If the last film — Two Undercover Angels — made no sense, guess what? This one doubles down, almost a stream of conscious film made up of murders, jazz clubs, stripteases, our girls play saxophones and near-escapes.
The sell copy for this claims, “Stiffs, Satanists and Sapphic sadists all after a secret formula for human clones!”
Maybe it’s the fact that I watched Jess Franco movies one after another and pounded what’s left of my brain into putty, but I loved every single minute of this movie.
Also known as Castle of the Doomed, it feels like Franco ran out of ideas here and just decided to have more things happen to the point that continuity and plot became the contrivances that lesser people try to bring up as necessary elements for a movie.
Nope. Not to Jess FrancoKnife
Knife throwing clones? Evil lesbians? Good lesbians? Satanic murderers? Yeah. It’s got all that and an ending that doesn’t solve anything.
The failure of this movie would bring an end to the girls’ adventures until 1999’s Red Silk. But I think you should only watch a few Jess Franco movies in a row if you want to survive. And my head is already throbbing.
Also note: Two Undercover Angels had a monster in it. Kiss Me Monster has no monster.
Somewhere in there is a koan that will change your life.
Points to this film getting ahead of the curve and being about sending weapons to the View Cong about five years before anyone was thinking of that. Otherwise, it’s an average film — except for, of course, Helga and Rosalba being in it.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Oh, Jess Franco. I sometimes absolutely love everything you do and other times, you drive me crazy. This time, you are somewhere in between. And this is a perfect time to bring this movie back, as we explore an entire month of James Bond and Eurospy movies. This originally ran on December 5, 2019.
Jess Franco, come on down. Welcome back to B&S About Movies! I see that you’re here today with The Girl From Rio, a sequel to The Million Eyes of Sumuru and based on Sax Rohmer’s Sumuru character. You did have help on this one — it was written and produced by Harry Alan Towers, who collaborated with you on films like 99 Women, Venus in Furs, Marquis de Sade: Justine, Eugenie… The Story of Her Journey into Perversion, The Bloody Judge and Count Dracula. He also produced the White Fang film that Fulci directed and 1983’s Fanny Hill, a movie that was my girlfriend for many years in the 1980’s.
Let’s take a break from you and discuss Towers, whose career started as the son of a theatrical agent who became a child actor. He began syndicating radio shows before producing films, including five Fu Manchu movies. In between all that, he ran a vice ring that implicated the United Nations, JFK, Peter Lawford and Stephen Ward, one of the central figures in the Profumo scandal.
But back to you, Mr. Franco. This movie, you did it all. You had women. You had violence. And you had pans in to the sun that lasted for over a minute in the place of any narrative. God bless you.
A co-production between West Germany, Spain and the United States, this movie is also known as The Seven Secrets of Sumuru, City Without Men, Sumuru Queen of Femina, Rio 70 and Future Women.
Secret agent Jeff Sutton shows up in Rio with millions of bucks and walks right into a war between British gangster Sir Masius (George Sanders, an actor so well known that The Kinks mentioned him in song) and Sumuru (Shirley Eaton, a sex symbol who was Jill Masterson in Goldfinger). This lady boss runs the secret world of Femina, gathering women ready to conquer the world. And when things get bad, she chooses death — don’t worry, she makes it out alive — rather than giving up her power.
You can watch this on Amazon Prime with and without the crew from Rifftrax.
If you were a spy aficionado in the early ‘70s that couldn’t get enough James Bond in your pulp-and-celluloid diet, and grew up reading Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: The Executioner, Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir’s Remo Williams: The Destroyer (adapted as Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins), and Jerry Ahern’s John Rourke: The Survivalist paperbacks (pseudo-adapted as the The Survivalist), then you most-likely read the exploits of Ashaf Marwan, an Egyptian billionaire who worked for Mossad, the State of Israel’s intelligence agency. Was Marwan, credited as the world’s first true “super spy,” an Egyptian hero or an Israeli sympathizer during the 1973 Yom Kippur War/Arab-Israeli War?
As with any spy story: there must be a nemesis. And Marwan’s was Ahron Bregman, a British journalist of Israeli origin who specialized in the Arab-Israeli conflict—and exposed the Egyptian millionaire’s double life. Unlike James Bond or the pulp spies of old, Marwan’s still-disputed life as a “double agent” caught up with him, as result of—what many believe—Bregman’s doing: Marwan’s body was discovered in the rose garden of his London flat—the 2007 case was never solved. Was Marwan’s death an accident; did he fall after a heart attack? Or was it an assassination by the Arabs or the Israelis?
