Kerwin Matthews has the hair for the role of OSS 117, but he lacks the cool. There’s no swagger, no menace. The clothes don’t look as cool on him as they do on Sean Connery. He is underwhelming in a genre which demands a lot more. As a result, OSS 117 is Unleashed doesn’t feel very unleashed., but I guess you can’t lure them in with OSS 117 is Sufficient.
From Donald to Dean
Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series followed the exploits of a bitter, disillusioned assassin pressed back into service against his will and saddled with an endless series of depressing, violent assignments. They're tough, noirish, world-weary novels. So how come, when it came time to adapt them into movies, we ended up with a boozy Dean Martin making juvenile sex jokes and sliding ass-first down a mountain while waving around a ray gun?
I Love This Dirty Town
It’s night, when the city is at its best. To the brassy, aggressive strains of a jazz anthem composed by Elmer Bernstein, our point of view drifts through the glorious, desperate chaos of New York at night. Men in suits, women in cocktail dresses, stumbling into and out of nightclubs, into and out of cabs. Those who want to be seen, those who want to see. Movers, shakers, power players, hustlers, hyenas. The kings and queens, the wannabes, the has-beens, the never-will-bes.
