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Missione Speciale Lady Chaplin
Special Mission Lady Chaplin
Operación Lady Chaplin / Mission Spéciale Lady Chaplin / Mission Spéciale Polaris / L'Affaire Lady Chaplin / Operation Lady Chaplin
Italy / France / Spain 1966
produced by Edmondo Amati for Fida Cinematografica, Les Productions Jacques Roitfeld, Sincronía
directed by Alberto De Martino
starring Ken Clark, Daniela Bianchi, Helga Liné, Jacques Bergerac, Mabel Karr, Alfredo Mayo, Philippe Hersent, Evelyn Stewart (= Ida Galli), Tomás Blanco, José Panizo, Peter Blades, Rafael Albaicín, Raymond Jourdan, Alberto Cevenini
story by Sandro Continenza, Marcello Coscia, Hipólito de Diego, screenplay by Sandro Continenza, Marcello Coscia, Hipólito de Diego, Giovanni Simonelli, music by Bruno Nicolai, title song performed by Bobby Solo, action sequences staged by Enzo Musumeci Greco, Enzo Girolami (= Enzo G. Castellari), Giorgio Ubaldi
Agent 077
review by Mike Haberfelner
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It all starts with a fake nun (Daniela Bianchi) shooting two fake monks
somewhere in Spain, and that apparently has something to do with a sunken
nuclear submarine, somewhere off the coast of the US that according to
ship wreckage specialist Zoltan (Jacques Bergerac) is unraisable. And this
brings CIA agent 077 Dick Malloy (Ken Clark) onto the scene, who follows a
trail to Madrid, only to see a key witness murdered by the fake nun who's
now dressed up as a wheelchair bound old lady. Eventually though, she's
revealed to be a top fashion designer named Lady Chaplin, and apparently
she's a good friend of Zoltan's, who just also happens to be in Madrid.
There's much to and fro before Malloy is called back to the US because the
submarine has been found. But when Malloy inspects it, he finds its
nuclear warheads missing. Meanwhile in England, Lady Chaplin, upon
Zoltan's request, steals some missile fuel from a speeding train, then
works it into her fashion line to sell to the foreign power that has also
bought the missiles, as woven into textiles it can easily be smuggled.
However, one of the models at her Paris fashion snow who also happens to
be an American agent, gets wind of this and steals one of Lady Chaplin's
dresses - but is caught, shot at and blown to Kingdom Come. Then though
Malloy, who has long found out that Lady Chaplin is the woman behind
everything, seduces her and suddenly she promises to help him take down
her employer Zoltan. Zoltan learns about this and throws her out of a
flying plane, but she has come equipped with a parachute and a machine
gun, so she sails down to the ground quite comforatably and then takes out
the small army Zoltan has sent after her, with only a little help from
Malloy, who ultimately dukes it out with Zoltan in his missile silo that
also catches fire, before Zoltan's bitten to death by his own pet
scorpion. Last in the trio of Agent 077 movies,
this is actually one of the better Eurospy movies of the era, even if it
plays it very safe and basically copies the James
Bond formula with some accuracy - without Ken Clark having
anything on Sean Connery of course. And that said, sure the screenplay's
very muddled and doesn't 100% make sense, and several action scenes seem
to appear out of nowhere, narratively, and don't serve any purpose other
than stuffing the film with yet more action. On the other side though, the
film's very stylishly filmed, makes good use of its locations all over the
world, is fast paced, features action aplenty along with some very
beautiful women. It's no classic for sure, but a very enjoyable time
capsule at least.
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