Eurospy movies are a sublime genre ripe for rediscovery. Hundreds were made throughout the 1960s, often with American actors like Ray Danton, Lex Barker and Tony Kendall playing a host of James Bond wannabes. Among the most popular was Ken Clark who, after small roles in South Pacific and Love Me Tender, settled into a long European career as spy guys like Agent 777 and FX 18. Here he plays 077 in one of several films featuring the character.
A portable nuclear bomb codenamed “Bloody Mary”, named after the “similarly explosive cocktail” (pretty suave, huh?), is stolen by criminal mastermind The Black Lily (Umberto Raho). Not the most manly of monikers. Dick Malloy (Ken Clark), agent 077, is busy bedding an Elke Sommer look-alike, when he is sent to recover the missing weapon. After deciphering a clue left by a Chinese femme fatale (Mitsouko), 077 teams up with sultry Dr. Elsa Freeman (Helga Line - a familiar face for fans of Spanish horror) and chases the bomb from Paris to Madrid, Trinidad and Athens, amidst numerous twists and turns.
While the plot device of a stolen nuclear bomb echoes Thunderball (1965), this is less overtly fantastical than that film or indeed most Eurospy movies. It’s closer to the intrigue and espionage of the early Bond films, yet while the plot springs several surprise betrayals and deaths, they’re often vague and confusing. Nonetheless, the viewer’s attention is held through a number of witty scenes: a bored saloon girl (Silvana Jachino) struggling to entertain a drunk Russian agent; Mitsouko’s rather elegant striptease wherein a coded message is stitched into her bra (which 077 is only too happy to help remove); a comedy relief cabdriver who turns out to be more than he seems. Especially amusing is the moment our hero tries to confirm Elsa’s identity by searching for two, distinctive moles on her left breast. Whereupon she obligingly strips off. Sex, naturally, follows. Only in the movies, eh?
Ken Clark is impressively brawny and athletic. He seems to be enjoying the time of his life here, kissing Euro babes and slugging bad guys, although 077’s tendency to smirk his way through most confrontations doesn’t leave him the most endearing hero. Gadgetry is kept to a minimum. 077’s sole piece of kit is a revolver that fires nine bullets. We’re told that is “one more than usual”, but don’t revolvers hold six bullets? Anyway, the story is diffuse with subterfuge, but the action rattles along well enough. A rooftop shootout is especially well orchestrated and a close quarter encounter between 077 and a knife-wielding thug inside a train cabin apes the legendary fight between James Bond and Red Grant in From Russia With Love (1963). Sergio Grieco (under the pseudonym: Terence Hathaway) made dozens of Eurospy movies, including several superior 077 outings. But if you enjoy this you absolutely need to see his aptly-titled: Incredible Paris Incident (1967).
