The Matt Helm series of films made between 1966 and 1969 are rightly reviled - in the canon of cinematic art, that is - as reprehensible rubbish! So much so, that the third in the series, ‘The Ambushers’, was one of those included in Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfuss’ (in?)famous selection in 1978, of the 50 worst films ever made!*1
However, if watched with like-minded ‘bad film’ aficionado, plus, advisedly, to endure the experience, with a bottle of Ballantine’s whisky (see end!), there can be much to be enjoyed from a back to back screening of the series!
First, at least in this reviewer’s opinion, the singled out ‘Ambushers’ actually turns out to be one of the best (!), and rather, it is the last, ‘The Wrecking Crew’ which actually exhibits much that the Medved and Dreyfuss understandably ridiculed in ‘The Ambushers’, not least, Dean Martin’s performance, or, more accurately, total lack of it, as in this final entry into the series, not only does he more or less merely leer his way totally through the film, he also barely utters a word, as though already aware that not only did the series have to end, but that the point of his presence in the films had become entirely beyond him. In this one, his co actors - it would be unfair to characterise them as support players, unless in the sense of the necessity to prop up the clearly soused Martin! - in effect, act out the script around Martin’s either bewildered, or disinterested, longueurs throughout!
This is a pity, as not only is the film the swansong of the series, but very sadly proved to be that too of the main female character, played by the ill-fated Sharon Tate, in her last performance (ahead of her notoriously brutal murder by the Charles Manson gang), and thus provides a rather a poignant viewing experience, as Ms. Tate easily steals the film from the lush protagonist!
Which leads to the guilty pleasure that, as ‘wasting’ your precious time to view such tosh is invariably a male pursuit, (and, I wonder why this is - note; subject of another musing sometime, perhaps?), is that the challenge to sit through this claptrap can be pleasantly offset by the delectability of the leading ladies cast for series.
For example, sharing the bill with the ill-fated Ms. Tate in the aforementioned ‘Wrecking Crew’ was teutonic beauty, Elke Sommer (as a ‘baddie’ too – although far better enjoyed in the ‘Behind’ episode of the ‘Carry On’ series); back to the first though, in which it was Stella Stevens (probably better served in Dean’s erstwhile showbiz sidekick, Jerry Lewis’s ‘The Nutty Professor’) and the sultry Deliah Lavi (‘Israeli international leading lady’- according to Haliwell’s film guide), plus, also for two dance numbers only before she is summarily bumped off, Cyd Charisse, better remembered for her dancing (see ‘Silk Stockings, with Fred Astaire, or ‘Invitation to the Dance’ with Gene Kelly), and which in ‘The Silencers’ was all she did, but attired in a memorable costume (more on that later!); in the second it was (mainly) Ann Margaret, whose energetic ‘modern’ jitterbug dancing appears to have anticipated the rave dancing style of the 1990’s and just has to be seen to be believed when dressed in what can only be chicken suit, (actually, meant to be daisies, I believe though), complete with matching knickers too, which we voyeuristically get to see after Matt rips off her dress and hoists her over his shoulder! Mind you, credit due to Matt in this instance though, as he did so to foil a bomb in a brooch on the dress (but never fear, more of dress snatching later!)
So, plaudits there to both choreographer Miriam Nelson, and costume designer Moss Mobry (and Moss, on both first films too).
In the third, it was Senta Berger (who?: ‘Austrian leading Lady’ this time - Halliwell again.) and Janice Rule, who, in all likelihood, will ring few, if any, bells, even for fans of minor starlet roles: (reference to Halliwell again, italicises the 1966 film ‘The Chase’ as indicating that this is the one to seek out to catch her best performance, although, not having seen it, I would also direct you to the private detective genre spoof, ‘Gumshoe’ with Albert Finney, instead); which might lead one to wonder if the third in the series is thus worth enduring; but most assuredly it is, for here’s where actually I beg to differ from the esteemed Medved/ Dreyfuss judgement and consider this entry to actually be the best of the ‘worst’, so to speak, of the series.
Thus, despite the dubious drawback of a relatively unknown lead female role to enjoy, at least this story (all four films were based on Donald Hamilton’s books) has the fun of a tenuous sci-fi theme in that it centres around the recovery of a hijacked flying saucer - the technical sophistication of which is neatly illustrated by its fold back entrance, which would have shamed a third grade school production effect: (although, a Danny Lee is actually credited with ‘special effects’, but which, perhaps not surprisingly in view of the calibre of the efforts put into them, was the only film in the series to give such credit.)
