Saw this first on MST3K, but I like the movie anyway

I have a soft spot for spy adventures, not necessarily the outright spoofs, or the gritty realistic thrillers. Just fun, somewhat light-hearted adventures. That is what this movie turned out to be, surprisingly.

I saw it for the first time in its MST3K edition. This got me wondering what the movie played like without the riffing, so I sought it out (and found it on YouTube, naturally). There are some additional moments of action, otherwise it plays pretty much the same. And I found it to be enjoyable after all! It does have the unmistakable look and sound of a 1960s era secret agent romp, so it is dated in that respect, but it was a lot of fun.

The paper thin characters are mostly well played, and leads Gordon Scott and Delfi Mauro are very charismatic. Not many surprises with the plot, but even some of the supporting players do a good job (the bad guy's wife, the inept assassin turned good guy). I love the underscore, even if I can't help but think of how MST3K mercilessly made fun of the repeating musical themes. The toy submarine/helicopter sequence is unfortunate, to be honest, but does at least serve to remind the audience they are watching a comic book come to life. It would have been easy enough to eliminate that bit entirely, by simply showing the bad guys escaping and then cutting to someone explaining they'd lost track of them. The 'helicopter' exploding on top of the sub was not such a spectacular sequence that it demanded inclusion. The fact it stayed in the picture shows how fearless the movie's makers were. I like to think they hoped audiences would laugh with them, rather than at them. I'm not such a snob that I'd turn the movie off right then and there, but I respect those who would.

There is just one quibble that bothered me (slightly). The reluctant assassin who gets clobbered in Bart Fargo's room was going to try and surprise him with a knife attack. Fargo dispatches him effortlessly, which is amusing, and then allows him to escape. BUT... feeling grateful for not getting killed, the henchman later turns up as Fargo is getting kidnapped, and efficiently eliminates several armed guards with a deadly blowgun, of all things! Why wouldn't he have used that, from afar even, on Fargo to begin with? I've decided he must not have been permitted access to the good weapons. Then he realized he was expendable, so he stole whatever he thought he'd need and just set out to get them before they got him. I can live with that explanation!


"He likes his tea stirred anti-clockwise..."