Sunday, April 14, 2024

Murderers' Row (1966)

Matt Helm (Dean Martin) has just finished a photo shoot with Miss January and plans to relax while he awaits the next model.  To his mild surprise, he finds January in his bed.  How nice.  However, he no sooner joins her than she tries to escape the bed and the plotted assassination for which she was bait!  Is this the end of Matt Helm?  Oddly enough, this faked assassination pre-dates the same thing from You Only Live Twice (1967) in the James Bond series.  Who is stealing from whom?

The same villainous organization from The Silencers is back and have now kidnapped a scientist on the French Riviera.  The scientist has developed a ray that can incinerate a city.  To prevent interference with their plans, Ironhead (Tom Reese) was dispatched to kill top agents around the world, including Matt Helm.  Ironhead thinks he has succeeded in every case.  Using the alias of Jim Peters, Helm arrives in Cannes to locate Dr. Solaris, the missing scientist.  However, he finds that his contact has been murdered and thus he instead teams with Suzie (Ann-Margret), a seemingly ditzy hippy girl who loves to dance and wear stylish clothes.  She also happens to be Dr. Solaris' daughter and is likewise searching for him.  Julian Wall (Karl Malden) knows there is something fishy about this Jim Peters and is particularly curious when he finds the man snooping around his operation.

Ironhead is bald but part of his scalp is metal.  Helm learns after one hit that it isn't just for show.  The guy really has an iron head.  This is humorous when Helm uses a giant magnet to lift Ironhead and take him out of the fight.  Wow, this predates a near identical scene from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) where James Bond (Roger Moore) used a giant magnet on the steel-toothed Jaws (Richard Kiel).  The Bond spoof inspired the Bond franchise.  How funny.

Karl Malden makes for an odd bad guy.  Playing to the comic nature of the show, he switches accents from time to time.  James Gregory returns as ICE Chief MacDonald and Beverly Adams is back as Lovey Kravezit.  Dean Martin's son, Dean Paul Martin, has a cameo along with Desi Arnaz Jr.  The banter between father and son was clever.  As in The Silencers, a dig is made at Frank Sinatra, but it's all in good fun.

There is more campiness in this one than the last.  The freeze gun was the most obvious case of silliness but the bomb that would explode after sufficient shaking was likewise corny.  Too often, the villains had to be stupid in order for Helm to succeed.  Nonetheless, generally entertaining.

Good popcorn fun.

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