OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok (1966)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Powerful

As Good As It Gets

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

After the 1963 French secret agent movie "OSS 117 Is Unleashed" became a world wide hit, several follow-ups were churned out in the next few years, this movie being the first of them. In some aspects, this first sequel is an improvement over the original. It clearly had a bigger budget, which gives the movie some pleasant eye candy with color photography, on location filming in Thailand, and better set design. However, the good look of the movie doesn't compensate for the fact that the movie is pretty boring for the most part. When it comes to action, the movie is really lacking; for example, there is only ONE scene that can be safely labelled an action scene in the first hour of the movie. And neither this action scene or the few others in the movie really stir the blood and get the audience excited. A bigger problem is that the movie is directed in a manner that generates absolutely no tension, mystery, or suspense; spying has never been so routine and dull, and you'll never feel that anyone is in any danger. It doesn't help that at nearly two hours in length, the movie is too long for its own good. Hopefully I will find the next entries in this movie series to be much better.

Based on Jean Bruce 's "Lila De Calcutta" ,which ,as the title reads ,took place in India ,the action was transposed to Thailand whilst keeping the subject :plague bacillus injected by "the chosen ones " to eliminate the shameful human race who destroys the world with their atomic bomb.After exploiting the swashbucklers,in the wake of James Bond ,Hunebelle made his first (black and white) OSS 117 in 1963 ("OSS 117 Se Déchaine ",also starring Matthews as the lead).For his second effort in the field ,Prodis productions granted color , composer Michel Magne - less inspired than in the Angelique saga- and filming on location.In fact ,only 25% of the film was filmed in Thailand.Kerwin Matthews and Pier Angeli were able to combine business with pleasure ,but Robert Hossein and Dominique Wilms never left Paris where they did all their scenes in Boulogne-Billancourt studios.This is the kind of movie in which the scenery ,at a time when people would not travel much, is the real star.Robert Hossein (who would also play a doctor in Hunebelle ' s last attempt "Pas De Roses Pour OSS 117"(1968)) gives a restrained performance as the villain doctor Sinn (sic),the best thing to do when a clever actor has to work with ,say, very average material.Kerwin Matthews lacks Connery's charisma and humor and Pier Angeli is pretty but bland .Having said that,the best OSS 117 Hunebelle made was certainly his third one "Furia A Bahia Pour OSS 117",(1965)starring Frederick Stafford and Mylene Demongeot.

Top agent OSS 117 gets another mission, this time with an objective that remains topical even today: a plague virus is causing multiple deaths in Bangkok, and after an agent there is assassinated, OSS 117 is sent to replace him, find the man responsible for the creation of the virus, and stop him before he can spread it to other countries. This is a well-mounted production, complete with exotic locations and elaborate master-villain headquarters. Kerwin Mathews is OK as the title character, and so is Robert Hossein as the soft-spoken villain. The problem with the movie is that it's overlong (my version ran 114 minutes) and slow (if only they shortened all the driving scenes, they could have chopped off about half an hour from the running time). OSS 117 actually tracks down the villain to his headquarters by listening to a bug that he had planted inside his office near the beginning, so the entire middle section of the movie amounts to little. It's still fun for fans of the genre, but strictly average for anyone else. ** out of 4.

Jean Bruce's Hubert Bonnisseur le Bath was France's answer to James Bond. Like Ian Fleming, Jean Bruce became rich thanks to his best-selling novels featuring OSS 117, i.e., Hubert Bath. Despite the French name inherited from his Gallic ancestors, Hubert Bath is an American who is a secret agent for the OSS, the predecessor of the CIA. Jean Bruce's books were turned into movies. Apparently popular in France at that time, they never found an international audience. Watching "Banco a Bangkok pour OSS 117" (English title: Panic in Bangkok), one understands why. The production values are quite bad. OSS 117 seems to be a carbon copy of James Bond. He is irresistible to women; he is good at fisticuffs, etc, etc. Kerwin Mathews who plays the lead role tries to be suave. Of course, he does not have Sean Connery's charisma or presence. The story is formulaic though it anticipates Moonraker, the James Bond flick. An evil Indian doctor, Dr.Guna Sinn (the name does not sound Indian) working in Thailand has developed a biological weapon that will reduce the world's population in accordance with his eugenicist beliefs. OSS 117 has to stop him with the help of a Thai sidekick and seduce the Indian doctor's sister Lila while he is at it.I watched this movie as a boy many years ago. At that time, it seemed that the acting was adequate. I am sure that I won't think so now. Jean Bruce's books which have been translated into English were far superior to the OSS 117 flicks. Quite the opposite of Ian Fleming, whose books can't hold a candle to the films they engendered. Indeed Jean Bruce was a better writer than Ian Fleming. Read the OSS 117 books. Avoid the movies.(Reviewed by Sundar Narayan)