Siete minutos para morir (1971)

Director:

Ramón Fernández

Writers:

A. Di Risso (screenplay)
A. Di Risso (story)

Genre:

Action

Plot:

Cast

Paolo Gozlino	...	Ray Monks (as Paul Stevens)
Betsy Bell	...	Virna
Nieves Navarro	...	Karin Foster
George Hilton	...	Mike Russo
Rubén Rojo
Marisol Ayuso
Fajda Nicol		(as Faida Nichols)
Mery Leyva
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Mario Donen
Claudia Gravy
José Marco
Julio Pérez Tabernero
Elisabetta Wu		(as Elizabeth Wu)

Also Known As:

Agente Howard: 7 minuti per morire (Italy)

Runtime:

78 min

Country:

Spain | Italy

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Company:

Telefilm International

Lots of bullets and action, so sorry, no time for clever dialogues

It all starts in Hong Kong. Al Monks, theoretically the Cultural and Commercial Attaché of the American Consulat is in reality a CIA-man. One day, he lays his hands on a list containing all the names of Chinese Nationalist agents working undercover in Red China. In stead of bringing it to his "Consul", he strikes a deal with the Italian Mafia organisation Gamma. In exchange for money, and a new name -he wants to divorce his wife, who doesn't want to let him go- he will bring Gamma the list. The Mob offers him 200 000 $ and proposes the killing of his twin brother Domeinico Le Monaco in Italy. Monks' twin brother was working for Gamma, but became dispensable, so the Mafia kills him as part of the deal. At more or less the same time, at the other side of the world, Monks kills someone who resembles him vaguely. He puts the body in his own car, and makes sure that the hands of the dead body are burned. His girlfriend Karin Foster reinforces the cover up, by claiming that the unidentifiable body found in the car is indeed Monks'. The real Monks disappears to Italy, and takes the place of his twin brother Le Monaco, killed by Gamma. Soon he's joined by his lovey dovey Karin . Still following or is a drawing already needed ? The CIA sends special agent Bill Howard to investigate things in Hong Kong. Howard soon discovers that the body -supposedly Monks'- isn't his. He knew Monks in Korea, and a tattoo from 1945 draws his attention. He finds out the real Monks has slipped to Italy, and he gets after him. Monks/Le Monaco finds out that Gamma can get 5 mio. $ for the list, and insists in getting 1 mio. in stead of 200 000 $. So, now we have the Red Chinese angry with Gamma, and Gamma and the CIA are both trying to capture Monks and the list. Don't buy the movie if you want fast and funny dialogues... The aspect "action" gets all the attention: lots of fighting, shooting, climbing, jumping, flying etc. at a very steady rhythm. Lots of James Bond-ish exotic weapons, like an armored sports car than can spray slippery stuff to get rid of tailing cars, brief cases that can shoot, pistols that seem to be able to fire 26 shots, etc. The title refers to one of the tricky situations in which Special Agent Monks almost gets killed. He and a secretary who is helping him get trapped in a kind of gigantic press. Gamma's boss gives him only 7 minutes to commit suicide, before the walls will have squeezed both him and the secretary flat as a pancake. But fortunately enough our Billy has got some explosives with him ! Always handy, no ? All these exotic weapons makes it something closer to a Bond movie than to let's say "The spy who came in from the cold" or the "IPCRESS file". However, forget about the (so called) glamour and about the (rather dubious British) humour that Bond fans seem to enjoy so much...