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| Michael Craig and Barbara Bates |
"He's too smug to live."
Sailor Larry Ellis (Michael Craig) is drafted by the Criminal Investigation Association (CIA) -- "international cops," as Larry puts it -- when it develops that he bears a striking resemblance to a deceased criminal named Steve Chancellor. Coached by his superiors, he infiltrates a gang who plan to release scads of counterfeit cash into the world's economy. Ellis' job is to find out who the real ringleader is and stop the plot. Chancellor's girlfriend, Judy (Barbara Bates), is actually an undercover agent, and there's another woman in Chancellor's life, Diane (Julia Arnell) who is the niece of the dragon lady conspirator, Madame Ballu (Brenda de Banzie of The Man Who Knew Too Much). Julius (Gerard Oury) and Anton (Anton Diffring) round out the gang, but there's an unknown traitor in the CIA who is Ellis' most dangerous adversary. This pre-Bond film comes off more like a spy thriller than a crime drama, and is not badly done. Craig, who is swaggering, rakish and sexy throughout, would actually not have made a bad 007, as he loves up the women and engages in fisticuffs with equal aplomb. There's a lively dressing room knife-fight, some decent slug-fests, and an exciting climax on a plane with a bomb on it. I had always thought that Craig suppressed his British accent in certain films, such as Mysterious Island, but his North American voice is his true one (having been raised in Canada) and he affects a British accent for such pictures as Doctor in Love. He and the other cast members are all quite good -- Anton Diffring [The Man Who Could Cheat Death] is rather wasted, however -- and the picture is fast-paced and entertaining.
Verdict: Craig would have made a fine Bond. ***.
A good film, I thought - and, as you say, we could well have had another Mr Craig as Bond.
ReplyDeleteYes, it would have been interesting to see what might have happened had Craig got the part instead of Connery, but that's a story for some parallel universe, I suppose.
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I remember watching this as a teenager in the 1990s and really enjoying it. Barbara Bates was a barmaid in Errol Flynn's "Adventures of Don Juan" as I recall but sadly committed suicide some years after this film released. Julia Arnall, his prepossessing co-star, and a very good actress, died just last November.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. Of course Bates' most famous role, however brief, was at the end of "All About Eve," but she appeared in a variety of films and TV shows and had a lot of personal demons, killing herself with carbon monoxide at only 46. I don't think I've seen Arnall in anything else.
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