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The overture aims for From Russia with Love, complete with villain shooting hero in effigy, but '70s cheese soon takes hold. (John Barry's theme adduces a note of Nino Rota from La Strada, promptly swamped by brassy funk and Lulu's belting: "His eye may be on you or me / Who will he bang? / We shall see, oh yeah!") James Bond in the crosshairs, which requires Roger Moore to act mildly perturbed. "Who would pay one million dollars to have me killed?" "Jealous husbands, outraged chefs, humiliated tailors... The list is endless." Actually, it's a hitman with KGB training, circus trick-shot turned "overworked, underpaid assassin," Christopher Lee with copper tan and third nipple and suave gravity. A lover only before he kills, according to his mistress (Maud Adams), who, lest the meaning be lost, gets the gilded pistol rubbed against her cheek. A solar ray for the highest bidder, an island fun-house operated by the dwarf henchman (Hervé Villechaize). The secret agent has a word for all of it, "Grislyland." Ripping off Enter the Dragon as cheerfully as Live and Let Die cashed in on Super Fly, the franchise takes note of the energy crisis, anticipates Carlos the Jackal, luxuriates in a tour of Southeast Asia. Macau gambling dens and Hong Kong dojos, capsized angles à la The Poseidon Adventure in Victoria Harbour. The agency assistant (Britt Ekland) is a ditz whose bikini-clad posterior accidentally activates the doomsday laser, still less of an irritant than the redneck tourist (Clifton James) dropping slurs until a baby elephant pushes him into a Bangkok canal. Statues come to life and cars sprout wings while Dracula holds "the sun in his pocket," oneiric bizarreries given the Guy Hamilton sang-froid. "A vulgar display, but I couldn't resist it." The climactic gloss on The Lady from Shanghai segues into a final image from Othello, why not. With Richard Loo, Soon-Taik Oh, Marc Lawrence, Marne Maitland, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn, and Bernard Lee.
--- Fernando F. Croce |