Uri Bar-Joseph’s best-selling non-fiction novel, The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel (2016), served as the basis for the American-Israeli dramatic-thriller The Angel, which stars Toby Kebbell (Victor von Doom of Fantastic Four and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) and Marwan Kenzari (Tom Cruise’s version of The Mummy). Ahron Bregman’s book on his personal relationship with Marwan, The Spy Who Fell to Earth (2016), was adapted into the documentary of the same name.
Which film do you watch—if either at all?
Obviously, The Spy Who Fell to Earth, as a documentary, is 100% real and dissects Marwan’s life at a deeper level. However, the book on which the film is based also examines the life of its author and his relationship with Marwan. So, it’s a documentary about their relationship as well.
The Angel is a dramatic-thriller based on a book about Marwan’s life (and his death is a title-carded post-script)—so there’s an obvious narrative compression of the source materials in its transfer as a screenplay. IMDb users rated it a 6.5 (out of 10 reviews).
If you’re someone who puts credence into review aggregators for your movie selections: the IMDb rates The Angel at 6.6 while Rotten Tomatoes rates it on their Tomatometer at 75 percent. And if a director’s past work is a determining factor: Ariel Vromen also directed the Chris Evans and James Franco vehicle The Iceman (2012) and the Kevin Costner and Ryan Reynolds vehicle Criminal (2016).
While fascinating, the documentary—as most can be—is a little dry. Its subjects are well-versed, but they offer no expansions or any bombshell revelation beyond the book’s pages. Vromen is a solid director and moves a camera though its action paces with aplomb. And it’s nice to see Marwan Kenzari, a Middle Eastern Tunisian actor in a lead role of a Hollywood studio film—and a well deserved leading role: he’s excellent.
You can watch The Spy Who Fell to Earth on Netflix and follow up with The Angel, also on Netflix.
About the Author:You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.
Disclaimer: While these are two new releases on Netflix, we did not receive screeners from the production company or their PA firm. These reviews were written as a contribution to “James Bond Month” here at B&S About Movies—and we watched both films long prior to the planning of our Bond blowout. We genuinely enjoyed both films.
If there’s a Venn diagram of what I love in movies, this movie would be at the center of it. It’s directed by Lindsay Shonteff, who was behind so many spy films and other moments of outright cinema lunacy like Night After Night After Night. It was filmed at the Shaw Brothers studios in Hong Kong. And it was produced by Harry Alan Towers, whose life included moments of bringing rock and roll to Europe, making Fu Manchu movies and oh yeah, running a vice ring. To top it all off, it’s a movie about an army of women ready to take over the world.
Sumuru is a woman as gorgeous as she is cunning, using an all-female army to kill off world leaders — like Klaus Kinski as President Boong of Sinoseia! — and replace them with more capable women. I really have no issues with her plan, her choice of henchwomen or Shirley Eaton in this role (she was also Jill Masterson in Goldfinger).
Nick West (Frankie Avalon!) and Tommy Carter (George Nader, Robot Monster) are on the case, particularly after Sumuru frames Nick for murder.
Krista Nell (The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance), Maria Rohm (Towers’ wife, who would end up being in all manner of Jess Franco films) and Essie Lin Chia (Return of the One-Armed Swordsman) all make appearances.
Sumuru would return in the Jess Franco directed The Girl from Rio. Both of these movies make no sense but are the type of films I put on when I’m down and just let their absolute weirdness just wash over me.
Yet another Kommissar X film — there were seven of them — this entry features the team of Tony Kendall and Brad Harris. They were the Terence Hill and Bud Spencer of their day. Here. Tony is Joe Louis Walker, aka Kommissar X and Brad is New York Police Department Captain Rowland.
Rowland has traveled to travels to Istanbul to bring a shipment of LSD for the U.S. armed forces — MK Ultra anyone? — but the Green Hounds steal the shipment.
Olga Schoberova (The Vengeance of She), Christa Linder (Dracula in the Provinces) and Samson Burke (The Three Stooges Meet Hercules) are all in this.
