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OK Connery
Operation Kid Brother
Italy 1967
produced by Dario Sabatello for Produzione D.S.
directed by Alberto De Martino
starring Neil Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Adolfo Celi, Agata Flori, Bernard Lee, Anthony Dawson, Lois Maxwell, Yee-Wah Yang (as Yachuco Yama), Franco Giacobini, Ana María Noé, Guido Lollobrigida, Francesco Tensi, Enzo Consoli, Mirella Pamphili, Nando Angelini, Lanfranco Ceccarelli, Aldo Cecconi, Antonio Gradoli, Fajda Nicol, Caterina Trentini, Leonardo Scavino, Mario Soria
story by Paolo Levi, screenplay by Paolo Levi, Frank Walker, Stanley Wright, Stefano Canzio, music by Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai
review by Mike Haberfelner
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During a public demonstration of his skills as plastic surgeon in Monte
Carlo, Dr. Neil Connery's intruders stir a commotion and kidnap his
patient Yachuko (Yee-Wah Yang). This brings the British Secret Service,
namely Commander Cunningham (Bernard Lee) and his assistant Max (Lois
Maxwell) onto the scene because apparently Yachuko has been carrying a
secret that's not to fall into the hands of evil organisation Thanatos,
which is run by Alpha (Anthony Dawson) ang Beta (Adolfo Celi). Of course,
the secret Yachuko carries is buried in her subconscious, and since
Connery's not only a world renowned plastic surgeon but also a master
hypnotist (and accomplished lipreader and championship archer by the way),
he's hired to help the Secret Service track her down. Of course Thanatos
uses every trick in the boook to throw Connery off the track, from luring
him into death traps to sending seductive women - first Mildred (Agata
Flori), later Maya (Daniela Bianchi) - after him in a wild goose chase
around half the globe. Eventually, Yachuko is found, and Connery can
pretty much just hypnotize the secret - Thanatos is trying to immobilize
the world with a magnetic ray as a form of blackmail - out of her before
she's killed. The Secret Service decide to keep Connery in employ after
this and send him to the Middle East, where Beta has a suspicious rug
factory - and fortunately, Beta needs the services of Connery as a
surgeon, so he gets into the center of things pretty quickly. Now Beta has
a plan to kill Alpha and replace him with one of his man with his face,
thus needs Connery to alter the face of one of his underlings - but
Connery manages to create a riot instead with the help of Maya, whose life
he has just saved. Beta escapes though, and kills Alpha anyhow to take
over Thanatos, but Maya tells Connery Beta's rugs, who are actually
radioactive material, are sent to his castle near Munich, so it's off to
Munic, where Connery meets with his archery club, so when Beta activates
is magnetic ray and immobilizes all machinery, Connery and his archer
friends attack Beta's headquarters, and ... well, of course it all ends
happily for Connery and Maya. When it comes to James
Bond knock-offs, one certainly can't blame Operation Kid
Brother for not trying: Not only does it star Sean Connery's real life
brother in the lead, it also features quite a number of actors previously
seen in Bond-movies,
first and foremost of course regulars M Bernard Lee and Moneypenny Lois
Maxwell, but also Adolfo Celi from Thunderball, early Blofeld
Anthony Dawson, Daniela Bianchi from From Russia With Love, and
Yee-Wah Yang from You Only Live Twice. And the film even gets
points for making Neil Connery not just a James
Bond carbon copy but giving him a different backstory and even
some reluctance in joining the spy game. None of this makes Operation
Kid Brother a really good let alone original movie, it still follows
the spy-games formula popularized by the James
Bond-movies in the 1960s, but at least it's made with some
care and features some exotic locations, so in all, certainly one of the
better and more entertaining Italian James
Bond knock-offs.
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