Former Intelligence Counter Espionage agent Matt Helm (Dean Martin, post-Rat Pack) sees superbly stacked women everywhere: his dreams, his morning bath, his breakfast — hell, everywhere. So omnipresent are these lovely ladies that not only does he often have to ask, “You have been vaccinated?,” but that viewers of The Silencers may forget that director Phil Karlson (Walking Tall) has included a spy half to his spy comedy.
The first of four films based ever so loosely on Donald Hamilton’s series of Gold Medal adventure novels, The Silencers is more an impressive collage of décolletage than a bundle of laughs (sample joke: “If you were an Indian, Custer would still be alive!”), but the two styles make a fine pair nonetheless. For a 007 spoof, you could do much worse, and not much better.
As for that espionage portion of the formula, Helm reluctantly retires from retirement in order to save the world from Operation Fallout, for which a defecting American scientist delivers a tape to a villainous organization’s secret underground HQ for nefarious nuclear purposes. Said org is headed by the Fu Manchu-esque Tung-Tze, played by Victor Buono (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?) under what looks like judiciously applied layers of CoverGirl LashBlast.
Helping Helm and his Grampa turtleneck infiltrate the lair is Gail Hendricks, a klutzy fellow agent who may be a double-crosser, but wow, what a double! She’s played by Stella Stevens (1963’s The Nutty Professor) at her peak of hotness, so it’s no wonder Helm literally yanks her clothes clean off her body. As foxy as Gail may be — and she is — she’s hardly the only poker stoking Helm’s fire; pouring over in Pathécolor loveliness are Nancy Kovack (Jason and the Argonauts), Daliah Lavi (1967’s Casino Royale), Beverly Adams (How to Stuff a Wild Bikini), legendary leggy dancer Cyd Charisse and so many more.
The end shot, which features Helm in bed with no fewer than 10 perfectly doable and well-rounded “Slaygirls,” promised audiences that Helm would return in a sequel titled The Ambushers. Against all odds, someone on set actually was sober enough to write that down and follow through. —Rod Lott
I read the originals novels long before I ever saw the movies. It clear that no one who work on the Matt Helm films ever read any of the books.
The book are serious books about a Killer who works for the US Government. While there is humor in the Books, it very dark.
First casting is all wrong. We need someone like Lee Marvin as Matt.
And the tone is wrong. Matt Helm is not a Bond spoof. The books are serious novels,
I might have like the movies better if they had come up with a new character but I can’t get pass how bad they treated the books.