Ein Pechvogel namens Otley

Sir Tom Courtenay stars in this amiable British spoof of spy films, playing Gerald Arthur Otley. Otley is a rather shiftless young man who's evicted from his apartment in the opening minutes. After a party, he spends the night at the residence of an acquaintance, Lambert (Edward Hardwicke). During the night, Lambert is murdered, and Otley wakes up the next morning in a field by an airport. It's because Otley had pocketed a seemingly meaningless item in Lamberts' household that he now becomes enmeshed in the schemes of various characters who are quite shifty themselves.

Courtenay and the lovely Romy Schneider do a fine job of anchoring this tale. He's in fine form as an ordinary man caught up in extraordinary circumstances, yet he handles things as well as he possibly can - while also making humorous comments on the situation. He and she lead a superb British cast also including Alan Badel, James Villiers, Leonard Rossiter, James Bolam, Fiona Lewis, Freddie Jones, James Cossins, Ronald Lacey, Phyllida Law (mother of actress Emma Thompson), Geoffrey Bayldon, and Frank Middlemass. Young Damian Harris, the son of actor Richard Harris, plays the bratty Miles; he would grow up to become a director of movies such as "The Rachel Papers", "Deceived", and "Bad Company". The sequence with top character actor Cossins as a driving instructor is far and away the best in the movie, as Otley does everything possible to evade some pursuers while he is taking his driving test!

As for the rest, it benefits from its "London in the swinging 60s" setting, as well as its amusingly convoluted plot and enough genuine laughs to make it reasonable entertainment. One good thing: it clocks in at an agreeable 91 minutes, so it doesn't go on any longer than necessary.

Scripted by Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais, the screenwriters whose credits include things like "Vice Versa", "The Commitments", and "Still Crazy", from a novel by Martin Waddell. Clement also doubles as director here.

Seven out of 10.