I Spy: The Silencers
Dean Martin’s first outing as Matt Helm is less a movie and more an extended comedy sketch. I’ve never read Donald Hamilton’s Helm novels but I’d say it’s a fair bet that they bare little relation to what we have here.
Dean doesn’t so much play Helm as he does himself, or at least his Mr Smooth public persona, with an eye for the ladies or a bottle of booze, whichever comes first. It’s sporadically amusing, although time hasn’t been kind. What seemed cool to me as a kid doesn’t have the same charm now – a station wagon driving superspy? – but Dino oozes charisma and Stella Stevens shows off her ample charms as the comedy love interest. Add in some reworked Martin songs, a cameo by Cyd Charisse and the obligatory Frank Sinatra joke and you’ve got a painless way to spend a hundred minutes.
Like the superior spy spoof Our Man Flint that came out the same year, a trick gun has a major role to play in the climax (both films milk the idea a little too long) with Helm’s firing backwards while Flint’s had a time delay. On the music front Flint wins hands down, Elmer Bernstein’s score no match for Jerry Goldsmith‘s super cool Flint theme.
Producer Irving Allen, when partnered with ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, turned his nose up at Fleming’s Bond books but subsequently went in search of his own superspy franchise. The Helm series lasted four movies while Mr Bond is still going strong. Says it all really…
