ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

jvdesuit1 When this movie was shot in 1966 , the second unit took the different scenes located in France between Cannes, Villefranche sur mer and Monte Carlo. I was then a young student in economics at the Nice University and my godfather was one of the top executives of Columbia pictures for Europe. I was at the time very interested in movies and wished to find a job in this sector so I asked Max (Maxwell Setton see his profile in IMDb) to get me an internship for the summer. That's how I was hired in August 1966 to work during the shooting of the movie besides Claude Ganz who was in charge being an executive from the French subsidiary. These have been some 3 or 4 four weeks of great fun I must say. During the shooting some problems or funny situations occurred which will perhaps amuse the reader.The scene of the hovercraft was shot in Juan les Pins; of course there was no hovercraft and they only shot the scenery around it superimposing it later in the studios. But if my memory does not fail me, with some guys of the unit we went that evening in one of the night clubs of the town, le Vieux Colombier, and had the chance to see for free the famous singer Jacques Brel. Matt Helm passes before it at minute 26:27 of the movie with his car.The chase between the Mercedes and Matt Helm was shot on the small and steep and sinuous road which goes from Beausoleil on the coast after Monte Carlo and winds up to Eze Village where there is an ancient Roman archaeological site called La Turbie. During the shooting the stunt driver who drove the Mercedes lost control of the car while passing over gravel and smashed into the entrance of a villa! This was a big problem for two reasons, one because the car if I remember well belonged to some citizen of Nice and was brand new, two, because we had a strict schedule and to repair it was posing a problem; the unit succeeded to have the spare parts send by Mercedes by plane direct to Nice. 3 years before I was on the same road going down to reach the lower main road; I had just got my driving license. While beginning to brake before reaching one of the steep turns, I realized horrified that I had no more fluid in the breaks and the car was accelerating dangerously; fortunately by pumping madly on the pedal I succeeded to regain the pressure and when we reached Nice had the circuits checked!A funny thing happened to me the day of the shooting on the private beach of the Carlton Hotel in Cannes. I was supposed to go to the bank to collect in cash the payroll for the extras and at the same time to bring with me 5 very beautiful girls who appear on the scene on the beach. This scene is shown to Matt in the car when his mission is explained to him at the beginning of the movie.I was 25 at the time, had a very common car which could take only 4 passengers plus the driver. To carry 6 persons including me was breaking the law. When we were near the Cannes Croisette, what I feared happened and I was arrested by a cop! After several minutes of explanations and support by my lovely companions, the cop with a big smile and winking at me made me promise not to do it again and let us go!Now there is one last thing that happened at the Nice Cote d'Azur Airport. We were short of extras so it was decided that all those of the unit available would act as people of the crowd waiting for passengers of the Panam flight (minute 19:22).If you look carefully at 19'47"you see Matt Helm arriving from the plane before taking his car; in the foreground before the shot changes to the close up of Matt opening the door of the car, when he crosses the double white line on the tarmac, the second guy from the right besides an auburn haired women, is me! I wear a black jacket.Of course during the shooting in south of France none of the main actors were there, they had all stand-in. From afar the guy standing in for Dean Martin could be easily mistaken for him!The scenes shot in the night club were made at the Club de Valbonne in a village which is above Juan Les Pins, not far from Vallauris which is famous for its pottery but also for being the place where Napoleon arrived in France when he returned from the Elbe Island on March 1st 1815. Valbonne is not far today from the important technology park of Sofia Antipolis which gathers some 1400 companies in the fields of computing, electronics, pharmacology and biotechnology. There is also a University, one of which Institute is the direct follow up of the Management Institute I'd been a student in 1967-68. Today it seems that the night club does not exist anymore or its name has changed. Dean Martin's son was one of the band musicians in the scenes shot there.At the same time two other important movies were shot in the region, Richard Fleischer's Fantastic voyage for which some special effects were done in the Studio de la Victorine of Nice (those studios still exist), and John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix starring the French actor and singer Yves Montand.I hope these souvenirs may interest some of the viewers here. Claude-Paris-France.

estabansmythe "Murderer's Row" (19669), like all four of Deano's Matt Helmers, is so bad it's good.It always appeared as though Dino never read the scripts beforehand, never cared about the plots...just plain never cared. I guess that was part of his and the film's charm. But it must have driven his directors up the wall, including "Murderer's Row's" Henry Levin.The sets are cheesy as hell as is the music by Lalo Schiffrin. But veteran costumer Moss Mabry's creations (especially for the gals) are terrific. Very hip, very 1969 - yet still very cool today.I am not really an Ann-Margaret fan, but she's really good here. And glamorous Swedish actress Camilla Sparv is stunning! Bad guy Karl Malden is appropriately sinister, slightly amiable and yes, bad. And his right-hand man, Tom Reese (Sgt. Velie on one of the great TV series ever, "Ellery Queen") has a cool chrome steel plate atop his head - nifty gimmick.Deano's four Matt Helm flicks, made in between taping his TV show and partying between 1966-69 were all the Andre Champagne of spy flicks compared with Bond as the Dom Perignon.Why is it that I will ALWAYS watch them whenever they're on TV? I mean I'm drawn like a fly to you-know-what. I can't resist them. I guess it's because they're a guilty pleasure. Cheesy but still a lot of really stupid fun.

