The Silencers (1966)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Simply A Masterpiece

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

An American nuclear scientist has decided to defect to the criminal organization known as the "Big O". His intent is to give the "Big O" a tape which will detail plans concerning an upcoming American nuclear test which the "Big O" will exploit to create a massive radioactive disaster within the United States. If everything goes as expected the United States will blame the Soviet Union and a nuclear war between the two will erupt with the "Big O" as the eventual winner. Only the government organization known as "I.C.E." can stop them and so Matt Helm (Dean Martin) is coaxed out of semi-retirement to work with a former partner named "Tina" (Dahlia Lavi) to get the tape and stop the "Big O" from completing their nefarious operation. Now, while this film is obviously meant to imitate "James Bond" movies, it doesn't have nearly the style or the substance to compete against them. The humor isn't sharp, the acting isn't as good and the action sequences are third-rate in comparison. Still, there are several beautiful women, most notably Stella Stevens (as "Gail Hendricks"), Beverly Adams ("Lovey Kravezit"), Nancy Kovak (as the assassin "Barbara") and the aforementioned Dahlia Lavi to add to the scenery. All in all, this is an okay movie, but it's not in the same league as any of the James Bond films.

By the time Matt Helm emerged, 4 bond films had been released. Just long enough for greedy Hollywood to try to cash in on someone else's success formula. I viewed 3 of the 4 Helm movies and it became obvious that they saw the Bond films and said "Lets do everything different than Bond." Maybe they had to execute them differently due to copyright or plagiarism, I don't know. But even had they emulated the Bond formulas more closely, Albert Broccoli would still be laughing and certainly not threatened. But that laughter would come out of ridicule and not from any on-screen humor. Helm, played by Dean Martin is so laid back he appears to be in a stupor. He couldn't move fast if a sloth was chasing him. He, like Bond, is a misogynistic boozer who is licensed to kill, but only those words exemplify any actual resemblance. Martin, who is nearly 50 in the first 2 installments and over 50 in the 2nd two, drives a wood paneled station wagon, chain smokes, and drinks while driving. He has to be coaxed into performing any act of duty as he is constantly resisting work. Of course he beds just about any woman he meets, which is sort of creepy because some of them are half his age, if that. I will say, the Helm women equal the Bond women in looks, but not sex appeal, as they are written as 1-dimensional excuses to be a prop for fashion designers.On the topic of fashion, Helm's look is a turtleneck under a blazer. His "day job" seems to be a fashion photographer and he spends more time fantasizing and singing about them then shooting them. The songs are crooner-corny, the jokes are stupid. But the stupidity does not stop there. The scripts are so vapid they could almost be improvised. The three movies I saw plodded along at a snails pace, poorly edited, terrible continuity, and repeated variations on the same scenery. The villains had little evil about them, and apparently spent much of their time performing the dirty duties their lackey's should have. Admittedly I only continued to watch these films for the babes, but they were so plastic and un-sexy, that even that quickly became boring for me. By comparison, the Flint movies were more entertaining. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't approaching this with too much serious enthusiasm at the onset. Dean Martin cannot act, and I knew he would play the rat-pack cool-card to the hilt. I also understand parody and kitsch. But these films were not intelligent enough on any level to deliver. The 1st two films end with Helm sliding into his indoor pool/tub from a robotic bed, with a girl at his side, I can only assume the next two did the same. My question is: why couldn't they have placed the film canisters and scripts along with them?

I will not bother to go over the plot or other cinematic elements of this light-hearted spoof, and concentrate on the man himself, the King of Cool, Dino Crocetti.His casual sexism, smug chauvinism, and generally patronizing attitude are refreshing reminders of the days when men were expected to behave that way, political correctness be damned. My favorite scene is when he casually breaks out a bottle of liquor **while driving** to knock back a few with Stella Stevens. The ways Dean acts would get him picketed by anhedonic prudes-- excuse me, **feminist groups**, if he were performing today. Then again, if he were performing today, we'd have bigger problems because it would mean that the zombie apocalypse has begun. All in all, a playful time-capsule romp through the days when people just seemed to have more damn fun.

If Harry Palmer was the poor man's James Bond, and Derek Flint was the poor man's Harry Palmer, then where does that leave Dean Martin's Matt Helm? Bottom feeding in the secret agent pond, I suppose. The Helm films began promisingly, entertainingly and shlockily with 1966's "The Silencers," a promise that was soon dissipated in two very poor films and redeemed somewhat, in 1969, in the fourth and last. Dino basically plays himself here, and these films seem something like extended sketches on the old "Dean Martin Show." But Matt Helm IS cool. How cool? Well, he wears a turtleneck and sports jacket to lounge around a Phoenix pool, and his apartment features a circular bed that dumps him into his bubble bath in the morning. He also has a bar in his car so that he can get tippled while he drives. (Hey, wait a minute...that ain't cool, kids!) A la Bond, he also comes equipped with some nifty gadgets in "The Silencers" (a backward-firing pistol and sports jacket buttonbombs), fights a criminal organization (the leeringly named Big O), makes dumb jokes (his put-down of Frank Sinatra IS pretty funny, actually) and woos the babes. Here, he spends time with Nancy Kovack, Cyd Charisse, Israeli actress Dahlia Lavi and the wonderfully klutzy Stella Stevens; a quartet of pulchritude that would amazingly be topped in Helm's final film, "The Wrecking Crew," with its remarkable Tina Louise/Elke Sommer/Nancy Kwan/Sharon Tate foursome. "The Silencers" also features the phoniest-looking laser beam ever and a moderately exciting ending. This movie's kinda fun, actually. Oh...did I mention that Helm's secretary is named Lovey Kravezit?