OSS 117: Panic In Bangkok

OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok (Banco A Bangkok Pour OSS 117) (1964)

Runtime: 119 minutes

Directed by: Andre Hunebelle

Starring: Kerwin Mathews, Pier Angeli, Robert Hossein, Dominique Wilms, Akom Mokranond

From: A few different Italian and French companies

Personally, DOCTOR SINN wouldn't be my primary healthcare physician.

Sooner than expected, I have returned. The preceding week for certain had its ups and downs-yet I still had Thanksgiving w/ some family members, my health is fine & things are practically back to normal now. Thus, while that short break was nice I am happy to forget about the recent drama. Randomly, I chose to view something I've seen little of: the Eurospy genre, prevalent in the 60's after 007 became so popular at the box office. The character Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath was also a literary creation (from French author Jean Bruce) which not only predates Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, Bath made it to cinemas first. The character just never became legendary like Bond did. This was my initial experience w/ Ol' Hubert; I've never even viewed the spoof movies from the 2000's from the people that would also make The Artist.

There's a few spots to rent it from, but Kino's streaming service is the way to go even if you have to view it on your laptop as at least the picture is in HD. In this tale filmed & set in Thailand (an interesting locale for me to view) our hero is tasked with investigating a... faux vaccine which is actually a plague that will wipe out “undesirables”; that's what some people think is real life but let me quickly move on before I brew up some controversy. It's a scheme from Doctor Sinn; I can't scoff at the name when there's a much more famous spy film that has a villain named Dr. No. It's a bad look in 2021 that our lead is a real cad around the ladies... if that is not shameful enough, to paraphrase another Letterboxd reviewer, he saves his own ass by letting random people die and not seeming to care that this happens! The first half also has a more languid pace than the back half-at least for me the Thai scenery both rural and urban kept me at attention.

Thankfully this second half has a quicker pace & the obvious inspiration from the earliest Bond pictures becomes more apparent. There's shootouts, kidnappings, double-crosses, a bit of romance, locals that help the hero, the heel wearing a CAPE in one scene... it was a shot of adrenaline that was much-needed. In addition, it became clear that not only was Pier Angeli my type in terms of appearance, but also why both Kirk Douglas & James Dean fell for her. Her passing away accidentally at the age of 39 is sad. To end this review on a positive note, even if it takes awhile for the plot to be fully propelled, overall it was a fun spy romp which does give me the germ of an idea to check out more Eurospy features in the future.