'THE SALZBURG CONNECTION'.....SPY VS. SPY VS. SPY VS. SPY VS. SPY. VS.... (YOU KNOW THE REST...)

The Salzburg Connection (1972)   Not that this movie would ever be worth the trouble, but you'd need a wall-sized NCAA 'March Madness' bracket chart to logistically keep track of the various secret agents running around through the plot.

             In this trash-compacted 93 minute version of a Helen MacInnes espionage thriller, a virtual global convention of spies (CIA, KGB, Israel's Mossad, Neo-Nazis and for all we know, the Girl Scouts too...)  pile up the dead bodies in their search for a lock box stuffed with the names of Nazi collaborators.

              Incomprehensible from first minute to last, it's 'directed' (and we use that word very loosely) by a television hack named Lee H. Katzin, a great lover of freeze-frames and inadvertent slow motion shots. Remember this guy's name........if you ever see it on any film or TV show, flee for you sanity.

              When stuck watching a cinematic trainwreck, we always make a game try to pluck out a few saving graces amidst the smoldering debris.......and so.....

               Salzburg.....flavorful location filming all over town.....makes you wish they'd have come up with a real movie to match the locations....

                Anna Karina........forced to spend the entire movie as a victimized deer-in-the-headlights character, but oh my God is she beautiful. All the spies in the movie want to grab her......so do we.

                Klaus-Maria Brandauer......Hilariously, 'introduced' in the credits as if he's a fresh-faced Miss Golden Globes starlet. But he earns that extra billing, stealing every scene he's in with his deceptively lazy 'I know something you don't' smirk. If you remember anything from this severely forgettable film, it's the shots of Brandauer cackling insanely with joy as he tears through the Austrian countryside, driving what looks like Patton's leftover armored jeep.

                Karen Jensen.......although just another blonde, studio xeroxed starlet of the era, she gives it her all as a cold, cold two faced KGB operative, effectively posing as a cute 'n dreamy footloose American college girl. Whenever she drops the mask to reveal her true self,  she's icier than a Moscow winter.  We could have watched a whole movie about her character alone.......

               Barry to the rescue......even without his "Vanishing Point" Dodge Challenger, actor Barry Newman still finds a unique spin on a standard car chase, as he races after thugs who've kidnapped Anna Karina. Upending the usual trajectory of  these sequences, Barry manages to position himself ahead of the Thugmobile, thereby slowing the traffic till the cops arrive.  Not bad, given that it's the only action set-piece in the entire film......

               Now that we've itemized these high points, it makes us a little sad that this film didn't have a better director, someone who might have delivered a fully realized, suspenseful spy caper instead of this sorry, chopped-up mess of disconnected, inexplicable footage.  1 star (*) and the only reason for even one, that watchable trio of Anna, Klaus and Karen.  How 'bout a remake.....with Margot Robbie taking over Jensen's role as a mini-skirted Mata Hari...........