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The Ambushers
Dean Martin returns for round three as Matt Helm in the 1967 spy spoof The Ambushers, which delivers everything expected from a Matt Helm film but is the still the weakest entry in the franchise, thanks primarily to a confusing story that makes it hard to keep track of who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.
Criminal mastermind Jose Ortega has built a laser beam that allowed him to hijack an experimental government flying saucer and upon its capture, he he rapes the pilot, a secret agent named Sheila Summers. Helm is brought onto the case when it is revealed that Sheila has amnesia but remembers Helm from working together on another case. Matt and Sheila are sent to Acapulco, under the guise of being man and wife, in order to retrieve the saucer because Sheila is the only one who knows how to fly the thing.
Based on a novel by Donald Hamilton, the screenplay is stupid with the accustomed sexual double entendres and dated puns that we have come to expect from the franchise, but he story around them is too hard to follow and not terribly interesting. We get another Helm staple here where he and a beautiful girl have to spend the night together, which prompted one of the film's most outrageous set pieces...a huge, inflatable house hidden in the trunk of a car. And needless to say, that setting a large portion of the action inside a beer factory probably provided laughs for Martin fans at the time, but just seems pointless now.
The Matt Helm character is introduced in the middle of training female recruits but eventually Matt is reduced to a pair of leading ladies and they are actually the strongest leading ladies I have seen in a Matt Helm adventure. Actually, Janice Rule, one of the best actresses of the 1960's is the best thing about this movie with her slick performance as Sheila Summers and sexy Senta Berger is almost as effective as the evil Francesca. Beverly Adams also shines briefly as Matt's secretary with the James Bond character name, Lovey Kravesit.
Despite all the female and Mexican scenery, this one is pretty snore-inducing even with flashy turns from Kurt Kaznar and Albert Salmi as bad guys. As for our hero, even Dean Martin appears to be phoning it in and just like Murderers' Row, TPTB make no attempt to disguise the fact that Martin is not doing any of his stunt work. The very 60's theme song is performed by one of the 60's biggest pop duos, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who wrote a lot of music for the Monkees, but this one really had me checking my watch. Janice Rule's performance is the only thing worth investing in here.
Dean Martin returns for round three as Matt Helm in the 1967 spy spoof The Ambushers, which delivers everything expected from a Matt Helm film but is the still the weakest entry in the franchise, thanks primarily to a confusing story that makes it hard to keep track of who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.
Criminal mastermind Jose Ortega has built a laser beam that allowed him to hijack an experimental government flying saucer and upon its capture, he he rapes the pilot, a secret agent named Sheila Summers. Helm is brought onto the case when it is revealed that Sheila has amnesia but remembers Helm from working together on another case. Matt and Sheila are sent to Acapulco, under the guise of being man and wife, in order to retrieve the saucer because Sheila is the only one who knows how to fly the thing.
Based on a novel by Donald Hamilton, the screenplay is stupid with the accustomed sexual double entendres and dated puns that we have come to expect from the franchise, but he story around them is too hard to follow and not terribly interesting. We get another Helm staple here where he and a beautiful girl have to spend the night together, which prompted one of the film's most outrageous set pieces...a huge, inflatable house hidden in the trunk of a car. And needless to say, that setting a large portion of the action inside a beer factory probably provided laughs for Martin fans at the time, but just seems pointless now.
The Matt Helm character is introduced in the middle of training female recruits but eventually Matt is reduced to a pair of leading ladies and they are actually the strongest leading ladies I have seen in a Matt Helm adventure. Actually, Janice Rule, one of the best actresses of the 1960's is the best thing about this movie with her slick performance as Sheila Summers and sexy Senta Berger is almost as effective as the evil Francesca. Beverly Adams also shines briefly as Matt's secretary with the James Bond character name, Lovey Kravesit.
Despite all the female and Mexican scenery, this one is pretty snore-inducing even with flashy turns from Kurt Kaznar and Albert Salmi as bad guys. As for our hero, even Dean Martin appears to be phoning it in and just like Murderers' Row, TPTB make no attempt to disguise the fact that Martin is not doing any of his stunt work. The very 60's theme song is performed by one of the 60's biggest pop duos, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who wrote a lot of music for the Monkees, but this one really had me checking my watch. Janice Rule's performance is the only thing worth investing in here.