The fourth edition of this free-wheeling franchise is still full of energy and vitality, although I found the plot development was rather ragged at times, with some components not always stitched together as smoothly as one might hope for.
Turkey provides the requisite exotic locations this time, firstly history soaked Istanbul, and later, via the magic of cinema, the spectacular rock formations and cave dwellings of Cappadocia are suddenly within easy driving distance.
Istanbul has always been a classic location for espionage stories and has become almost overused in more recent times (The World Is Not Enough, The International, Skyfall, Taken 2, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and now Mission Impossible; Dead Reckoning) but back in the 1960s, it was still relatively fresh, particularly from an action movie standpoint. "From Russia With Love" in 1963 and the heist movie "Topkapi" that came out in 1964, may have attracted the producers' attention.
The action scenes continue to make inventive use of the locations, whether running across the rooftops of Istanbul, zig-zagging between the domes, or sliding down the channels between the wind-scoured rocky spires and chasing dirt bikes along the steep ridges or around the bases of same.
The fight scenes continue to be well choreographed, although now trending toward the more comedic style familiar to the English speaking World as "Trinity" or "Terrence Hill & Bud Spenser" style, which began to emerge about this time.
Instead of just the customary bantering duo, this time around they add a third likeable hero, who contributes just as much as the regulars to defeating the villains. Tony and Brad are joined by Rudolf Zehetgruber who played Barrett, the animal collecting landowner in "Three Golden Cats". He returns here, with a significantly beefed up role. His name is now Almann, a vet who lives on a boat, so he still loves animals and has a few around, including the bear cub from his previous appearance.
As usual there are numerous beautiful women, which are sometimes quite hard to keep track of, I must admit I found "Jenny" (Rossela Bergamonti) and "Leyla" (Olga Schoberova) hard to tell apart, but I think Jenny ended up in hospital for the duration just about the time Leyla first appears. They are both involved inadvertently, after witnessing something they shouldn't. Sabine Sun is one of the main villains, while Christa Linder, who shows up to drag Tony out of trouble a couple of times, is out for revenge, having had the customary sibling killed by the villains (in this case a brother). As usual Tony flirts a lot, but never gets the girl, although once he returns to his room to find Rossela in his bed, however she has been drugged unconscious by the baddies, and later he shares a bath with a naked Olga, but it's only to help him hide from the police and he remains fully clothed.
The MacGuffin is a container of LSD which the villains want to steal and sell to a buyer, who may or may not want to use it to disable NATO forces. The main villain is of the surprise twist variety, so I won't say anymore, which means the three henchpersons do most of the heavy lifting, action wise. As in "Death Be Nimble" there is a big powerful one, played this time by the appropriately named "Samson" Burke (born Samuel in real life) who is shown to be an expert oil wrestler, a crafty, slippery one, played by Herbert Fux and the third is the aforementioned Sabine Sun. All make a colourful impression in their roles.
With the help of Turkish NATO forces (and a donkey) the traditional battle royale (with cheese) against the Villain's tribe of bandit allies is won and the baddies all get their just desserts.
