Marc Mato, Agente S.077 (a.k.a. Espionage In Tangiers ) (1965) That's right, my fellow secret agents, it's time jump into those exquisitely tailored 3 piece suits, strap on the shoulder holster and gun and beat the crap out of minions working for an evil mastermind bent on world domination.....
Eurospy time!
I realize it's been way too long since I sampled one of these badly dubbed Bond knockoffs that I used to shamelessly consume like White Castle sliders when they hit TV stations in the late 60's.
Oh, how I loved 'em......with their host of male mannequin Sean Connery stand-ins, their delectable collection of Euro-babe starlets, their outlandish plots, clumsy fight scenes, overheated jazzy music scores.....and with international casts dubbed in English to sound like they were all jammed into the same phone booth together......
This one's considered one of the better examples of this long lost genre......and mostly, I agree except when it badly botches its finale in ways I've never seen in all the Eurospy movies I've enjoyed.
Our dashing, indestructible spy guy here is agent Marc Mato (or in the English version, Mike Murphy). Played by Luis Davila, Mike's an amiable big lug given to smiling too much, especially at inappropriate moments (like when he hurls a knife into a minion's throat). In true Bond-ian fashion, he's a hound dog for women, but this guy's reflexive grinning began to grate on me, like he's in on some joke he won't share with the rest of us.
(I can understand why some spy fanboys mistook him for one-shot Bond George Lazenby, whom Davila slightly resembles....)
Mike's new mission involves tracking down a missing component of a disintegrating death ray just invented by a scientist who thinks it'll end all wars.....(heh, heh, heh, heh, I guess the poor shlub never saw "War Of The Worlds")
Big disappointment to report......as tantalizing as the death ray sounds, the wussie scientist only uses it to vaporize random objects like a car and fireplace logs. So nobody should get their hopes up about seeing people zapped into oblivion......sigh.......what's the point of showing a frickin' death ray if you aren't gonna Raygun some deserving villains??
But now on to the good stuff that made this movie a decently entertaining addition to the Eurospy canon.
Action, action, action. Loads of it, with Big Mike regularly pounding on multiple minions. Our favorite by far.....Mike and a minions swapping punches while both dangling precariously from a rope ladder.
Not one but two dangerous femme fatales making themselves frenemies with the Mike-inator. I can only guess they tolerate him on account of his non-top boyish grin.....
Grisly minion deaths! For your lip smackin' pleasure, there's a couple of doozies...... with one henchman taking a speedy car ride while outside the car with his head stuck through the window and another woebegone wimp getting a tummy tuck from hell via tightening a wire across his pudgy belly.
The movie barrels along at a damn good clip until it takes the oddest turn I've encountered in a Eurospy caper. It renders the final scene limp, abrupt and making you wonder,."what the hell were they thinking, ending a Eurospy movie this way?"
Sorry, my fellow spies, but BQ can't get on the bandwagon designating "Espionage In Tangiers" as a top notch entry. It's 2 & 1/2 stars at best (**1/2), mainly for its overabundance of fights, chases and those cute but deadly Mata Hari twins........and we promise to cover more Eurospy missions in 2024....ir's BQ's most vital mission!
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