This nicely leads us onto the enjoyment of the gadgets employed to ensure Matt always triumphs over the evil baddies: in this one, he is issued with an electronic metal dissolver which enables Matt to outwit the baddy’s henchmen by depanting them all, so that they hobble about embarrassedly, while Matt motorbikes between them; incidentally, they are then rendered totally helpless when have to they stand to attention as the party band strike up what is presumably their country’s national anthem (I believe it is supposed to be Mexico). (And as an aside at this ‘action’, a suspiciously somewhat ‘gay’ undertone begins to pervade this entry into the series later when Matt attempts to pursue the runaway flying saucer down a railroad track, and seats himself directly onto one of the rails to energetically whoosh down the incline, in what seems like, literally, by the ‘seat of his pants’ only!)
But back to ‘the Ambushers’ geeky gadgets; later, Matt purloins the baddy’s levitation ‘ray’ (well, at least it spits sparks rather lamely!) gun, with which Matt renders the next bunch of baddies disarmed from their positions atop rickety looking ladders, which, but for their levitated away machine guns, could otherwise have been mistaken for merely a bunch of baddy lair window cleaners.
Eventually, as this adventure wends its tiresome way to its denouement, predictably, Matt*2 uses this metal controlling gadget to unzip off Ms. Rule’s trendy leather looking dress, in a reversal of how the gadget was first introduced to us, then being used by the ‘slaygirls’ at ICE*3 ‘rehabilitation’ facility to depant a male mannequin. (So, Matt must have been suitably ‘rehabilitated’ - although from what, one wonders? Presumably assignment fatigue, but possibly also drink; excessive sexism - having to still star in these films, perhaps? - as he uses the same technique on the aforementioned henchmen.)
But the reason I single this scene out from so many that can be ridiculed (besides the appalling sexism), is that the series was originally intended as a lightweight spoof on the then rapidly becoming popular James Bond franchise (by the launch of the Helm series, Bond was already in his fifth adventure in ‘You Only Live Twice’); BUT, who was spoofing, or copying, whom, for if you check out ‘Live and Let Die’ five years later, with Roger Moore’s first stab at the Bond role, what does he have but a ‘hyper-intensified magnetic field’ wristwatch, which he chivalrously employs to unzip Madeline Smith’s dress (and, incidentally, esconcsed in a cupboard, at that)!
Coincidence, you may think, until you also discover in number two in the Helm series, ‘Murderer’s Row’ also from 1966, the baddy henchman there, Ironhead (Tom Reese) has a metal plated pate and who gets his comeuppance when apprehended by an overhead mag (netism)-crane. Now check out how Mr. Moore’s Bond disposes with his famous ‘Jaws’ (Richard Kiel) adversary by hoisting him, if not by his own petard, then by his notorious steel teeth in ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, ten years later in 1977!
And if you re-watch ‘Live and Let Die’ again, also compare how the baddy meets Bond from his Louisiana Bar revolving wallseat, with the same encounter for Matt in ‘The Wrecking Crew’ three years earlier…..
Indeed, so, who was spoofing or downright filching from whom, you might be forgiven for wondering?
As a further matter of interest for presaging future film effects, once again in the too underappreciated ‘the Ambushers’, note the whole body ‘exo-skeleton’ beer barrel lifting equipment in the baddy’s brewery, which, Janice, fittingly for her female role, later utilises to exponentially increase her strength so that she can beer barrel bowl down one baddy threatening Matt: now check out how Sigourney Weaver does battle with the dreaded alien queen, fifteen years later in ‘Aliens’! James Cameron a Matt Helm fan perhaps?
And then, if you are a fan of the rock band, Pink Floyd, consider this: after Matt had had to make do with a rear seat conversion to make his station wagon’s bed in the first film, by the notorious third, ‘The Ambushers’ again, his secret organisation, ICE, had been able to shell out for an inflatable ‘tent/room’ which decamps from the rear of Matt’s car and comes complete with inflatable fridge, bedside lamp, and, unsurprisingly, a bed (all of which magically turn into the real items by the next shot!) Now, if you are one of those fans that happened to catch their 1977 tour in which they also used inflatable furniture effects, it makes me wonder, did their show main man, Roger Waters, see this film in his tender youth?
So now, putting Matt’s transport and effects together, mention must be made, too, to watch out for the appalling back projection synchronisation used throughout the series, if only for the fun of spotting Matt’s obliviousness to how he is supposed to be steering his vehicles. In all except ‘The Ambushers’, (in which it is a runaway flying saucer/motorbike pursuit), there is the de-rigueur car chase (and almost the same in all three) invariably intercut with an interior scene in the car with Matt and his moll. By the last entry, in ‘the Wrecking Crew’, Dean has abandoned all pretence to appear to be anywhere near in control of the supposed driving direction of his vehicle, as the back projection shows the car wending around hair-raising corners, yet Matt’s steering wheel remains resolutely immobile!
