creation of two French writers who published their work under the name Paul Kenny. He debuted in 1953 and appeared in over 200 novels, a comic strip, 1989 television miniseries and half a dozen movies, of which this was the last. A different actor played him in each big screen project, and it’s fair to say that his cinematic career probably wouldn’t have got any further than his unremarkable debut in crime thriller ‘To Catch A Spy/Action immédiate’ (1959) if it wasn’t for the phenomenal popularity of a certain Mr Bond. ‘FX-18/Agent Secret FX 18’ (1964) relaunched the character, and fixed him far more firmly in the world of international espionage. The series quickly peaked with ‘Coplan FX-18 Super Spy/Coplan FX 18 casse tout/The Exterminators’ (1965), one of the best of the entire Eurospy genre.
By the time a series of films reaches its sixth instalment, it would be safe to assume that a significant decline in quality had occurred. However, perhaps because these films were only loosely connected, that’s not the case here, and director Boisset gives the somewhat standard story material a fresh coat of paint. Whereas this is definitely not the grey, Cold War espionage of John Le Carre, it’s not that close to Bond’s glamorous, jet-setting world either. There may be beautiful women aplenty, but there’s no bedroom action. There may be fistfights and gunplay, but there are zero gadgets and no extravagant stunts. Despite a few outlandish story trappings, Boisset presents a surprisingly grounded slice of action and adventure.
Clik here to view.
The director is aided by some excellent casting, particularly that of Brook in the lead, with his wiry frame and hangdog face. There’s no way he will drop smug one-liners while casually dispatching faceless bad guys. Instead, he gets seriously wounded – twice! – and is powerless to prevent his old love’s murder at the start of the film. It’s all a long way from Roger Moore’s raised eyebrow and knowing smirk. The only humour comes from Topart’s dry, sarcastic police official, and it’s pleasing to report that the actor nails the character from the first line of his dialogue to the last. It’s a great pity he’s not featured more heavily across the runtime.
If there is a weakness, it’s the episodic nature of the unfolding plot, which is a criticism that could safely be levelled at much of the Eurospy genre. Brook goes from place to place and incident to incident with little in the way of serious story development. The supervillain’s identity is not much of a mystery, and director Boisset never pretends that it’s a significant part of proceedings. The characters are little more than the usual archetypes, with the innocent Saint-Amant as the damsel in distress and blonde Amazon, Carole (Nanna Michael), a typically sadistic sidekick for the evil Meyer. The one wrinkle revolves around Lee’s dual roles. Mara is hard to pin down, perhaps deliberately, but Eva is an unusual proposition. Hard-bitten and cynical at first, she’s eventually revealed as more than a little unbalanced, possibly due to a heavily implied incestuous relationship with her brother. It’s to Lee’s credit that she’s convincing in both roles and that the two characters are just different enough, so the possibility of a reveal establishing they are the same person remains on the table until the end.
Clik here to view.
Elsewhere, a late section references Richard Connell’s 1924 short story, which was most famously filmed as ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ (1932) with Fay Wray and Leslie Banks. This climactic hunt takes place in a forested valley with mountains and a river and is carried out in the same manner as practiced by the Hittites who lived there in ages past. In other words, no modern weaponry is allowed, just knives, bows and arrows, a bolas, Michael’s pet falcon and a couple of hounds from Count Zaroff’s kennels. The action unfolds in a series of combats as Brook takes on the hunting party one by one. The actor does a significant amount of fighting and jumping around in the rocks, which helps sell the sequence, although most credit is reserved for the stunt crew, whose work is showcased with some eye-catching falls.
This was Boisset’s first film as a director, and while it might be going a bit far to suggest that he was trying to deconstruct the ’60s spy thriller, it does seem that he was determined to undermine audience expectations. At first glance, the one concession to the usual ‘Bond’ template would seem to be Meyer’s villain. He wears all black, has half his face hidden by a mask after the unspecified lab accident which supposedly killed him, and carries a black cat around with him everywhere. So far, so typical, but he never explains his plans for world domination to Brook (or anyone else), and Boisset never explains the nature of his super weapon or even shows it to the audience. For all we see on the screen, Meyer could just be some eccentric millionaire lunatic cosplaying Blofeld in an abandoned castle with some hired help! By the same token, the film doesn’t end with a big battle between his minions and Topart’s forces of law and order, and nothing blows up.
Clik here to view.
Midway through proceedings, there’s a fun bit of typecasting with Klaus Kinski appearing as a slightly unhinged sculptor dressed only in a towel. The artist also holds séances in his workshop and undresses dolls on the floor of a public bathhouse. Another notable omission from the usual Eurospy formula is the lack of ‘tourist board’ footage used to highlight the exotic settings. Its absence may have been an artistic choice, but it could also be because it was entirely unnecessary. Whoever scouted locations for the film did a truly excellent job, providing Boisset with some striking and panoramic backdrops to his action. Extra special credit should also go to everyone who worked on location for those final act hunting sequences. Filming in such rugged terrain must have been a severe challenge.
Boisset followed up this project with the thrillers ‘Safety Catch/Cran d’arrêt’ (1970) and ‘The Cop/Un condé/Blood on My Hands (1970). His career gained enough traction to book stars Sterling Hayden and Santa Berger for ‘Angel’s Leap/Le saut de l’ange’ (1971) and Jean Seberg and Jean-Louis Trintignant for ‘The Assassination/L’attentat/Plot’ (1972), which won an award at the Moscow International Film Festival. Perhaps he is best known, however, for ‘The Prize of Peril/Le prix du danger’ (1983), a film based partially on writer Robert Sheckley’s satirical science fiction short story ‘The 7th Victim’. A few years later, he successfully sued 20th Century Fox for plagiarism, citing the similarities between his film and the Arnold Schwarzenegger hit vehicle ‘The Running Man’ (1987). He subsequently moved into television, where he has a long list of movie credits, including the award-winning ‘L’affaire Seznec’ (1993).
Another Coplan adventure that’s one of the best of the Eurpospy genre and a fitting end to the secret agent’s big screen career.