A great many comedies of the 60’s were riffs on James Bond. In retrospect, one would think there had to be at least one film in cinemas on any given week after 1964 that had some sort of spy hijinks in a foreign country and featuring at least one beautiful, “international” woman. The lead actor was also usually a type one would never think capable of fulfilling a spy mission.
Such is the case with 1966’s Bang! Bang! You’re Dead!, starring Tony Randall as a hotel developer going incognito to scout a potential location for one to be built in Marrakesh. To give some credit to the film, it is obviously largely filmed in real locations there. On the title card, I noticed this was made by Marrakesh Films Ltd., and I wondered if this was made as an investment by their tourism bureau. I imagine it would be hard to point a camera in any direction there and not be overwhelmed by the local flavor. Hell, even the rooftops are picturesque, as we will see in a foot chase scene across some of them.
And yet, I wondered if the actors largely regarded this a paid vacation. There is a solid cast here, though most of the performances seem to be lacking a certain something that indicates this is a professional film. It was curious to see Herbert Lom, Wilfrid Hyde-White and John Le Mesurier bring something less than their A-game to a production. There’s also Klaus Kinski, whom I still have yet to acquire a taste for. I’m not sure why I feel this way, but I think the extreme quirkiness of Crispin Glover picked up where the idiosyncrasies of Kinski left off, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
Maybe the actors were just confused. There are a couple of blink-and-you’d-miss-it moments I found interesting where an actor would look genuinely confused, but nothing in the scene should warrant that. I think it was an actor truly confused by what was happening at the time, as if they were making this up as they went along.
The plot centers around Lom’s attempt to identify a contact who will pay him two million dollars for information he has which will influence a United Nations vote to be in favor of China. Funny thing is, I wouldn’t have known the nature of that information if I hadn’t looked it up later. Even more confusing to me is how he wouldn’t know the identity of the buyer already. The only purpose that serves is to make for many instances of mistaken identity, none of which are funny or all that important to the plot.
Randall stumbles into all of this through a mix-up that puts him in the hotel room of Senta Berger. There’s a corpse in the closet that was to be part of a scheme meant to frame her for murder, only he finds it first. I suspected it had been left there as a warning to the next guest to be sure to tip their bellhop generously, but that’s just the way I think.
She spins the first of a great many lies when she explains to Randall her version of what has happened and why he shouldn’t call the police. One of the more amusing motifs in the film is her ability to quickly spin lies, even if those moments are never really that funny. More curious is her apparent determination to never reuse one of the tales she comes up with. In a commitment to delivering a quality product, she serves up fresh bullshit each time.
One of few people here who seems to completely understand their character is Terry-Thomas, and his arrival late in the picture is a breath of fresh air. He is basically the same rascally cad he plays in every film, but it’s a good role for him. Also faring well is Gregoire Aslan as a truck driver who goes well above and beyond the call of duty in assisting Randall and Berger. As is often the case with this type of movie, I wish I was watching a feature about either of these minor characters instead of our leads.
My main problem with Bang! Bang! You’re Dead! Is the general feeling of pointlessness to the affair. Odd tangents lead to nowhere. It often somehow feels like too much and nothing are happening at the same time. There is a great amount of dialogue exchanged, but it feels like little communication is achieved. I realize this is meant to be a slight affair, but it feels too slight. Maybe it was really a way for audiences of the time to get the sensation of a place they were unlikely to go to in their lifetime. Perhaps this is what Le Mesurier’s marketer of budget vacations had in mind when he proposes “the only vacation cheaper than staying at home.”
Dir: Don Sharp
Starring Tony Randall, Senta Berger, Herbert Lom
Watched on Olive Films blu-ray