BY ADRIAN SMITH
Have
you ever wondered what M*A*S*H would have been like if, instead of
rebelling in a Korean field hospital and taking a satirical swipe at the
Vietnam war, Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland had actually been CIA
operatives in contemporary Paris? Probably not, but somebody in 1974 did and commissioned
a film that would be marketed solely on the chemistry of its two leads. Sadly
no one else involved with movie seemed to think it worthwhile to write a decent
script or throw any money into the project. This film looks so cheap that,
during a scene where Sutherland is washing up, you suspect that he was doing
this between takes as well.
Gould
and Sutherland play agents Griff and Bruland, who are both working separately
in Paris until an accidental assassination attempt by their own agency brings them
together. Incidentally this bombing takes place in a pissoire (urinal), which
gives an early indication of how grubby this film will get. Martinson, played
by British actor Joss Ackland, is the Chief of the Paris branch of the CIA, and
to make amends for nearly killing them, he puts them together on a new case.
Their task is to smuggle a defector from the Russian Olympic team back to New
York. However, when rival British agents get involved, it all goes horribly
wrong, and once again Griff and Bruland narrowly escape a CIA bomb. So now they
are rogue ex-agents out to survive attempts on their lives whilst earning money
through shady deals involving French revolutionaries, the Russian ambassador
and the Chinese secret service. Much farce ensues.
The
film, shot in the UK and on location in Paris, plays more like a Bob Hope and
Bing Crosby Road to... movie, or, with the heavy British influence, the
Morecambe and Wise film The Magnificent Two. Ackland is like a poor
man's Herbert Lom from the Pink Panther films, and Sutherland and Gould
play the film like they used to have fun together a few years ago, but not so
much any more. A lot of the film feels like the director is time filling. A
return trip from Paris to London serves no other purpose than to allow for
stock travel footage. This is perhaps a surprise when you learn that the
director is none other than Irvin Kershner, who started out in film noir but is
best known for saving the Star Wars
franchise with The Empire Strikes Back. S*P*Y*S represents
something of a low in his CV.
For
reasons most likely forgotten, the film had a score by Jerry Goldsmith on its
US release, but in Europe a new score was recorded by John Scott, a jazz
musician whose career now spans more than fifty years, covering everything from
horror and sexploitation to TV themes and epics. His score for S*P*Y*S,
found on this new DVD release, is fairly conventional, and in all likelihood
the audience will be too busy straining to hear anything funny from the cast to
notice it.
One
point of interest here is that the film offers an appearance of Zouzou, who
plays a sexy revolutionary. In the 1960s, through her involvement with Brian
Jones of The Rolling Stones, she became a celebrity and French icon before
trying singing and acting. Addicted to heroin she dropped out of acting shortly
after S*P*Y*S, presumably because she watched it.
Fans
of Elliott Gould or Donald Sutherland will no doubt want to pick this up, but
for everyone else it is a less than essential release. With a plot that can be
found in countless Euro-spy and Bond rip-offs, and unable to compensate for
this with sparkling wit or charm, S*P*Y*S has little to offer. Watch M*A*S*H
again instead.
This
new DVD release from Network Releasing features a decent print. The colours are
rather drab, but one suspects that is how the film has always looked. As
mentioned, the soundtrack features the European rather than the original Jerry
Goldsmith score. The only extras are a rather brief stills gallery and the
original theatrical trailer, which really hammers home just how great it will
be to see Gould and Sutherland do their thing again. If only it proved to be true...
CLICK HERE TO ORDER DVD FROM AMAZON UK
(This film is out of print on American DVD)