Dreadfully Boring

Am I Missing Something?

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

French thriller writer Jean Bruce was the creator of secret agent OSS 117 - real name Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath - who appeared in a string of bestselling books in the Fifties, and landed his own movie franchise seven years before James Bond. There has been renewed interest in him lately due to a pair of well received spoofs - 'OSS 117 - Cairo Nest Of Spies' and 'OSS 117 - Lost In Rio', starring Jean Dujardin. The original series, however, took itself a bit more seriously.'Terror In Tokyo For OSS 117' ( known in some quarters as 'From Tokyo With Love' ) was the second to star American actor Frederick Stafford ( the first being 'OSS 117 Mission For A Killer' ). It opens with a nifty Bond-type pre-credit sequence, with Hubert involved in a car chase, gun battle and helicopter escape. Back in Washington, he learns that an American air force base in the Pacific has been destroyed with a new type of missile, one so small it can not be detected by radar. The organisation behind the attack want a king's ransom to stop them doing the same thing again. The one lead is Eva Wilson ( Marina Vlady ), a cypher girl in the American embassy, who is being blackmailed to pass secrets to the enemy. Posing as her husband John, Hubert returns with her to Tokyo. Installing a bugging device in her clothing, he waits for the blackmailer to make the next move...It is interesting to compare this to 'You Only Live Twice', released the following year. 'Tokyo' is more slowly paced, not so gadget heavy, with fewer action scenes, yet works well enough on its own terms. Hubert trapped in a moving vehicle with a bomb aboard ( which will go off if he tries to stop ) is particularly thrilling, as is his later fight with a Sumo wrestler. Stafford ( best known for starring in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Topaz' ) was by far and away the best 'OSS 117' - cool, handsome, and charismatic ( he gives a better performance here than Sean Connery managed in 'Twice' ) - and Marina Vlady is so beautiful you want to pull her out of the screen. The last twenty minutes or so are dynamite - Hubert parachutes out of a plane, uses a harpoon to secure a hold on the yacht the villains are using as a base, gets aboard, and saves the day. Some stunning looking interiors. The yacht is capable of opening up and swallowing smaller vessels, a bit like the Liparus supertanker in 'The Spy Who Loved Me' ( 1977 ).One of the writers was Terence Young, director of the Bond films 'Dr.No', 'From Russia With Love', and 'Thunderball'. The only let down is the music which is on a par with Michel Legrand's infamous score for 'Never Say Never Again' ( 1983 ). The next film in the series was 'OSS 117 - Murder For Sale' - also known as 'OSS 117 - Double Agent', and had John Gavin ( of 'Psycho' ) replacing Stafford. It proved to be the writing on the wall.

Yes, Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath is based on novels by Jean De Bruce but he is so similar to Ian Fleming's very well known English spy James Bond who is by the way funnier and more advanced.Well, I adore the 1960s and all of its crazy, charming and sexy stuff. So when it comes to Bond movies' formula I wait for : good action, good science fiction, good Jazz music, good huge production and for sure good seductive delicious women from the good old 1960s when the voluptuous style was on and Marilyn Monroe was the perfect model (forget our miserable damned days of Jessica Alba or Sarah Michelle Gellar ! GOD HELP US !!). But this movie anyway is not working as its likes. The action is not so good, it's average. The direction is not that well done; you'll watch the camera more than once (in the glass of some bus and in the bathroom's mirror of the submarine..), plus the stunt man's face tells you that he isn't the real hero ..And so on. The music is not the unforgettable one !. Frederick Stafford is trying to be (or forced to be) another Connery, and that dubbed voice case was unfunny, but I think with some other director and writer he would've done much better work. The cinematography by Marcel Grignon was real nice as the classic rich shooting of the very era. You won't have a lot of exciting spying devices (only a little microphone and sunglasses which had a camera in it !). And although it's French-Italian production but it's not BIG one by all means ?! Especially when all of the events take place just in Tokyo. The writing was mediocre or maybe the surprises of 1966 are corny in 2007 ! (someone is shooting Hubert in his bed to discover that it wasn't him it is a doll under the blanket !, another one was chasing Hubert to discover that he was a harmless policeman.. etc). Let alone the non-creative dialogue (forget utterly the sly work at Bond with the forever double meaning phrases).Though the real anger would come from my remorse because of the long waiting for the enjoyable Marina Vlady to do anything would show her remarkable beauty but I've got NOTHING at all !!. She was explosive as a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Elke Sommer with charming ambiguity and suppressed great womanhood where the simple yet crafty smile, the silent deceptive look and the confident sexy walking !! But believe me the disappointment will be too awful to stand when you have just one kiss, a very quick brief scene where she was wearing a black swimsuit "under the water ??", and no alluring scenes like Mr. Bond's women made us accustomed to !! However when you read that Marina Vlady wanted to prove that she wasn't a second-rate Brigitte Bardot or another blonde bombshell (and Oh Boy she was indeed) but an actress who is capable of much more, then you'll understand why she wasn't one of the playboy's posters at the time ! So the only thing to say and sorrowfully is : what a loss !!.All in all, this movie is a poor one when you compare it to Bond movies. But if you measure it by its own desire to be amusing and how it could fulfill it by itself, then you'll find that it's a nice humble small espionage flick not too boring, silly nor bad.Yet unfortunately most of the global taste or mood will innately compare that French spy to the original English one hence he'll be some sort of the fool cousin from France whom imitates desperately his uncle's famous clever son !

André Hunebelle was a good craftsman when it came to making popular swashbucklers whose hero was Jean Marais ("le Bossu" "le Miracle des loups" ).The spy thriller had the wind in its sails thanks to James Bond....So Hunnebelle ditched his previous genre for the more lucrative spy stuff.It was his second OSS 117 effort(the first one featured Kervin -Simbad/Jack-Matthews ) and it's not really an improvement on the first one.There is a true actress here ,Marina Vlady (oddly,she plays on the boat almost the same part as Domino and her camera in "Thunderball" ).And Henri Serre,whose career ran into difficulties after "Jules et Jim".And Frederick Stafford future "Topaz " star. It's not much.

Frederick Stafford's second and last adventure as Hubert Bonniseur de la Bath a.k.a. OSS 117 is a well made but ultimately disappointing feature. The film starts out with a nifty car chase but unfortunately that level of excitement is never regained and the result is a rather dull film. The self-assured Stafford is never allowed to showcase the talents he displayed in OSS 117 Mission For a Killer and even the lovely Marina Vlady isn't enough to perk things up.Director Michel Boisrond does what he can with the material but the lack of a good story dooms this from the start. Michel Magne's score is appropriately flavored with Asian spice but is otherwise forgettable. You can skip this one as an also ran that doesn't measure up.