The Last of the Secret Agents? (1966)

Director:

Norman Abbott

Writers:

Norman Abbott (story)
Mel Tolkin (screenplay)

Release Date:

16 June 1967 (Finland)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

Will spying ever be the same again?

Plot:

Marty and Steve, American tourists in France, are given a multipurpose umbrella and pitted against an international band of art thieves...

Plot Keywords:

James Bond Spoof | Agent | Spying | Spoof | Spy Spoof

Cast

Marty Allen	...	Marty Johnson
Steve Rossi	...	Steve
John Williams	...	J. Fredrick Duval
Nancy Sinatra	...	Micheline
Lou Jacobi	...	Papa Leo
Theodore Marcuse	...	Zoltan Schubach
Carmen	...	Baby May Zoftig
Remo Pisani	...	Them I
Ben Lessy	...	Harry
Loren Ewing	...	GGI Man
Sig Ruman	...	Prof. Werner von Koenig
Larry Duran	...	Them II
Wilhelm von Homburg	...	GGI Man
Aida Fries	...	Belly Dancer (as Gida Fries)
Harvey Korman	...	German Colonel

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-12 | Sweden:15

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

The acronym organization THEM was not explained with a meaning but one would guess it was self-explanatory meaning something like a third person pronoun for the enemy organization.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Operation: Secret Agents, Spies & Thighs (2007) (V)

Soundtrack:

The Last of the Secret Agents?

Mel Tolkin, How Could You?

I saw this on AMC last night, introduced by Nancy Sinatra, whose years of experience have not yet rendered her able to read believably from a cue card.

It actually looked like it might be interesting, since it was written by Mel Tolkin, head writer for "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour" (two of the most intelligently written comedy shows of the fifties) and who was later head writer for "All in the Family."

This movie stinks. Brilliant comic actors like Lou Jacobi, Sig Rumann and John Williams are wasted. The plot limps along like a snail with gout. Allen and Rossi, who I remember liking very much on the Ed Sullivan show, do the best they can with underwritten characters. The aforementioned Nancy Sinatra attempts an accent (I believe French, but it's hard to tell.) Her dress gets ripped off, which is the high point of the movie.

I stuck with it until the end because I began to have a morbid fascination with the film: Can It Get Even Unfunnier As It Goes On? The answer is yes, and an hour and a half of my life is irretrievably gone.

You could watch this movie three or four times, and be rolling on the floor... if someone set you on fire and you were trying to extinguish it. Which would actually be preferable to concentrating on this film.