In one particular fun sequence in ‘Murderer’s Row’, to savour with your own whisky shot, (see below), Matt is depicted as veering around the perilously narrow high walled roads of the Cote d’Azur in Nice, but having been exasperated by an empty whisky bottle containing no booze, but instead a tape recorder to issue his instructions, Matt resignedly completely abandons any grip on the steering wheel and the vehicle apparently careens around corners of its own volition!
Thus, with ‘special effects’ in mind, we perhaps should now return to Ms. Charisse’s aforementioned second dance costume in the first in the series, ‘The Silencers’.
In a nightclub interlude, on comes Ms.Charisse to belt out ‘A Cool Evening in Chile it Got Hot’ (or it could just be ‘Santiago’!), shimmying in a one piece body suit, with beige (or mustard yellow) tassels attached all over it, for example, unsurprisingly - (and especially as Dean was at that time regularly crooning in Las Vegas) - two strategically placed over her nipples. But the tassel that makes you wonder if it was so positioned either naively or smuttily, is that located right over her crotch! This would be suggestive enough as it dangles enticingly over the aforesaid area; but Ms. Charisses’ enthusiastic shimmying then soon causes it to shake and twirl rather in manner of a very poorly endowed Chippendale’s male stripper would do! Whether this was one of those blind spot oversights, or a deliberate attempt to titillate the more jaded members of the audience, it is remarkable it didn’t attract the attentions of the censor of the times!
(And if you appreciate sixties psychedelic outfits, the third in the series, ‘The Ambushers’, has some stunningly eye assaulting creations, courtesy of costume designer Oleg Cassini.)
But then, perhaps this was a deliberate attempt to aspire to sophistication and appeal to Dean’s nightclub fans (as said, he was already on the Las Vegas circuit then), as for the first in the series, cinema audiences were introduced to his new spy adventures through means of a stripper behind the opening credits, with full exposure of the stripper’s ‘assets’ only being obscured at the critical moment beneath the title of the new series i.e. ‘The Silencers’; for the remainder of this title sequence, a second stripper goes on to divest herself of her lower garment, but this time with the aid of the more traditional discreetly deported feather boa.
And yet, when I was taken to see this film by my Grandmother, at the tender age of ten, I thought it was supposed to be aimed at a kid’s audience- (well, at least the effects were!)
[N. B. Of course, incidentally, Roger Vadim later did a similar, but far more tasteful, peek-a-boo opening two years later in the famous space float strip sequence with his then wife, Jane Fonda, in ‘Barbarella’.]
As such, this series really does repay reappraisal, if only to be amazed at what sexist trash they were really allowed to get away with back then, and in this pursuit, as you trawl through all exciting four of them, you should, of course, keep a sharp ear out for all the quite dreadful dialogue; most of Matt’s is trite, if not meaningless, and predictably sexist and too frequently, cringe-making offensively so, as just one example from the first that was foisted on the unsuspecting public might briefly illustrate:
Soon after Ms. Charisse is despatched with, Matt sidles up to Ms. Stevens and suddenly offers probably his most convincing acting performance in the entire series, when he uncharacteristically enthusiastically rips off Ms. Steven’s dress to reveal a rather sexily attired Ms. Stevens in racy black lingerie (ostensibly, he is supposed to suspect that she might have concealed about her person, the secret tape given to her in Ms. Charisse’s dying moments).
To this outrage, Ms. Stevens exclaims:
“Do I look like an enemy agent?!”
to which Matt reliably, lasciviously leers back at the quite alluring Ms. Stevens:
“I don’t know; I haven’t seen all the latest models yet!” (models, geddit?)
Two other gems of screenwriting (courtesy of Harold Baker), again from the perhaps unfairly maligned ‘The Ambushers’, are when Matt arrives in Acupulco, and on going to his hotel room, espies from his balcony vantage point, the arresting rear view of an apparently topless bathing beauty. When this starlet (regrettably, not credited at the end) about turns, Matt - and presumably, we in the audience too - is thwarted to realise that Oleg has outfitted her in a diaphanous material from the waist up at the back, but as part of a modestly covered one piece from the front.
Undaunted, Matt’s interest has undoubtedly been piqued, and as a clearly senior grey haired gentleman approaches from behind, Matt enquires:
“Manager, who’s that lovely thing (sic) down there?”
Manager (senior, greying hair character): “Stay away from that; you want nothing to do with her”
Matt: “Why not? Who is she?”
Manager: “She’s my wife’ (exits behind Matt)
Matt: (double take) “Buena Sera, Signor” (then, muttering under breath) “Why you miserable..
