This is worth watching just for the fun of seeing Bette the Great playing a female Fu-Manchu in a straight-face parody of the James Bond films.
The usually wooden Robert Wagner is a former secret agent who seems to have fallen into hard times, we can deduct from his shabby appearance and his wandering down the Dilly as the film starts. He can't even afford himself a fare to fly back to the States, but then he angrily rejects Denholm Elliot's offer of a couple of days work and no questions asked, because he can see the man is a crook in a Savile Row suit. Then, the action begins in pure old Avengers style: Wagner is kidnapped in St. James' Park in broad daylight under everyone's obliviousness -the British always mind their own business, we all know- and flown to a castle in Scotland and welcome to Madame Sin's secret lair!
Playing Madame must have been fun for good old Bette, plus a cheque with seven figures in her bank account. Wagner seems to be the only actor in the cast who thought they were making a serious movie, because even Denholm Elliott plays tongue-in-cheek with a perpetual grin, and Roy Kinnear's cameo as a foolish passer-by whom Wagner persuades to call the Royal Navy from a phone booth and report that Madame is about to steal one of their nuclear submarines brings a few laughs too.
Nevertheless, it has to be said on Wagner's behalf that he does his own driving stunts in that cute little Mercedes while keeping his hair on, which is something.
The usually wooden Robert Wagner is a former secret agent who seems to have fallen into hard times, we can deduct from his shabby appearance and his wandering down the Dilly as the film starts. He can't even afford himself a fare to fly back to the States, but then he angrily rejects Denholm Elliot's offer of a couple of days work and no questions asked, because he can see the man is a crook in a Savile Row suit. Then, the action begins in pure old Avengers style: Wagner is kidnapped in St. James' Park in broad daylight under everyone's obliviousness -the British always mind their own business, we all know- and flown to a castle in Scotland and welcome to Madame Sin's secret lair!
Playing Madame must have been fun for good old Bette, plus a cheque with seven figures in her bank account. Wagner seems to be the only actor in the cast who thought they were making a serious movie, because even Denholm Elliott plays tongue-in-cheek with a perpetual grin, and Roy Kinnear's cameo as a foolish passer-by whom Wagner persuades to call the Royal Navy from a phone booth and report that Madame is about to steal one of their nuclear submarines brings a few laughs too.
Nevertheless, it has to be said on Wagner's behalf that he does his own driving stunts in that cute little Mercedes while keeping his hair on, which is something.