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Yes, Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath is based on novels by Jean De Bruce but he is so similar to Ian Fleming's very well known English spy James Bond who is by the way funnier and more advanced.Well, I adore the 1960s and all of its crazy, charming and sexy stuff. So when it comes to Bond movies' formula I wait for : good action, good science fiction, good Jazz music, good huge production and for sure good seductive delicious women from the good old 1960s when the voluptuous style was on and Marilyn Monroe was the perfect model (forget our miserable damned days of Jessica Alba or Sarah Michelle Gellar ! GOD HELP US !!). But this movie anyway is not working as its likes. The action is not so good, it's average. The direction is not that well done; you'll watch the camera more than once (in the glass of some bus and in the bathroom's mirror of the submarine..), plus the stunt man's face tells you that he isn't the real hero ..And so on. The music is not the unforgettable one !. Frederick Stafford is trying to be (or forced to be) another Connery, and that dubbed voice case was unfunny, but I think with some other director and writer he would've done much better work. The cinematography by Marcel Grignon was real nice as the classic rich shooting of the very era. You won't have a lot of exciting spying devices (only a little microphone and sunglasses which had a camera in it !). And although it's French-Italian production but it's not BIG one by all means ?! Especially when all of the events take place just in Tokyo. The writing was mediocre or maybe the surprises of 1966 are corny in 2007 ! (someone is shooting Hubert in his bed to discover that it wasn't him it is a doll under the blanket !, another one was chasing Hubert to discover that he was a harmless policeman.. etc). Let alone the non-creative dialogue (forget utterly the sly work at Bond with the forever double meaning phrases).Though the real anger would come from my remorse because of the long waiting for the enjoyable Marina Vlady to do anything would show her remarkable beauty but I've got NOTHING at all !!. She was explosive as a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Elke Sommer with charming ambiguity and suppressed great womanhood where the simple yet crafty smile, the silent deceptive look and the confident sexy walking !! But believe me the disappointment will be too awful to stand when you have just one kiss, a very quick brief scene where she was wearing a black swimsuit "under the water ??", and no alluring scenes like Mr. Bond's women made us accustomed to !! However when you read that Marina Vlady wanted to prove that she wasn't a second-rate Brigitte Bardot or another blonde bombshell (and Oh Boy she was indeed) but an actress who is capable of much more, then you'll understand why she wasn't one of the playboy's posters at the time ! So the only thing to say and sorrowfully is : what a loss !!.All in all, this movie is a poor one when you compare it to Bond movies. But if you measure it by its own desire to be amusing and how it could fulfill it by itself, then you'll find that it's a nice humble small espionage flick not too boring, silly nor bad.Yet unfortunately most of the global taste or mood will innately compare that French spy to the original English one hence he'll be some sort of the fool cousin from France whom imitates desperately his uncle's famous clever son !
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