(subtext meaning probably; why won’t an old geezer like you allow me to show her the town…or something?!...)
Prior to this, on pondering whether to even accept the assignment from his ICE boss, another potentially non-sequitur scripting runs (in an edited form) something like this:
ICE Boss (on the baddy): “As far as we know, he hasn’t been doing any fooling around down there; you know, except with beer” (?!)
Matt: “The last thing I want around me is a dame who thinks she’s my wife!”
I.B. “Matt, somewhere down there is a man who treated that girl like an animal!”
M.H. “Then, now pronounce me man and wife.”
However, don’t forget you can also always divert yourself from the frequently embarrassingly sexist quips by concentrating to appreciate the different soundtracks offered, composed by such surprisingly reputable luminaries as Elmer Bernstein (better known for ‘Man with the Golden Arm’, starring Dean’s rival Frank Sinatra), then Lalo Schfrin (T.V. series ‘Mission Impossible’), then Hugo Montenegro (number one British chart version of the Ennio Morricone ‘The Good, The Bad and the Ugly’) respectively.
And so, if your interest has been piqued to revisit the whole series again, preparation for this marathon reappraisal task should be considered;
as noted above, what more appropriate way to endure the whole series than with a bottle of Ballantine’s whisky as, of course, Matt’s character is portrayed as a dipsomaniac rather akin to the reputation Dean, not unreluctantly, cultivated for himself. Hence, in every film in the series, at regular intervals, out comes the distinctive oblong bottle; you as the viewer can try to match Matt’s imbibition, by taking a shot every time the hard stuff appears in the series (and for the third, ‘The Ambushers’, you can also add in a mug of ale, when Matt gets to the brewery!); it should easily allow you make it through the whole series and in order to begin approaching your own appropriately ‘wrecked’ state in which to watch what is truly one of the worst films ever, the fourth and final one in the series ‘The Wrecking Crew’.
As you do, also can enjoy such booze related scenes like when, at one point during ‘The Ambusher’s’, the clearly suspicious sunglasses and fez attired ‘foreign’ baddy (Kurt Kasznan) is rewarded with a bottle of the stuff for successfully bidding on the hijacked flying saucer (magnanimous of the main baddy, huh?); as he is escorted out of the baddy’s premises by a henchman, he already opens the bottle, takes a bottle neck swig and declares authoritatively: “An excellent whisky.”
This so impresses the henchman, that he succumbs to ‘foreign’ baddy’s offer of a slug; clearly in heaven, the presumably hitherto whisky deprived henchman takes a glug of the water of life; unfortunately, it will not imbue him with much further life, as, having foolishly averted his eyes from his escort, whilst he continues to glug, the ‘foreign’ baddy very slowly begins to remove a string from atop his fez with which to (for some reason unclear!) then strangle the hapless henchman: moral, never accept a drink from a suspicious looking foreigner!
Actually, I could go on about ‘The Ambusher’s’ and the chemical references, after all, when Matt is threatened with a firing squad execution and requests the traditional last cigarette, with which he then renders helpless the whole squad, he does it by blowing smoke in their faces (and wasn’t that once an old fashioned pick-up method, too? – and since the firing squad leader is a man, yet more unintentional gay references?!), which causes them all to collapse into helpless hysterics, Matt included: now, what smoking substance do we know that soon reduces all to inane giggling? Were Matt and the film producer’s (Irvin Allen) weed heads too?!
Mind you, since you’ll be imbibing along to try and match Matt’s sozzled portrayal (that, of course, parodying Dean’s own dipso reputation, too) I’ll just leave you with this observation to ponder: The only other actor to star in the whole series along with Dean, was James Gregory, portraying the long suffering ICE boss. Again in the underrated third instalment, ‘The Ambushers’, why is it then, that it appears to be him, and not Dean, who seems to be acting suspiciously under the influence of something? Perhaps he was already aware of what dreadful drivel he was in, and could only cope by drowning it out!
Crack open a bottle and re-assess, Matt Helm, ICE secret agent.
By:
BOF Sensai a.k.a.
The guy who tries to justify why he wastes so much of his life watching so much rubbish!
*1. “The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time (and how they got that way)”: Angus and Robertson Publishers
*2. This is to check if you really do watch; coz actually, it’s the baddy who does this!
(But then, it doesn’t sound so good as being lecherous ol’ Matt, then!)
*3. International Counter Espionage (In fact, to get through the task with even more fun, treat yourself to another shot every time a reference to ICE comes up, preferably with, guess what, yep, some ice of course, for after all, it is ICE as in to go also with the hard stuff…geddit?!)