ShadeGrenade James Bond fans have complained down the years about the films either straying too far from the source material or being too comedic but it seems to me that Matt Helm fans have had greater cause for complaint. 'The Silencers', starring Dean Martin as agent 'Matt Helm', was one of 1966's biggest hits. The sequel - 'Murderers' Row' - was planned for a Summer 1967 release but after delays on the Bond spoof 'Casino Royale', was rushed out early to be Columbia's big Christmas release.BIG O kidnaps the inventor of a death-ray weapon known as a 'helio beam'. so I.C.E. fakes Matt Helm's death to convince them he is no longer a threat. Posing as a mobster called 'Jim Peters', our hero flies to the French Riviera where danger awaits. BIG O villain Julian Wall ( Karl Malden ) intends using the beam to destroy Washington D.C.As a comedy, 'Murderers' Row' just about makes the grade, but as an action movie it is poor. A car chase in the Riviera, for example, is spoilt not only by the lack of music but by the vehicles photographed through fish-eye lenses as they go round corners. Herbert Baker's script uses little of the Donald Hamilton book, going for cheap laughs at the expense of Dino's image as a boozer. It is a pity as the novel was one of the author's best.Dino's refusal to do location filming resulted in a plethora of stand-ins and bad process shots. Bad S.F.X. too - a man falling off a cliff near the start is obviously a dummy, even the explosions look fake. In the last film, Matt had a gun that fires backwards, here its a gun that has a delayed action. Ironhead ( Tom Reese ), Wall's henchman, intended to be another Oddjob, is wrongly used for slapstick purposes. Karl Malden acts like he's in a different film, Camilla Sparv is woefully under-used, while Ann-Margret is too young to be Matt's love interest ( her disco scenes go on forever ). The pop group 'Dino, Desi & Billy' features in one scene. One of them was Dean Martin's son. "Hi Dad!", he calls out to Matt. I also suspect that some scenes were not filmed. For instance, after leaving Susie's apartment, Matt is suddenly in the clutches of BIG O. How did he get there? On the plus side, Lalo Schrifrin's music is good ( particularly the opening theme ) and Sam Leavitt's lush photography nice. Some jokes work. When Matt is arrested, he complains: "I'm an American citizen!". The chief of police ( Marcel Hillaire ) is not impressed: "We will play the Stars & Stripes when you are in the Electric Chair!". Matt replies: "Then I'd have to stand up!".Henry Levin, the director, also made the vastly superior spy spoof 'Kiss The Girls & Make Them Die' ( 1966 ), which starred Michael Connors, Dorothy Provine and Terry-Thomas.Incidentally, why would a picture of Frank Sinatra be so prominently displayed in a French discotheque?

Brian W. Fairbanks I enjoyed this second Matt Helm adventure enormously when I saw it during my fourth grade Christmas vacation in 1966. I assume I enjoyed it some five years later when it made its TV debut on ABC. However, I did not enjoy it when, feeling nostalgic, I watched it on videocassette. What can you say about a movie--a spy thriller, no less--whose only attribute is that it might increase one's appreciation for the talents of Dino, Desi, and Billy, the pop trio featuring star Dean Martin's now deceased son Dean Paul, and the son of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, that had some marginal success as recording artists in the mid-60s? The group makes a brief appearance in a discotheque scene in which the elder Martin (then 49) dances (sort of) with Ann-Margret, and their song, the title of which escapes me, doesn't sound half bad. That doesn't make it good, but so little in "Murderer's Row" is that their warbling is the highlight. As for ol' Dino, many of his screen performances have been dismissed by critics as sleepwalking, but most sleepwalkers probably couldn't light a cigarette or hold a glass of bourbon (which Helm doesn't drink but that's a plot device not worth exploring here) with the steadiness Martin displays throughout the Henry Levin directed film. Martin is awake, but only, I fear, to make sure he gets his paycheck. As for Levin's direction, it consists of ensuring that Martin and his co-stars don't bump into each other. They don't. In fact, you'd think they were all in different movies. At least you'd prefer to think they are. "Murderer's Row": I like that title, but wonder if it refers to the producers who made this waste of film. Everything about it reeks of a cynical disregard for everything but the cash register at the box-office. It rang all right, loud enough for Matt Helm to ride again in two more movies, but not even Dino could sing such a weary tune that long.