Superseven chiama Cairo

Another of the numerous Bond like spy films of the sixties, Italian made I think so it's dubbed in English. I know a lot of people don't like this but in this case it's done pretty well.

Roger Browne plays Martin Stevens, aka Superseven is sent to Cairo to recover sensitive equipment before the Soviets get their hands on it. There's not many people he can trust, especially the many beautiful ladies that frequently turn up. Whilst the storyline and characters are pretty formulaic the location work is not. It's fantastic to see Paris, Rome and Cairo in the mid sixties before mass tourism arrived, for that alone this is worth a watch.

Although the film was directed by the Italian veteran director Umberto LENZI, it is only a very weak representative of the EuroSPY wave of the 1960s, which began after the great success of the first James Bond films DR. NO, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, GOLDFINGER and THUNDERBALL.

A highly radioactive material is stolen and hidden in a camera lens. Agent SuperSEVEN (Roger BROWNE) chases the whole thing from London to Cairo, Locarno and Rome. Fabienne DALI and Massimo SERATO complete the all too colorless cast.

Only 281,000 tickets were purchased in West German cinemas (source: InsideKino). Not surprising!

Roger Browne is competent enough here in this pretty shameless hybrid of all things "007" with a bit of "Man from U. N. C. L. E." thrown in for good measure. The suave agent "Super 7" is tasked with tracking down a newly discovered metal that is being smuggled inside of a pocket camera that cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands! His investigations take him to the magical city of Cairo where he encounters dangers a-plenty and has no idea who he can trust. It's all pretty procedural, this, with a few gadgets and gizmos to liven it up as it moves along, quickly, to a conclusion that has it's tongue firmly in it's cheek. There's not much jeopardy and a bit too much script/score but it's still just about watchable if you accept it's production values and budget do not compare with it's more illustrious contemporaries in the genre.

After a new radioactive metal has been stolen secret agent "Martin Stevens" (Roger Browne) is assigned the mission to recover it. The problem is that the metal has been melted down and made into a camera lens which was then accidentally purchased by a tourist who has subsequently gone to Cairo. Needing information he comes across a female operative named "Faddja" (Rosalba Neri) who is working for the other side who inadvertently points him in the right direction. It's then that he teams up with a female agent by the name of "Denise" (Fabienne Dali) and together they attempt to track down the mysterious tourist as he visits one exotic site after another while at the same time having to contend with Russian agents who want this new metal as much as he does. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an okay James Bond clone which suffered somewhat due to poor character development and the fact that it jumped too quickly at times from one scene to another without sufficient preparation. It also didn't help matters that the script was rather bland as well. In any case, while certainly not a great spy film by any means, I suppose it was adequate for the time spent and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Roger Browne is another Eurospy "heavyweight", making 6 films which can be considered part of the Eurospy genre in a general sense. "Operation Poker", "Password - Kill Agent Gordon", "Rififi In Amsterdam", "Last Man To Kill" and two as secret agent "Martin Stevens", "The Spy Who Loved Flowers" and this one.

Although all the Eurospies I seen have been romantically inclined, none of them has come close to challenging the alpha male bedroom exploits of Sean Connery era James Bond, in fact most of them are lucky if they manage to bed even a single lady over the course of a movie. That changes here, as when we are introduced to Roger, he is already in bed with a female of the species and, soon after, he kills her with his trusty fountain pen gun (before she can shoot him). Ten minutes in and he's bedding his second, after the obligatory "what are you doing in my room" scene. He's busy working on his third prospect when he comes across an old girlfriend, so he has to forgo a possible reunion there. However the third one never quite works out for him, so he comes up short of attaining the level of sexual prowess achieved by Connery-Bond or Moore-Bond (usually 2 or 3, occasionally as high as 4)

I think Roger is the first pipe smoking "International Man of Mystery" I've come across, but alas, it has no alternative function. However he does have a radio transmitter in his shaver, in addition to the trusty pen gun, both of which get plenty of use over the course of the movie.

This a polished production, sturdy and dependable, but somehow uninspired, missing some spark of energy which allows the better Eurospys to punch above their weight. The dialogue is functional but lacking any particular wit or sophistication. They have an occasional stab at "Avengers" style whimsy (with the Napoleonic mannequins) or "Swinging 60s Psychedelia" (when the henchmen put on swimming goggles and overpower Roger with infra-red light in some unexplained way) but those moments seem out of place with the rest of the film, which is a bit more "grounded".

The McGuffin is a sample of a newly discovered element called "Baltonium", which was hidden inside a camera lens, that has accidently been passed on to an unsuspecting tourist, while in the process of being smuggled.

There are plenty of exotic locations on show. Stock footage takes us to Paris (for the prologue), London (for mission assignment and fight training), Cairo (for all the expected spy movie activities), Locarno, on Lake Maggiore (in lieu of the Riviera) and finally Rome (although, in fact, none of the outdoor events in "Rome" take place in the historic city centre). I think the production probably did actually pay a visit Cairo and the lake in order to supplement the stock footage.

The casting provides a decent villain with a suitable array of distinctive henchmen and beautiful women.

Action arrives at suitable intervals, but is more enthusiastic than well-choreographed. The music performs its function, supporting the mood of onscreen events. However the ending is a bit of a disappointment. The villains' boat breaking down out of the blue, for no good reason, is very lame. The rom-com epilogue is clunky, like much of the rest of the movie.

Overall this is competent but unremarkable.