KOMMISSAR X: SO DARLING, SO DEADLY

Tony Kendall and Brad Harris

KOMMISSAR X: SO DARLING, SO DEADLY (aka Kommisar X -- In den Klauen des goldenen Drachen aka Agent Joe Walker: Operation Far East/1966). Director: Frank Kramer/Gianfranco Parolini.

"You're just like a man -- cynical, cold, heartless." -- Sybil.

"That's true." -- Joe.

In the third of several movies teaming Joe Walker, aka "Kommissar X" (Tony Kendall), with New York police captain Tom Rowland (Brad Harris), the boys are sent to Singapore to report to a man named Apollo. Apollo turns out to be elderly Professor Akron (E. F. Furbringer), who is working on a deadly laser that uses an "eradica filter." An organization called the Golden Dragon, run by a mysterious man in a red mask with eye holes, has his operatives do their best to acquire the filter, even going so far as to kidnap the professor's daughter, Sybil (Barbara Frey). There are several female assassins in the Golden Dragon, including busty blond Stella (Gisela Hahn), her sister Serena (Margaret Rose Kiel), and nasty brunette Shabana (Luisa Rivelli). So Darling, So Deadly features some excellent Singapore location work, a couple of exciting chase sequences, and two suspenseful death traps: one involving an elevator shaft and a descending car with spikes on the bottom of it; and the other involving a cage wherein spears keep descending on a captive Walker. The English voices chosen for our heroes are not appropriate, the musical score is terrible (a different score would have vastly improved the movie), and the whole production is second-rate, but the movie is not altogether awful and has several quite entertaining moments. The women in the cast are attractive, but hardly the raving, super-sexy beauties of some of the Bond films. Harris, who does a mean frug at one point, also supervised the stunt work in the film. Italian-German co-production.

Verdict: Acceptable europsy feature with two efficient leads. **1/2.