Attack of the Robots, aka Cartes Sur Table (France/Spain, 1966)

The Lemmy Caution movies are unique among Eurospy series by virtue of one of their entries being directed by one of the leading lights of the French New Wave—that entry being Alphaville, a deadpan masterpiece of dystopian surrealism helmed by Jean-Luc Godard. This makes Cartes Sur Table, aka Cards on the Table (American title Attack of the Robots) all the more interesting, because it was the next film to follow Alphaville in the series and, as such, gives us some idea of what the Caution films were like minus the symbiotic burden of the Godarian style.

As a first point of contrast, Cartes Sur Table was directed by Jesus Franco, a director whose fulsome self-indulgence was as far removed from Godard’s stark modernism as possible. Though it must be said that this was Franco circa 1966, when he had not yet succumbed to his impulses and was still capable of working within studio restrictions to craft an entertaining little B picture that purrs along like a well tooled engine. That is unquestionably what Cartes Sur Table is. Which is not to say that Franco didn’t work a couple of languidly erotic night club numbers into the picture to mark it as distinctly his own.

Hardboiled FBI man Lemmy Caution was created by British author Peter Cheyney and was the subject of ten novels written by him between 1936 and 1945. The character made his film debut in a Dutch compilation film called Brelan D’as in 1952, but would not receive the feature treatment until 1953’s La Môme Vert de Gris, produced by French producer Bernard Boderie, which was followed by two more Caution films within the same year. For his lead, Boderie chose American Eddie Constantine, a singer turned actor who had studied under Edith Piaf.

With his pocked, craggy features, Constantine was far from a glamor-puss. In fact, Godard had played on the actor’s rough looks in Alphaville by refusing to let him use makeup in some scenes. Nonetheless, Constantine was possessed of a rough-edged charisma and good-natured affability that made him perfect for the role of Caution, who, in the films, was portrayed as a wisecracking rogue who prevails as the result of a kind of bemused indomitability.

Cartes Sur Table begins with a series of political assassinations carried out by assailants who are, to a one, bespectacled, bronze-skinned, and capable only of saying the last thing said to them. It is later determined that these robotic killers all share the rare blood type Rhesus 0, a blood type also shared by the subjects of a number of recent missing person cases. The higher ups at Interpol decide to bring retired agent Lemmy Caution (“Al Anderson” in the English dub), who also has the same blood type, back into the fold to investigate and also serve as unwitting bait for the mysterious organization behind the killings.

When we first meet Caution, he is gleefully cleaning up the table at an Asian gambling den, where he first meets the character played by Franco regular Mara Lasso, the requisite beautiful woman of mysterious origins who serves as his companion throughout the rest of the film. After leaving the club, he is accosted by a gang of men in the employ of Asian crimelord Lee Wee (Vincente Roca) and taken back to their boss’ hideout. We will later learn that Lee Wee is also interested in using Caution as bait to entrap the rival gang, but for now Caution just beats the hell out of his men and escapes.

Once dispatched to Spain under the guise of globe-hopping businessman Frank Froebe (likely a nod to Goldfinger’s Gert Froebe), Caution learns that the villains behind the murders are relying on a pair of dissolute aristocrats with a knack for mad science to create their zombie-like assassins. These are Sir Percy, portrayed by reliable Eurospy villain Fernando Rey, and Lady Cecilia Addington Courtney, played by French actress Françoise Brion. It is in the scene where these two appear that Franco’s B Movie instincts really come to the fore, complete with flashing control panels, gothic atmosphere, and screaming captives being lowered into a giant test tube.

What surprised me about Cartes Sur Table is that, on top of being satisfyingly action packed, with a number of memorable fist fights and car chases, it is also quite funny at times. One of the most successful comedic sequences takes place when a quartet of robot assassins breaks into Caution’s hotel room, only to find a gang of Lee Wee’s men, who summarily kill all of them, then tidy the place up before an irate Caution can return with the hotel manager to complain about the mess.

This kind of deft genre alchemy combines with Eddie Constantine’s rakish charm and Franco’s pacey direction to make Cartes Sur Table a disarmingly captivating watch. Although Alphaville is one of my favorite films, I can confidently say that, without it, Cartes would still be a worthwhile investment of time for any fan of the Eurospy genre.

