Password: Uccidete agente Gordon (1966) Online

Director Sergio Grieco (billed as Terence Hathaway) again pits Roger Browne against Franco Ressel just as he did in Rififi in Amsterdam (67). This time Ressel plays the villain Albert Kowalski in drag and in a wheelchair for the bulk of the film, a strange angle that's never fully explained. Roger Browne is agent Douglas Gordon who has a nifty designer wardrobe and charm enough to unite superpowers in thwarting Kowalksi's plans.

Exotic locations like Paris, Tripoli, and Madrid, a fun score by Piero Umiliani and put off lines for girls that don't measure up (`you're very sweet and someday I want you to meet my twin brother') help to keep this average actioner afloat. But when your villain is named Kowalski, you know you're not in for a first class ride.

This mid-60's Italian/Spanish co-production is one of the numerous attempts to cash in on the James Bond craze of the decade. It gets some of the ingredients of the formula right (a secret agent who is good with his fists and irresistible to the ladies, various international locations (from Paris to Madrid), a casino sequence, the "You Play To Win" title song, etc.), but fails to connect them in a coherent way. The story is hard to follow, and the low budget limits about 90% of the action to simple fistfights (there are no set-pieces to take advantage of the locations the way the Bond films do). Roger Browne is a passable lead, he has the looks and the athleticism for the part, but the bad guys are generally useless. In the second half, Brown teams up with a beautiful female Russian spy (Helga Liné), but her character is not really that much help. Among the other women he meets is Rosalba Neri, to whom he says "I bet you are good at freestyle wrestling". Pity we never get to find out! (*1/2)

The beautiful Rosalba Neri, the only thing worthy of some interest in this thing, has a very small role, she is killed in the bathtub with a knife. Roger Browne, which I have seen in another great spinach called "Argoman the Fantastic Superman", directed by the same Sergio Grieco (as Terence Hathaway), is more a presence than a true actor, he is good in running and giving and collecting punches. Helga Liné, in the role of Karin, strived but the rest is a big nonsense.

Recently, I've discovered, watched, and enjoyed a number of Eurospy thrillers made in the 1960s. While some have been better than others, there are only a very few that I've watched that I couldn't find at least a bit of entertainment value. Well, Password: Kill Agent Gordon is one of those few. To begin with, the plot is a disaster. I often write that the plot in whatever genre movie I've recently watched doesn't really matter. But usually, that's only because the movie is so much fun and the plot so convoluted that the movie was entertaining regardless. In Password: Kill Agent Gordon, the plot is almost non-existent – something about gun smuggling to Communist Asian countries. Trust me, you'll forget all about the whys and what-fors very quickly. Second, I've got a real problem with Agent Gordon as played by Roger Browne. The man just didn't do anything for me. He came across terribly dry - not what you normally associate with a cool secret agent. Third, the two female "names" in the cast, Rosalba Neri and Helga Line, are misused and add little. Ms. Line, in particular, doesn't do much more than follow the dull Agent Gordon from scene to scene. She's got little to offer other than her looks. Finally, the budget limitations of Password: Kill Agent Gordon are very apparent. Most of these Eurospy movies were made on a shoestring budget, but many were able to overcome this handicap with cool ideas and over-the-top action. Not here. Apparently, the only idea that director Sergio Grieco (I usually enjoy his work) and the screenwriters could come up with to cover up the lack of a budget was to have Agent Gordon fight what appeared to be the same group of baddies over and over to the point of tedium. Not very original – or entertaining.