1968 - HAMMERHEAD - More Eurospy foolishness, part 3

NATO's defense plans are in jeopardy.  The evil villain Hammerhead is going to steal them and sell them to the highest bidder or something.  We know that Hammerhead is evil because he has a porno collection stashed away on his magnificent yacht.  To save the day the West's top spy played by Vince Edwards (?) is called into stop him.   

This film has the usual assortment of fights, car chases and leering shots of women in tight outfits.  For some reason cute Judy Geeson has decided she has "taken a shine" to Edwards and tags along for all the action and adventure.

As with all of these films there is on location photography this time in Portugal.  The action is pretty standard stuff.  The light touch is missing and the film plods along from one action sequence to another.  The villain Hammerhead is also kind of a cut rate Goldfinger with the usual quirks and a Oddjob like henchman to show how scary he is.

About the only thing to recommend this film is watching Judy Geeson run around in lots of "mod" 60's outfits, you could do a lot worse.

 99 minutes, written by John Briley ( Gandhi ?),  Herbert Baker and William Bast.

1963 - CAPTAIN NEWMAN MD , an early version of MASH

Good old Gregory Peck is Captain Newman a psychiatrist treating soldiers during World War  II suffering from PTDS or what was communal called battle fatigue. Peck is such a great psychiatrist that he can spend about 5 minutes with a screwed up soldier and instantly diagnosis and cure the guy. 

Tony Curtis is a staff orderly who is one of those scrounger guys they always have in these army films.  He always has some scam going and he knows where to get stuff that Newman needs even if it isn't "by the book." Angie Dickinson is the hot nurse persuaded by Captain Newman to help the nuts in the psych ward by walking around so they can ogle her legs in a truly sexist moment of the film.

I guess you can give this film a little credit for taking on the problems of soldiers with "battle fatigue" long before it was a popular subject but everything in this film is so neat and clean and easily wrapped up.  The film was clearly shot on the Universal back lot with all the sets brightly lighted and very pretty for a psych hospital ward.  Frankly the comedy and the drama don't mix real well.  The antics of Tony Curtis and the somber Gregory Peck do not exactly make for a great screen team.

This film reminds me of MASH if you were to take MASH and have it remade by a bunch of "white bread" middle aged guys.  The film's also very long.

126 minutes.