Also known as Death Trip and Kommissar X – Drei grüne Hunde, this Eurospy film was directed by writer Rudolf Zehetgruber and Gianfranco Parolini (God’s Gun, Three Fantastic Supermen).
Also known as Sadist Erotica, The Case of the Two BeautiesTwo Avenging Angelsand Red Lips Sadisterotica, this mindblast from Jess Franco is kinda sorta a Eurospy movie, but you get the feeling that Mr. Franco just wants to get to the choking and nudity and whipping and forget whatever minor plot there is.
Basically: two lesbian detectives are trying to find criminals, so they themselves pose as a supercriminal named Red Lips (this goes back to Franco’s second movie,Red Lips, which was before Bondmania). The police have no idea and the tone of the films go from swinging fun and humor to outright brutality with no warning whatsoever.
I have no idea if I can explain what happens in this movie, which starts with an attractive brunette — Franco loved his brunettes, so get ready — being ripped to shreds by a werewolf man while a rich guy named Klaus Thiller watches and paints it all.
Then Red Lips steals a painting and we learn that the two lesbians, the blonde Regina (Rosanna Yanni, Count Dracula’s Great Love) and redhead Diana (Janine Reynaud, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail) wear the mask and outfit when it suits them.
So yeah. The girls get hired to find someone that Thiller probably killed, they sleep with every man around them and yet still wind up with one another. Also: every few minutes, just when things threaten to get boring, there’s a go go dancing scene filled with nudity and blaring music.
This movie made no sense and I loved it for that reason. You might hate it. Who can say?
There have been three Johnny English movies, starting with the original in 2003, this film in 2011 and Johnny English Strikes Back in 2018. They all star Rowan Atkinson from Mr. Bean and Blackadder fame. None of these movies have achieved any form of critical fame, but they’ve been popular around the world due to their slapstick and silly humor. Consider them like a Leslie Nielsen comedy film but with a little more intelligence.
Johnny has lost his chance at knighthood and is studying to be a monk when his new boss Pamela Thornton (Gillian Anderson, who played a similar role in The Spy Who Dumped Me) brings him back.
Rosamund Pike plays Kate Sumner, a behavioural psychologist who brings back Johnny’s repressed memories, which leads him to remember the evil spy organization Vortex, led by MI7 turncoat Simon Ambrose (Dominick West). Actually, the whole movie is spent trying to determine who is on Johnny’s side, who is trying to kill the Queen and who is in Vortex.
Interestingly enough, Atkinson and Pike made their theatrical movie debuts in Bond films, with Atkinson appearing in the Sean Connery led Never Say Never Again and Pike in Die Another Day. That’s also the very same golf course from Goldfinger in this movie.
Johnny’s sidekick Agent Tucker is played by Daniel Kaluuya, who has gone on to some measure of fame from the movie Get Out.
This is a fun movie if you feel like shutting your mind off and making fun of the Eurospy genre.
Tont means dumb in Italian and this was amongst the first spoofs of the Eurospy genre.
It’s directed by Sergio’s younger brother Bruno Corbucci and Giovanni Grimaldi, who are both known for their comedy work.
Lando Buzzanca, who was in Fulci’s Operation St. Peter’s, stars in this as James Tont and he’s up against Goldsinger, with the help of Barbara Ray, Agent SOS 112 (she’s played by Evi Marandi from Planet of the Vampires).
During the height of the Eurospy craze, so many Italian films used 007 that United Artists threatened the Italian film with a lawsuit. This movie wasn’t given a U.S. release, but did play American television as part of a package called “Continental European film” by RKO. However, United Artists and Danjaq prevented this movie from being shown.
Callee Bishop is a social justice warrior who hates her hometown, which is filled with bigotry and small minds. A killer from the past comes back and starts murdering her classmates and when Callee accidentally kills someone and needs to cover it up, she puts herself in even more danger from the real serial killer. That said — is Callee the real villain?
This film is somewhere between a comedy and a slasher. Major points go to casting Amanda Wyss (Beth from Better Off Dead and Tina from A Nightmare on Elm Street) as the principal, who is still recovering from being attacked by the killer years before.
Triggered seems like the natural next step from Scream, in that it’s a movie that takes modern communication and politics and infuses them into the slasher genre.
Thanks to Wild Eye Releasing for sending us this movie on DVD. It’s also available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime.
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