The Ambushers (1967)

My God! What a great UNDER-RATED movie! Where do I start? The opening theme song and the images that go with it get ten out of ten. Then after we are finished with the cool theme music we cut to the spaceship...with some cool Hugo Montenergo music playing over the spaceship footage. From this point I am hooked on this fun,fun,fun, very 1960s movie! Dean Martin is outstanding in this film and soon-to-be Land Of The Giants cast member Kurt Kasznar is fine as well. Albert Salmi is here and he will join Kurt as a guest star in one episode of Land Of The Giants (Graveyard Of Fools).The only thing I have against the film is the train-track scene where it is a bit too obvious that the actors are actually in the studio and not out on location at all. The Ambushers is FUN.

*Spoiler/plot- 1967, The Ambushers, The baddies have built a working super secret flying saucer and plan on using it against the USA. Along with their new ray gun weapons, they plan to attack and win. Spy Matt Helm goes into action.*Special Stars- Dean Martin plays lead spy, Matt Helm, Senta Berger plays the lead love interest. Albert Salmi plays the baddie.*Theme- US spies come in many shapes and sizes.*Based on- Donald Hamilton's novel on Matt Helm, spy.*Trivia/location/goofs- Spoof of James Bond 007 spy films. Mostly shot in Mexico. The second entry in Martin's Matt Helm film series.*Emotion- A fun film for 'Dino' to relax in and be campy and funny. Light entertainment and humorous.

The hoariest old relic of the sixties spy-spoof boom, 'The Ambushers' is an extremely poor film dragged lower by what may be the single laziest performance ever given by a major Hollywood star. Everything has been laid out for Dean Martin in this film - it is written specifically for him, constructed for his screen persona to allow him to capitalise on his strengths. All he has to do is deliver the one liners, punch the bad guys, and kiss the girls. Unbelievably, he can't seem to work up much enthusiasm for any of these tasks. His delivery of the gags is appalling - he's so laid back he sucks them dry, draining them of what wit they have, and throws them away. It may not be comedy gold, but a good comic makes even bad jokes tolerable. Martin isn't even trying, but worse, he seems to be winking at the camera, inviting the audience to collude in his sloppiness. His very presence seems to be meant to be enough. It may be the ugliest display of star ego before Sean Connery got his hands on 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'.His female co-stars are much better. Janice Rule really seems to be trying to find something in her character, but the script doesn't really know what she's playing, so it's hardly surprising that she doesn't either. She goes from crazy woman to able spy to helpless damsel over the course of the film, and she isn't helped by ugly hair and costumes. The real star performance in this film is Senta Berger. She's truly funny and sexy in exactly the way the script needs for the film to work. Unfortunately, she's maybe too good - everything else seems dead without her (in Martin's case, you may occasionally suspect that he's actually expired on screen). The film-makers prove themselves incompetent when her bad-girl character is killed off towards the end. It isn't just the mistake of dispatching their most talented performer, but the casual way she is strangled and thrown off a platform by a none-too-interesting minor villain. It isn't even clear that she is dead, until she simply fails to reappear. This is terribly off-hand treatment of the character - and actress - who come closest to making the film work. Killing off such a fun character in such a light-hearted comedy feels like a total mistake anyway, as though Jessica Rabbit had been bumped off during the final reel of 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'(and as she's just helped the heroine escape from a lecherous villain, it doesn't even make Hollywood-moral sense).On the whole, this is a profoundly bad film - I've no idea if the other Matt Helm films are any better. The casual sexism, however, is a worthwhile reminder that by Sixties standards, the Bond films actually border on the progressive. Those much parodied big-band Bond themes sound a lot better, too, when compared to the irritating sub-surf-pop theme that opens the film. Couldn't Dean Martin have recorded something himself, or would that have been too much effort?

The Matt Helm series of movies featuring Dean Martin are based upon the novels of the same character (loosely), but they are all parody movies. Similar to how "Naked Gun" spoofed many popular themes at the time, these films all poke fun at the spy movies by featuring the outrageousness of the films right in your face. Bond drinks martinis, Helm drinks - a lot. Bond beds a girl or two, Helm beds them all. Bond has fancy gadgets, Helm has them plus his home has them too. Bond has villains with sinister purpose (and sometimes a quirk or two), Helm has villains that are sometimes freaks or simply idiotic. These movies are blatantly obvious as spoofs and their value is that they are interesting to watch at least once or twice.