Review

  • Very sympathetic piece of French "cinéma-bis" as well as French "popular cinema of quality". The color photography of Bangkok using FranScope - equivalent of the CinemaScope - is wonderful and one is always surprised to check how this city has changed since 1964 : amazing shots of Shilom, and of the first "car behind car" streets in the center. Hunnebelle shots all the aspects of Thailand with a sure sense of good filmaker : jungle, city, lost temple. As for the genre, it is a subtle mixing of spy movie, horror movie (Robert "LE VAMPIRE DE DUSSELDORF" Hossein is amazing in mad doctor), erotic movie (Pier Angeli & Dominique Wilms are beautiful). Kerwin Matthews is "honorable" though maybe a little less "à l'aise" than Frederick Stafford in the leading role. Recently released on French cable in beautiful new prints respecting the original size, this full serie of O.S.S. 117 "made in France" but "shot outdoors" between in the 60's is quite refreshing and keeps an unaltered charm so far... Whit not a DVD release in a collector coffret including all the movies of the serie, somme commentaries and some original poster and lobby cards reproductions ?