Director: Basil Dearden
Script: Michael Relph
Cast: Oliver Reed, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas, Curt Jurgens, Phillip Noiret, Warren Mitchell, Beryl Reid, Clive Revill, Kenneth Griffith
Running time: 149 minutes
Year: 1968
Certificate: 12
Based on a book by Jack London, (Call of the Wild), The Assassination Bureau is a very difficult film to categorize, seeing as it straddles a number of different genres and styles. Broadly speaking it’s a black comedy, but could just as easily be labelled as an action adventure film. On the one hand the comedy is quite satirical, but there are elements of almost slapstick humour in between some of the semi- screw-ball banter that can be heard between the leads. However, The Assassination Bureau is also an espionage thriller, of sorts, one which makes a few political digs and clearly enjoys stereo-typing different European nations while it’s at it.
The story has a feisty Ms Winter, (Diana Rigg), using The Bureau to put out a hit on its current boss, Ivan Dragonovitch, (Oliver Reed), in order to bring the organisation out of the shadows to enable her to write a story about them for a newspaper she desperately wants to impress. Its editor (Telly Savalas) is happy to let her follow Ivan around and report on his whereabouts as, unbeknown to Ms Winter, her editor is also Vice Chairman of The Bureau and, if Ivan is killed, he’ll be promoted to the number one spot.
Therefore Winter starts to tail Ivan around Europe as he goes about taking out the rest of the Bureau who have been promised a bonus of ten thousand pounds to the member who actually manages to kill their boss. In Paris Ivan manages to take out the French head assassin in a hotel explosion and in Vienna he does away with his Austrian rival in a Beirkeller. It must be said that explosives seem to be most assassin’s preferred murder weapon hence this film features several explosions.
Reed and Rigg have quite good chemistry and look like they’re having fun in their respective roles. There are certainly elements of Emma Peel from The Avengers in Rigg’s character here, although she doesn’t know Kung Fu in this film. Oliver Reed makes for an interesting, dashing anti-hero and is believable whenever he’s fighting his way out of situations. As for the rest of the cast, Savalas and Jurgens ham it up somewhat, but make for memorable villains, especially the latter when it comes to duelling. In fact, the most memorable sequence for me, and probably for most of the people who’ve ever watched the film before, is the sabre duel aboard a Zeppelin airship, right at the end of the film, replete with one of the most audacious getaways ever committed to celluloid.
The Assassination Bureau is an enjoyable watch, possibly because it’s a very interesting failure. It’s clear that the makers weren’t entirely sure what sort of film they wanted to make and the movie suffers because of it. Plus, it’s certainly longer than it really needs to be and the music frequently works in a negative way for much of the running time, often implying comedy moments rather than those featuring adventure and derring-do onscreen.
My own personal relationship with the film is that many years ago I viewed it on television as a boy, but because it’s quite an odd film – an understatement really – I later wondered if I’d actually dreamed it, a bit like another unusual movie, The Phantom Tollbooth, that I saw around the same time. Years later I came across a hooky copy of the film on the internet, verifying my memories of the movie, and now it was wonderful to finally catch up with a nicely remastered version where the colours really ‘pop’ and the sound is excellent too, many thanks to the exemplary Arrow Video.
Arrow Video have done a great job on the presentation of the film as it looks great and the sound is very clear too, considering it’s now nearly 58 years old. There are a several special features on the disc including;
Audio commentary with Kim Newman and Sean Hogan – Once again, Kim Newman proves that he’s a walking Encyclopaedia of film and he and filmmaker/critic Sean Hogan often get side-tracked down some interesting anecdote-filled asides. For example, the duo spots similarities with Brian Thorbes’ The Wrong Box, which I believe I reviewed for Blueprint many moons ago. They even discuss the Art Noveau style credit sequence.
Right Film, Wrong time (27.5 mins) – Critic, broadcaster and cultural historian Dr Mathew Sweet details the background behind the novel and the film. Sweet talks a lot about author London’s interesting employment history and how he was bad at coming up with original ideas of his own so he sometimes paid other writer’s to give him their plot ideas, one of which included the idea for The Assassination Bureau. Apparently, Burt Lancaster and Rex Harrison were also considered for the Ivan role. Dr Sweet sees the film as being a final farewell to the age of big international comedies that were still made in the UK.
Trailer (3 mins) – Like the film this is overlong but showcases the film’s stars, although sadly with the bad Benny Hill style music still in place to accompany it.
Stills gallery – 63 stills, mostly of the lobby card variety, but with 3 posters too.
