Attack of the Robots (1966)

For some reason the synopsis of this movie on many cites and some of the reviews is wrong talking about things like mechanical monsters to kill people with Type O blood. It's like they write the review from the synopsis and haven't seen the movie or can't remember it. The movie is about Interpol recruiting a retired spy to investigate crimes committed by strange dark skinned men and women. The plot thickens as he learns these crimes are committed by kidnapped men and women with Rhesis Zero blood (Neither - or +) who have been turned into Robots. The movie is slow at times but has it's good points. Overall I enjoy it and have seen it many times. Most of the prints out there are washed out and edited, but Gaumont in France sells a pristine copy (in French with subtitles called Cartes Sur Table the original French name. I have a copy of that one as well as older copies. The film was supposedly shot in color and released in B&W, I would like to see the color version.

This movie is pure fun. The English dub is great. Eddie Constantine is a joy to watch on screen. The plot is interesting; mad scientist, using robots, and messing with blood types, you know standard spy stuff. But the movie's charm lies in Constantine as Al, as well as the various characters he encounters along the way. More enjoyable than it's sequel "Residence for Spies"/"Boarding School for Spies" - I really wish he had reprised this role for more movies. Unlike later Franco, there is nothing objectionable here, PG by today's standards. Suitable for kids. Interesting side note - it was actually filmed in color; although only B/W prints have surfaced on home media.

One of the better Jess Franco films stars Eddie Constantine sending up his tough guy image as a detective chasing the source of mind controlled people carrying out the whims of a mad man. Constantine is clearly having a good time and it carries over to the audience. To be certain the film isn't super spectacular, its limited of budget but often dated, but at the same time there is a certain charm. Its an amusing way to spend an hour and a half if you should run across it.6 out of 10.(Though try and find a letter boxed version the one I saw was a terrible pan and scan one that chopped off all sorts of things on the sides of the picture.)

Enjoyable early Franco film (which I watched via a recording off Italian TV), an espionage tale with tongue-in-cheek and the first of Franco's several Al Pereira adventures.It is given an extra edge by the presence of tough-guy Eddie Constantine who effectively parodies his image here, and seems to be having a ball doing it! Another major asset to the film was the screen writing credit of Jean-Claude Carriere who contributes intermittent touches of wacky humor, satirical barbs and wonderful dialogue – as in the scene where the Chinese statue 'speaks' to Al, and he thinks he may be hearing voices like Joan of Arc; or when his superiors showcase the various improbably lethal devices he will have at his disposal on his mission, and he quips that it's evident they've been watching the James Bond movies a lot lately! Robert Monell's 'Dark Waters' review captures this essence extremely well, I think:'ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS is a Spanish-French co-production made by the same creative team responsible for THE DIABOLICIAL DR Z (1965). Both movies were given a tremendous boost by the imaginative screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere (who had worked for the great Luis Bunuel on many of his French productions). This perhaps explains the sarcastic French-style humor in ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS, which differentiates this from the more slapstick orientation of Franco's later Eurospy efforts (such as LUCKY THE INSCRUTABLE and KISS ME MONSTER [both 1967]). For instance, the opening assassination scenes include the murder of an ambassador and then a high church official, scenes that are staged with a slightly absurd, surreal touch which anticipates similar scenes found in future Carriere-Bunuel projects, THE MILKY WAY [1969] and THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE [1972].'Unfortunately, the film loses steam around the middle where the basically dreary (and fairly silly) plot takes center-stage. In fact, the 'robots' are the film's least successful element: amusingly attired but also lacking a distinct air of menace; this was perhaps intentional but I felt it weakened the suspense considerably, because in this way Pereira was never really in any danger! Still, there are plenty of other diversions on hand, not the least of which are the film's two leading ladies – Francoise Brion and Sophie Hardy – who manage quite a nice contrast between them, apart from providing the obligatory (albeit chaste in this case) eye-candy!Curiously enough, the film was shot in color but released outside Spain in black-and-white (which fact is given away by the plot-point of having the robots change their skin color when they die, but this element obviously does not register on-screen!). Still, as it stands, the film elicits comparison with any number of internationally-produced film noirs of the 50s and early 60s, and especially the work of Orson Welles as well as Jean-Luc Godard's almost-contemporaneous ALPHAVILLE (1965) – no doubt Paul Misraki's scoring credit was no mere coincidence – which also starred Constantine as another detective, Lemmy Caution, who was featured in a long-running series of films on the big screen.The climax is hurried and hardly exciting (despite some lavish interiors, the film's production was all-too-obviously a cheapjack affair) – but the sight of super-villain Fernando Rey (not quite in his element here) getting his just desserts Moreau-like is reasonably satisfactory, in my opinion. Put simply, CARTAS BOCA ARRIBA is good, unpretentious fun most of the way and I certainly would not turn down an opportunity to watch some of the other films Franco made featuring his favorite detective – Al Pereira!