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Residencia para Espías
Residence of Spies
Golden Horn
Spain 1966
produced by Hesperia Films
directed by Jess Franco
starring Eddie Constantine, Diana Lorys, Anita Höfer, Otto Stern, Tota Alba, Dina Loy, Mary Paz Pondal, Cris Huerta, Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui, Lola Gaos, Nora Romo, Andonio Jiménez Escribano, Manuel Vidal, Wolfgang Preiss, Johanna von Koczian, Howard Vernon, Jess Franco
screenplay by Jess Franco, Luis Revenga, based on the novel by Michael Loggan, music by Odón Alonso, Adolfo Waitzman
review by Mike Haberfelner
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After a top secret American weapons transport is publicly announced in
the UN by a Russian diplomat, the Americans have to come to the
realization there's a leak somewhere in their communication route, and
they trace the leak back to a boarding school for female spies in
Istambul. So the CIA sends their top agent/womanizer Dan Leyton (Eddie
Constantine) to act as undercover chauffeur/maintenance guy/seducer at the
school. The downside though for Dan's womanizing ways, the CIA has sent
his agent girlfriend Marion (Anita Höfer) along to ... keep an eye on
him, mostly. Well, Dan is a wiley fox, so he still finds enough ways to
seduce the girls, including Janet (Diana Lorys), the girlfriend of his
Istambul contact Colonel Spokane (Otto Stern), plus he goes after clue
after clue after clue ... but everything leads to very little apart from
him getting beaten up a few times, being able to beat up a few baddies,
and being shot at at regular intervals. Oh, and the girls at the school
are dropping like flies. Finally, Dan comes to the conclusion that Janet
must be the villainess of the piece, but when he confronts her with that,
she proves all his evidence wrong but gets him onto the decisive lead -
the school's inconspicuous doctor (Nora Romo), who smuggles military
secrets out of the school via equally inconscpiuous x-rays of her
patients. Knowing that, it doesn't take Dan long to bust the whole spy
ring. Their ringleader though is Colonel Spokane, an old friend of his,
whom he offers the gentle-man (?) like way out, suicide - an offer Spokane
gladly takes him up on ... Residence for Spies is
a light-footed and elegantly directed Eurospy movie that takes a comedic
approach to things (something both Jess Franco and Eddie Constantine are
usually better at than usually given credit for) that easily makes up for
the film's obviously pretty limited budget. But as swift as the film might
move, as good as it might look, and as funny as it might be at times, one
can't help but notice that it seriously lacks in the story department.
Basically, most of what happens in this movie happens at rather random
moments and is not always set up narratively, and the plot as such lacks
highlights and proper twists, too. Actually, the film doesn't get really
exciting until the finale. Now that's not to say Residence for Spies
is a bad film, in fact it compares rather favourably to quite a few other
Eurospy movies out there (also because Eddie Constantine had enough
charisma to carry a film and Jess Franco never made cookie-cutter movies,
even when he stuck to whatever formula), it just really could have done
with a better thought-through and structured script.
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