1969 - THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU, amusing British comedy thriller

When you think about romantic leads in films probably the late actor Oliver Reed would have been about the last person you would hire for this clever comedy/thriller.  Reed is certainly a presence on the screen as they like to say. 

In The Assassination Bureau, Oliver Reed mugs shamelessly and seems to work fairly hard at stealing scenes from the rest of the cast.  But Reed kind of meets his match in Diana Rigg with her amusing performance as the female lead and Telly Savalas who also knows a trick or two about grabbing attention.

The Assassination Bureau is about an organization of profession killers knocking off world leaders in the early 1900's for money.  Reed is the head of the Bureau, Diana Rigg is the heroic reporter who is out to stop Reed and the Bureau and Telly Savalas is the publisher of the newspaper that Rigg works at.

  

The film was directed by Basil Dearden who along with his associate Michael Relph the screenwriter /producer and production designer did a good job putting the film together.  Nothing in it is to be taken very seriously and the actors appear to be having a lot of fun which for a change they can communicate to the audience.

 

This is the kind of droll understated humor that the British can be very good at.  Probably the biggest disappointment in the film is the climactic battle on a Zeppelin.  This sequence suffers from very poor special effects photography, the Zeppelin looks very much like a model photographed against a very poor backdrop.  In spite of this sequence the film is still quite fun and it's also a very good looking film well photographed by the legendary British cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth.

The running time is 110 minutes.