New York private eye Steve Martin comes to South Africa to try and
solve the murder of the right hand man of wealthy mineowner Wexler (Walter
Rilla), as Wexler is convinced the murderers of his employee are after him
as well. However, he refuses to tell Martin why he thinks so, and he also
refuses to collaborate with the police, claiming police inspector Lean
(Ronald Fraser) is nothing but a fool - even though he has found quite a
few traces, all connected to a photograph shot 20 years ago, when Wexler
and his right-hand-man were both prisoners of war. Martin tracks down the
other men in the photo and the photographer, but they're all killed before
his very eyes. Only one man he cannot track down, an Italian who is said
to have killed himself 20 years ago, killed himself because Wexler
betrayed his trust. But it's said he had a kid ... Martin and Lean try
to track down the kid of the Italian and soon suspect it to be Wexler's
foster daughter (Véronique Vendell) - until the true baddie turns out to
be not her but her fiancé (Dietmar Schönherr), who actually manages to
shoot Wexler dead before Martin's very eyes. Martin picks up pursuit
though, and the chase ends on a mountain top, with the killer eventually
falling off a cliff to his death, despite Martin's attempt to save him. Martin
by the way gets the girl - Wexler's pretty secretary (Ann Smyrner) - in
the end. A beautifully shot thriller set in pittoresque
landscapes, with quite a bit well-staged action (including an ostrich
attack), a few fine performances (including one of Lex Barker's better
ones) and quite a few sexy ladies cannot really make this film anything
more than routine. Basically, the film lacks tension and suspense, and
even if the plot is well-structured to make the killer a plausible but
hard-to-guess one, the mystery as such seems to kind of lack urgency. That's
not to say Code 7, Victim 5 is a bad movie, it's very ok routine
genre entertainment - but with everything the film has going for it, it
could have done with a better script.
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