Der Fluch Des Schwarzen Ruben, aka Thirteen Days To Die (Germany/France/Spain, 1965)

To my knowledge, Thirteen Days to Die is the only cinematic attempt to modernize Rolf Torring, the adventuring hero of a series of German pulp novels that rose to popularity during the years leading up to World War II. It seems the idea was to present Torring as a sort of James Bond figure, and that’s not an improbable fit. Both Bond and Torring put a dashing face on the privileges of empire, each treating the exotic lands of the developing world as mere theaters for their ever more destructive antics (and, in Bond’s case, procuring grounds for his harem.) Of course, each man was the face of a different empire in a different time, which might account for why one of them had a lot more holding power than the other.

One need only look at the cover illustration of one of the Torring novels from the 30s to see why the character has aged badly: In each, he is presented as the great white hunter, charged with taming a savage land with the assistance of his loyal companion, a muscle bound and perpetually shirtless black brute who is often depicted wrestling an alligator or tossing opponents overhead like ragdolls. This is Pongo (you heard me) and he looks as if he could have been one of the “noble savages” so notoriously fetishized by Leni Riefenstahl in her later years. He is also likely to be one of the reasons that the Rolf Torring novels are less well remembered (and have less cross-cultural appeal) today than other, less potentially controversial German pulp series, like, say, Perry Rodan or Jerry Cotton.

Fans who are well versed in the Eurospy genre will find much that is familiar within Thirteen Days to Die, and for good reason. The film’s director, Manfred R. Kohler, had his hand in a number of Eurospy efforts, including the Kommissar X entry Three Golden Serpents, which he wrote. 13 Days bears a lot of similarities to the Kommissar X films, from its snappy, lighthearted tone to its shrewd use of an exotic Asian location (Thailand, in this case.) Like them, it plays out as a series of well-staged and mildly farcical fight scenes punctuated by well-shot tourist footage of local landmarks and customs.

What Thirteen Days to Die lacks that the Kommissar X movies had is a magnetic central presence of the caliber of Tony Kendall, or even Brad Harris. As Torring, who is rechristened “Ralph Tracy” for the English dub, Bavarian actor Thomas Alder doesn’t leave much of a footprint. This may be because he delegates so much of the action to one of his two associates, who, thankfully, are a lot more entertaining to watch. One of these if a hulking Swede by the name of Warren (“Hans” in the original, “Hank” in the English dub) who is played by Euro-genre stalwart Peter Carsten (Dark of the Sun, And God Said to Cain) with a lot of good natured bravado.

And then, of course, there is Pongo, who is played by French body builder Serge Nubret. In this incarnation, Pongo is at least allowed to keep his shirt on for the most part—that is, until the final act, for the entirety of which Nubret wears nothing more than an abbreviated pair of cut-offs (which, to be fair, he looks amazing in.) While outshining his co-stars in terms of charisma, Nubret’s character is treated like a houseboy by his companions—making their drinks, fetching their mail—far too often for his performance to be enjoyed without a fair amount of cringing. That’s a shame, really, because Pongo is clearly the muscle of the group, the heavy lifter, and the energy and physical mastery Nubret brings to his action scenes make them the highlights of the picture.

The film’s action begins when Torring and his team arrive in Bangkok to investigate the theft of a necklace belonging to the Thai royal family. The perpetrator of the theft is a gang led by Perkins, whose portrayal by Euro villain extraordinaire Horst Frank is a master class in effete menace. Perkins answers to a mysterious number one who is none to pleased when it is found that the necklace is missing a section, the absence of which makes it impossible to decipher the code contained within its pattern of jewels. Thus begins a campaign of extortion against Thai Prince Gulah in an effort to get him to divulge the location of the missing piece.

Meanwhile, Torring and his crew are assisted by Barrington (Carlo Tamberlani, also seen in the Kommissar X films The Green Hounds/Death Trip and Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill), the director of the museum that the necklace was stolen from. Also lending a hand is his assistant, Chitra, who is played by Metta Rungrat. Rungrat is a Thai actress whose meager credits included a bit part in the ill-fated Jim Kelly vehicle Hot Potato. She also co-starred with Thai superstar Sombat Methanee in a Thai Krasue film called Krasue Sao. Her part here is fairly substantial, as her character turns out to have more to do with the affair of the necklace than even she imagined at the outset.

Of course, this being a Eurospy film, Rolf, Hans and Pongo are assailed by myriad assassins from the moment they set foot in Thailand. To the filmmakers credit, each of these attempts in pretty nutso, one involving a little girl throwing a pot full of acid into Hans’ face and another a poison-coated butterfly. Pongo, of course, gets to wrestle and alligator, and Rolf, a tiger. Unfortunately for Perkins, none of this manages to prevent Team Torring from getting closer to finding the missing piece of the necklace—and with it the solution to the code that will lead them into the stunt and explosion filled climax.

Oh, and there’s also a monkey. He’s named Kango.

I would be lying if I didn’t admit that, despite my deep reservations about its racial attitudes, I enjoyed Thirteen Days to Die. It’s resemblance to a missing Kommissar X movie pretty much guarantees that. It’s got everything that makes any competently made Eurospy movie cozily diverting. The score, by German sexploitation veteran Gert Wilden, is a jazzy spy movie delight, complete with a chugging, Peter Gunn-style theme tune. And then there are familiar faces like Horst Frank and Carlo Tamberlani, whose very presence lulls you into a sense of security, false or otherwise. Nonetheless, it’s hard to enjoy any of these old spy movies without acknowledging the extent to which their heroes are simply defending the status quo, rather than working from any innate sense of justice. I guess in the 60s, people thought that was cool—until they didn’t anymore.

Fantomas Redux

My Teleport City review of Andre Hunebelle's 1966 fumetti adaptation Fantomas has been given a second life over at Mezzanotte. As you would expect from webmaster Keith Allison, Mezzanotte is a site steeped in European decadence, and Fantomas, in all his various forms, is right at home there. Check it out, won't you?

Joe Caligula (France, 1966)

In its own muted, black and white and very French way, Joe Caligula screams its swinging 60s origins at you from its first frame onward. There are the plastic minis, the slim cut suits, the lively beat music (and a fantastic score by Jacques Loussier), the ever present cigarettes, conspicuous posters of Graham Parsons and Francoise Hardy, and a general air of dissolute grooviness. Then there is the hooker who, at the film’s opening, delivers a bored sounding endorsement of the new wave to a john she is pushing toward a brothel:

“It’s exciting. Godard… Chabrol… Come on.”

But is Joe Caligula a new wave film? It may be unfair, but director Jose Benazeraf’s long history of sexploitation filmmaking makes me lean toward no. The thing that Joe Caligula shares with a film like Godard’s Breathless is the cold detachment that Benazera brings to depicting everything from violent action, to lovemaking, to two people sitting silently in a café. This results in a film that, like Breathless, is at once gritty and dreamlike. Yet Benazera seems to lack the mischievous political intent that Godard weaves throughout his quirky narratives. Instead, Joe Caligula comes off more like a genre film in new wave drag—which puts it in good company, given the pervasive influence of that movement throughout commercial cinema at the time.

The film begins with Joe Caligula (Gerard Blain) and his gang arriving in Paris from parts unknown (it is speculated that they are North African Europeans but never confirmed.) Fetishized down to the last detail, the gang is as much a study of movie iconography as actual characters; a group of slick young hoodlums in matching black suits and shades. The gang immediately makes their presence known by conducting a series of violent robberies against small businesses. The city’s underworld is run by a gang of older, more traditional gangsters, and they take exception to Joe and his crew’s anarchic style. When the Caligula gang goes after one of their own, a pimp named Alex (Jean-Jacques Daubin), a gang war ignites—though it could be said to be less a gang war than generational warfare with bullets.

It quickly becomes apparent that Joe and his boys are planning to take over the older crooks’ racket by force—a task they take to with their typical bloodthirsty recklessness. After they dump the flaming corpse of a gangster named Antoine (Marcel Gassouk) at the gangsters' doorstep, the gang war goes white hot. Antoine’s widow, the torch singer/stripper Lea (Maria Vincent), decides to take matters into her own hands and hits the streets, trying to sniff out the location of the Caligula’s gang’s safe house. Joe, meanwhile, takes his sister Brigitte (Jeanne Valerie) and goes on the run. We have earlier seen Joe describe his incestuous feelings to Brigitte in no uncertain terms, and because of that, it is difficult to determine whether her shell-shocked demeanor is the result of past trauma or simply a choice made by the actress playing her.

While Joe Caligula captivates with its mod era stylishness and attitude, it is less likely to do so as a character study. We know from his actions that Joe is a malicious psychopath, but as a character he is completely blank. He is as he does, and beyond that we know virtually nothing about him. In fact, no one in the film even says his name at any point; we only know that he is Joe Caligula because that is the name of the movie that he is in—and that may be the point. It could be that Joe is just a soulless cypher who is doomed to live out a movie archetype to its logical and bloody conclusion, which he does.

Things start to collapse for Joe when Brigitte grows bored with the thug life and goes off on her own. Lea has meanwhile been canvassing the town, asking everyone about a “blond with empty eyes” and her “possibly mad” male companion. When she finally spies Brigitte, sitting alone in a café, she makes short work of luring her back to the brothel, where the gang brutally tortures her. Finally, the gang extracts the info they need, allowing them to close in on Johnny for a climax that is as violent as it is preordained.

I’m fairly certain that the flatness of Joe Caligula’s characters was a directorial choice—and perhaps also a gesture toward a certain vogue in French cinema at the time. And, in pointing that out, I feel no rancor. I am the last person who would want every character in a film I watch to come with a detailed personal history. In fact, the absence of any identifiable human feeling from the film made it that much easier for me to soak in all of its era appropriate cool and aloof visual playfulness. That as well as the odd bits of business—a robbery in which Joe’s gang all wear Beatles wigs, a weirdly rushed torch song that Maria Vincent sings in a distracted whisper—that were more than sufficient to keep my interest from one scene to the next. (The generous amount of female nudity also helped a lot in that regard.)

If that sounds like a pretty utilitarian approach to cinema spectatorship, mark my word: In the wake of Rogue One’s digital skullduggery, watching a film like Joe Caligula could be our best preparation for the films of the future, which will be cast entirely with reanimated husks that display the same combination of glamor and soullessness that the stars of this movie do.

The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl, aka La Louve Solitaire (France/Italy, 1968)

The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl’s title gives it a lot to live up to, as does its superficial resemblance to Danger: Diabolik, which is perhaps the Platonic ideal of fun 1960s pop art Eurocrime films. Some who come to it with expectations based on that resemblance may be disappointed, as there are more differences between the two than similarities.

One of the key differences is that, while Diabolik is based on a comic book, Cat Girl is based on, well, a book book, in particular La Louve Solitaire (“The Lone Wolf”) by French crime novelist Albert Sainte-Aube. This was the first of a series of 12 novels that featured as their protagonist glamorous circus-acrobat-turned-cat-burglar Françoise Dilmont, which were written by Saint-Aube between 1967 and 1973. Indeed, Cat Girl first came into this world bearing the title La Louve Solitaire. That is, until someone—I suspect the Italians—decided to sex it up.

Our introduction to Françoise, aka “The She Wolf”, comes in the film’s opening scene. Looking every bit like a lady version of Diabolik in her black head-to-toe body stocking, she stages a perilous burglary that involves walking a tightrope strung high above a courtyard filled with frugging partygoers, then, ill-gotten gains in hand, making her getaway in a gleaming red Firebird. Later we learn that she is a high end real estate dealer by day, and uses her knowledge of the homes she sells her clients to rob them blind once they move in. Personally, I find this to be an implausible set-up, mainly because I live in San Francisco, where realtors tend to take all of your money up front.

The She Wolf’s next caper turns out to be a sting mounted by Durieux (Julien Guiomar, of Costa-Garvas’ Z), an official with the French secret police. Somewhat predictably, Durieux has a job to which Françoise’s talents are uniquely suited and, in return for her taking it on, will grant her freedom—with the caveat that, upon completion, she leaves the country immediately and never returns. The target of this job is a diplomat from “one of the new independent republics” who is using his diplomatic immunity to act as a drug courier for a mysterious Mr. Big named Saratoga, who, in another example of Cat Girl’s toney casting, is played by Last Year at Marienbad’s Sacha Pitoëff. Françoise’s assigned task will be to steal the diplomat’s latest package, containing 20 kilos of synthetic heroin, presumably with the intent of getting him into hot water with his boss.

Françoise is portrayed by Daniele Gaubert, a French actress who was undergoing something of a career renaissance at the time, having recently returned to the screen after a long absence. This absence was occasioned by her marriage, in 1963, to the son of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, a marriage that was coming to a messy conclusion by the time of Cat Girl’s release. That her public’s hearts had grown founder of her during this period is evidenced by her sudden elevation, upon her return, from supporting to lead roles. It was during the years surrounding Cat Girl that she would star in some of her most well remembered films, including Paris N’existe Pas with Serge Gainsbourg and Radley Metzger’s Camille 2000. Four years later, in 1972, she starred in the caper film Snow Job, on which she met her second husband, skier Jean-Claude Killy, who would remain with her until her death from cancer in 1987.

To her portrayal of Françoise, Gaubert brings little of the cocky joie de vivre that we tend to prefer in our altruistic bandits and, as a sex symbol, comes off as more sullen than sultry. This may have been the point, of course. After all, Francoise is performing her daring do under duress from The Man here, and has every right to be po-faced about it. There is also the matter of her being portrayed from the start as something of an ice princess who cares only for money, which sets the stage nicely for the moment when she starts to find her heart being melted by her leading man. In any case, this puts the onus upon the elements surrounding Gaubert to give Cat Girl its pop. Among these are playful mod-era touches like Francoise’s tricked-out subterranean bachelorette pad (another nod to Diabolik) and a couple of scenes of hipsters go-go dancing to twangy pop music. There is also Francis Lai’s sleek Euro-jazzy score and, lest we forget, the game performances of Gaubert’s supporting players.

Among these is Claude Chabrol favorite Michel Duchaussoy (This Man Must Die), who plays Bruno, an agent with a gift for lip reading who is assigned to be Françoise’s partner in her mission. This mission essentially involves Françoise and Bruno being parked in a hotel room across from their suspect’s embassy. Here they exchange flirty non sequiturs while spying on the diplomat’s office, waiting for him to receive the shipment of heroin. Finally, in a very Rear Window inspired scene, Francoise, after accessing the embassy’s upper floors by trapeze, rifles through the diplomat’s office as Bruno watches anxiously through a telescope. Much like in Rear Window, the diplomat makes an unexpectedly early return and tries to shoot Françoise, only to be taken down by a sniper’s bullet from Bruno. Her job now done, Francoise hightails it to Geneva, only to find herself being pursued by two of Saratoga’s psychotic henchmen, Silvio and Hans—the last named played by Jacques Brunet in what would be, were this a German Eurospy film, the Horst Frank role.

The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl was one of only two theatrical features directed by Edouard Logereau, who worked extensively in European television. Logereau brings an assured hand to the task, but what he should really be credited for is being so keenly aware of the tradition within which he was working. Not only am I referring here to the aforementioned Hitchcock riff and the familial nods to Danger: Diabolik, but also to the repeated scenes of Françoise Gaubert, clad in a black cat suit, scampering across the rooftops of Paris. These are an unmistakable homage to Louis Feuillade’s classic serial Les Vampires, in which actress Musidora traversed those rooftops in much the same fashion--scenes that were payed similar homage by Olivier Assayas in his 1996 film Irma Vep.

Another thing that is striking about Cat Girl, Alongside Logereau’s genre savvy, is just how violent it is not. The shooting of the diplomat aside, there are no onscreen deaths until the film’s last few minutes, and those are not dwelt upon. The film also lacks the rote action set pieces—car chases, fist fights—that dot the typical Euro-thrillers of its era. In place of them are the scenes depicting Francoise’s burglaries, which are all accomplished with live stunt work, rather than the rear projection of cheesy process shots you might expect. In other words, they look refreshingly real, and as such can be forgiven those odd moments when the camera fails to hide the masculine proportions of Francoise Gaubert’s stunt double.

In the final tally, The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl’s cosmetic resemblance to Danger: Diabolik does not serve it well, as it lacks that film’s giddy irreverence and excitement. It is nonetheless a very enjoyable film in its own right, marked by solid performances from an accomplished cast, a glamorous setting, and a screenplay with a fair share of unexpected twists. In my case, it also appeals due to the fact that I am currently house shopping. It amuses me to think that one of these skinny, nervous women who insist upon showing me houses I can’t afford might be a thrill-seeking cat burglar in disguise.