the audience applauded

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Just perfect...

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

As l'd wrote before Dean Martin wasn't a better choice to be Matt Helm,he was old and already wrinkled for the role,instead all Matt's girls are gorgeous and no make sense whatever the reason,worst he enforce to sing along disfiguring the main score in twist sounds,in this final movie who shines are Sharon Tate and Elke Sommer, she were a very close scenes in those marvelous bodies in sexy walking and exciting legs,a plenty of action leaves the picture somehow acceptable and annoys no one,so l figure out that those girls saved the whole picture of total disaster just for a bad miscasting of leading Role!!Resume:First watch: 1992 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-Cable TV-DVD / Rating: 6

MASTER PLAN: Operation:Rainbow - steal a billion in gold and then take it in on a train. More so than the previous 3 Matt Helm adventures, this one has the earmarks of a regular thriller, though a lot of absurdity is retained: gold cannot be stacked as high as we see here; it's too heavy. Dino Martin is back in his final take as the boozy USA-Bond-type Helm, still snoozing to femme-infested dreams and ready with the off-the-cuff remarks, though some of it doesn't work. In an early scene at ICE's testing facility (copying the Q dept. from the James Bond films), he and his boss MacDonald test a new grenade device; 'Why don't we call it a little bit of hanky-panky?' Helm quips. MacDonald just looks at him like 'What are you talking about, please?' The actor James Gregory did not return as MacDonald, replaced by John Larch. There's an uneven tone to this Helmer, combining straight action with silliness. We have a bevy of femme fatales: Elke Sommer is pretty bloodthirsty as the head villain's main squeeze, but Nancy Kwan is also on hand to offer dangerous thrills. Tina Louise, off of "Gilligan's Island," shows up briefly. The real bright spot, however, is Sharon Tate as a clumsy agent, recalling the Stella Stevens character of the 1st Helmer "The Silencers." You can't decide whether she really is a dimwit or playing some undercover role (it turns out, she works for the Brits). Helm is really annoyed with her during most of the film and their repartee is quite amusing, suggesting what more could of been done with the female characters in the "Austin Powers" movies.The drawback to this Helm entry, which follows "The Ambushers," is the deadly slow pace in many scenes during the first half of the pic. A good example is Helm's scene with the Tina Louise character, which seems to drag on forever. Most of the action takes Helm to Denmark, where he must confront the super-rich Count Contini (Nigel Green), a villain patterned on such Bond foes as Goldfinger and Drax of the later "Moonraker." If one wanted an actor for a snide, sneaky, dastardly mustache-twirling role in the late sixties, actor Green was the 'go to' guy. He tries to bribe Helm at first, looking down at him as a typical agent, and eventually decides to have him killed. The action picks up in the final third of the film, with the story having to dispose of several key characters, and there's a lot of kicking, punching and shooting, not to mention cheesy explosions. Tate and Kwan have a martial arts confrontation to add some spice. Helm assembles a helicopter out of some equipment stored in his car's trunk and the climax shifts to a moving train. Helm would not return in "The Ravagers," as planned; there was no "The Ravagers," as the briefly-popular Helm persona could not sustain more than 4 features (by contrast with Bond, who went past 20 of 'em by the new millennium). Helm would return in a TV-movie and brief TV series in the seventies, with actor Tony Franciosa. Hero:5 Villain:6 Femme Fatales:7 Henchmen:6 (hey, Chuck Norris was one of these) Fights:6 Stunts/Chases:5 Gadgets:6 Auto:4 Locations:7 Pace:6 overall:6-

I'm not familiar with the other movies in the Matt Helm series but this is all I need to watch.Sharon Tate plays an MI5 agent posing as a clumsy Danish tour guide, Freya Carlson, who is to work with Helm. Tate stated at the beginning of her career that she wanted to do light comedy and "The Wrecking Crew" proved that that genre was indeed a perfect fit for her. This movie is the highlight of her all too brief acting career and my heart aches to think of what could have been.Dean Martin's acting skills left a lot to be desired but he and Tate had great on screen chemistry. The rest of the cast reads like a Who's Who of Hollywood during its second (and last) Golden Age: Nancy Kwan, Elke Sommer, Nigel Green, Tina Louise (of "Gilligan's Island" in her small role of Lola Medina), among others. You have to remind yourself to close your mouth during the opening credits.I'm in love with the 60's fashion and music and the fact that we get to see more of Sharon Tate (whereas the rest of her movies, with the exception of "The 13 Chairs" a/k/a "12+1," are primarily small roles where you don't get to see or hear her much).Good stuff.

The 4th and final M. Helm film, this is definitely the bottom of the barrel, except for the lovely and funny Sharon Tate near the end of career. There are other babes as well: Elke Sommer (hot for many years), Nancy Kwan lovely as always and Tina Louise who doesn't get to do much. Nigel Green is a noble villain and very creepy. Dino slogs along the best he can under the circumstances and Sharon Tate is just a joy! If she'd ever been given a decent role in a good film, I think she might have surprised a few skeptics about her talent.A 3 out of 10. Best performance = Sharon Tate. All of these Helm flicks are cotton candy at best, but a pleasant reminder of bad fun films of the late 60's.