Synopsis
A sinister organization called “Big O” (get it?) is plotting something to do with nuclearmissiles. The only man for the job, apparently, is Matt Helm (Dean Martin at his most greasilyrepulsive). Stella Stevens plays a woman who may be in league with the Big O, or she may begenuinely stupid, and Matt drags her along on his quest for the bad guys. The plot makes verylittle sense, the action scenes are dull, and nobody involved with this project seems to have caredvery much. M…rtin voice-overs a few paralyzingly lame tunes, and Cyd Charisse brightens thingsmomentarily with a dance number, but she’s present for far too little time. To add insult to injury,this is a truncated version of the film. Not that it’s asinine sex gags work in the first place, butremoving a few (for no apparent reason) reduces the film’s worth still further.
Audio
The sound is mono, and believe it or not, this is the high point of the disc. The sound is warmand undistorted. There is no poor attempt at remix, and in a nutshell, there is nothing to object to.Which is more than I can say for the video…
Video
The colours are fine. There. That’s the good stuff. The bad stuff is that the print ismoderately dirty, and prone to speckles and grain. The picture is soft, sometimes very soft: inlong and full shots, faces blur into featureless blobs. But the worst of it is that this is phonywidescreen. The cropped fullscreen image has been cropped again! So you’re seeing even LESSthan you would have on a TV broadcast. Completely unforgiveable.
Special Features
Trailers for Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the River, Fun with Dick and Janeand The Mouse That Roared. Nothing to do with The Silencers. The menu isbasic.
Closing Thoughts
Let’s see: a lame film rendered lamer by mysterious censoring, coupled with an insultingvideo. I suppose things could be worse, but not by much.
Special Features List
- Trailers
