In the 1960's every male actor was forced to make some sort of a spy movie. Dean Martin (Dino) latched onto the Donald Hamilton Matt Helm spy novels and pretty much acted like a big goof throughout the series of 4 films.
As in any film, accommodating actors is what it's all about. Dino told Columbia studios that he had no intention of going on location for any of the filming on the French Riviera. Karl Malden was hired to play the chief bad guy and he decided to use some weird semi accent which he would drop and pick up throughout the movie, nobody apparently was going to call him on it. Then there is 25 year old Ann Margaret playing the love interest to 50 year old Dino.
Exactly what is this woman wearing throughout the film? She comes out of a swimming pool in a one piece swimming suit with long sleeves and a turtleneck. She wears some strange feathery thing with a cap during her big go go dancing scene. Her clothes are so tight she was clearly sewn into them.
What is this movie about? It's about 1966. It's about jokes about kids with long hair, it's about trying to wring every last dollar out of the spy movie craze, it's about the rock group Dino Desi and Billy, it's about 60's icon Ann Margaret but mostly it's about Dean Martin.
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the movie going public. Dino trots out his drunk routine once again. He clearly has no interest in taking this movie even remotely seriously, if the drunk act worked on his TV show, the drunk act will work in Murderers Row.
The 1960's may have been about Vietnam, Kennedy, Woodstock and the Beatles. But is was also about Bewitched, The Flintstones, I Dream of Jeannie and The Dean Martin Show.
105 minutes, written by Herbert Baker.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment