From The Orient With Fury (1965)

Due to the recent popularity of my review of Agent 077 - Mission Bloody Mary, I've decided to revisit the 077 trilogy with the second film entitled From The Orient With Fury.  Unfortunately it's beguiled as the series worst entry, full of bad one liners, very little script depth and a plot which one reviewer stated was "less simple than retarded", which I take to apply that calling it "retarded" would have been a compliment.

 

Famed Euro Spy actor Ken Clark resumes his role as Dick Malloy (Agent 077) in this sequel which was actually released the same year as Mission Bloody Mary.  Agent 077 is called in when a brilliant scientist named Professor Kurtz goes missing.  Kurtz had developed a weapon with the capability of disintegrating any object it was aimed at.  Obviously it was clear that he had been kidnapped in order to create a working model for his captors.  Agent 077 starts his search in France getting into bar fights and stealing multiple motorcycles for the local residents, eventually he finds his way to Istanbul (a place quite familiar to the first film) in a showdown with a maniacal mad man with a glorified ray gun!

 

I'll have to agree with most on the opinon that From The Orient WIth Fury is a pretty lackluster Euro Spy endeavor.  If anything it gives me hope that most of the films that lay ahead of me are lot better.  The film isn't boring it's only dull.  There is absolutely no plot to the story other than a glorified game of cat and mouse between Agent 077 and the goons that keep tailing trying to obtain the plans for the weapon.  The action sequences are amusing, the gadgets are cool, the locations and women are beautiful but as a whole the story had a hole large enough to drive a semi through!  It's not until the last 10-15 minutes that the main villain, the professor whose been kidnapped and the weapon of desire are given any real screen time, it's the film's shining moment unfortunately it's all a little too late.  According to those in the Euro Spy community the third and final official 077 film, Special Mission Lady Chaplin, is the series crown jewel and also sees the return of Helga Line, so I'm looking forward to that.

4/10