WHERE THE BULLETS FLY

Secret Agent Charles Vine (Tom Adams) is back! 

WHERE THE BULLETS FLY (1966). Director: John Gilling.

Secret Agent Charles Vine (Tom Adams) is out to stop a weird character named Angel (Michael Ripper of Night Creatures) from stealing a certain "sporium" alloy. Angel employs a dapper hit man, Seraph (Tim Barrett),  who wears a bowler hat, carries an umbrella pistol, and laughs like a hyena; a reasonably lively scene has Vine pursuing Seraph through the sewers. The best thing about the picture is the prologue, in which a group of lady tourists at the Thames turn out to be Vine and other agents in drag; they manage to stop a missile from hitting Big Ben. There's also the room with an electrified floor, and a striptease to a jazzed-up version of Scheherazade! Alas this sequel to The 2nd Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World, aside from one or two sequences, is an absolutely dreadful picture, not even half as good as the original, itself no world-beater. Whereas 2nd Best was more or less told straight, the sequel has a surplus of silliness, most of which is distinctly unamusing. Adams is fine as Vine. but one isn't certain if Michael Ripper's character is supposed to be Japanese or not. The women are Suzan Farmer [Die, Monster, Die], Dawn Addams, and Heidi Erich. John Arnatt is Vine's unpleasant boss, Rockwell, and Sidney James [The Glass Tomb] has a nice turn as a mortuary attendant who finds himself with more corpses than he can handle after a gun battle. Unfortunately, Adams did another of these, O.K. Yevtushenko, two years later.

Verdict: Not ripe off the vine. *1/2.