The Wrecking Crew (1968)

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Dean Martin's Matt Helm is always fun to watch. Definitely designed as PG male entertainment but I still love it. Recently saw all 4 movies again and I admit each still kept my attention as fun. The main female characters in these films maintained strong images for the times and it was great to see them. Some appeared in other 60's fun movies and maintained strong images. The 2 James Flint movies are also quirky fun but did not have strong women characters. I just noticed that in the Wrecking Crew - as Matt picks up his jacket to leave there is dust on the pink cushions around the jacket BUT not under it which shows a concern for detail by the film crew - kudos. The music is great !

The opening montage with a zippy title track, followed by Hugo Montenegro's sophisticated Jazzy score score which perfectly matches the introduction to Nigel Green and Elke Sommers characters, followed by the Heist and another rousing score is an opening sequence that has stayed with me for years.The fourth film in this 60's spy series is my favourite, although the first 'The Silencers' is a stronger film and is rightly considered the best of the series.After the nadir that was 'The Ambushers' ( I only watched that once ) the Wrecking Crew is an attempt rein in the excesses of spy spoofs, but its only partially successful.The final instalment runs out of steam, picks up speed, de-rails , gets back on track, only to miss its stop - making the Wrecking Crew a very Uneven journey.Curiously Dean Martin's portrayal is one of the weak point in this film. Don't get me wrong - he is fun to watch but he scratches, mugs and double takes his way through every scene where he could have been more focused. This is fine if your part of a double act but as the focal point Martin's Matt Helm should have been more the hero than the unwitting bystander ( the clue is in the surname ) You can't ignore the real life tragedy that overshadowed this film and perhaps this is why 'The Wrecking Crew' feels like a post-script to the glamour films of the 1960s . The style of this film is curiously muted (thankfully) and with the exception of Martin and Tate all the characters look like they belong in a darker, more serious spy movie. This is underscored by a tragic and unwavering loyalty Elke Sommer and Nancy Kwan's characters have for Nigel Green's baddie - suggesting a fixation that goes beyond material wealth. Sharon Tate's character by contrast is clearly the innocent, unaware of the darker undertones that infiltrate this movie. This mixture of innocence and awkwardness attempts to recapture a similar part played by Stella Stevens in 'The Silencers' but isn't very successful - although it does give Dean Martin an excuse for some good comedy one liners. The Wrecking Crew is far from a train wreck. It's also far from a rollicking good adventure. It is a comedy spy spoof that features a good score , nice performances from the main baddies, fight sequences that hint at the kung-fu craze that would soon follow and a fun if misguided performance from Dean Martin.

Though it wasn't planned that way, The Wrecking Crew became the last of the Matt Helm series that Dean Martin brought to the screen. At the end credits it was announced that the audience could expect a new Matt Helm film The Ravagers would be coming out next.It wasn't to be because Dino frankly got bored of the whole thing and in those days Martin would bore easily. You could tell it on the screen and in his performance that the Matt Helm series just wasn't interesting him any longer. The Wrecking Crew was filmed minus Beverly Adams as Martin's private secretary Lovey Kravezit and the role of his boss MacDonald was taken over by John Larch in place of James Gregory. It was not as ridiculous as the third film in the series, The Ambushers which was clearly the worst of them. This one involved Nigel Green stealing a shipment of gold bullion worth a cool billion.The gimmick here is that the USA does not want anyone knowing that such a shipment was stolen because of the financial implications. Which is why they've sent in Dino to get it back.One thing this film does not lack is the bevy of beautiful women working with and against Dino in his mission. They include in this film, Tina Louise, Elke Sommer, Nancy Kwan and Sharon Tate. The Wrecking Crew turned out to be the tragic Ms. Tate's next to last film.Like the James Bond films, the Helm series also had some nice spy gadgets. The Wrecking Crew had one of the best of them. It was a portable helicopter that you carried in the trunk of your car. It gets Dino and Sharon out of a tight spot. It has to be seen to be believed.Just as well the Matt Helm series ended here if Dino was as bored with it as he plainly shows.

The final film in the 'Matt Helm' ( Dean Martin ) franchise saw a few interesting changes. The spy fad was all but over, so it was decided to make 'The Wrecking Crew' more of a caper movie akin to 'The Italian Job'. It opens with the hijacking in Denmark of a train carrying one billion dollars in gold bullion. It is panic time on the world's money markets, so I.C.E. sends for its best agent ( guess who ). The only lead is a beautiful gypsy dancer named Lola Medina ( Tina Louise ), ex-girlfriend of Count Massimo Contini, a multi-millionaire dreaming of becoming a multi-billionaire. Lola claims that Contini is behind the heist. Equipped with a do-it-yourself helicopter, a camera that bellows incapacitating gas, and explosive handkerchiefs, Matt flies out to Copenhagen, knowing that MacDonald has broken his cover...After a run of two ( outrageous ) movies scripted by Herbert Baker and directed by Henry Levin, crime novelist William McGivern and director Phil Karlson ( who launched the series five years earlier with 'The Silencers' ) brought Matt down to Earth. Out went 'BIG O', 'Lovey Kravezit', and the sci-fi paraphernalia. Donald Hamilton's book was unfilmable - set in Sweden, it had Matt on a manhunt to find a killer named 'Caselius' - so the movie was replotted. Unfortunately, the new story was not much better, lacking in excitement and wit. It was also riddled with longueurs ( such as the Lola/Linka/Yu-Rang seduction scenes ). The Bruce Lee-supervised karate fights look suspiciously like an attempt to cash in on 'Our Man Flint'. The excellent Nigel Green was evil genius 'Carl Petersen' in 'Deadlier Than The Male' ( 1966 ), which starred Richard Johnson as 'Bulldog Drummond'. But Contini is nowhere near as interesting, and does little apart from issue threats and stare at television screens ( one of his henchmen is a young Chuck Norris ).As for Dino, by this time, he was looking more than a little heavy and tired, despite his sun tan and trendy suits. He moves and speaks so slowly at times you think he's impersonating Frankenstein's monster. When Freya ( Sharon Tate ) accidentally bumps into Matt's car, we get: FREYA: Mr.Helm, our cars are stuck. MATT: What? FREYA: We're stuck. MATT: We're stuck? FREYA: Yes. MATT: Good! FREYA: Is that all you've got to say? And with that, she walks off in a huff. Hard to believe someone got paid for writing such drivel. Nancy Kwan's 'Yu-Rang' should have been excised from the script and Elke Sommer's ( 'Irma Eckman' in 'Deadlier Than The Male' ) 'Linka Karensky' beefed up to become the movie's main femme fatale. Of the women only Sharon Tate makes an impression as accident-prone British agent 'Freya Carlson', while John Larch shines in his few scenes as MacDonald. Nice to see him getting in a punch or two.Hugo Montenegro's sub-Bacharach score grates dreadfully, particularly the la-la-la-la-la cue heard whenever Tate goofs. The opening theme contains the ( politically incorrect ) refrain: 'Ah-so, ah-so, vedy vedy nice!'. Oh boy! On the plus side, the film is beautifully photographed by Sam Leavitt ( who had earlier worked on 'Murderers' Row' ), and has some impressive helicopter action. I liked the scene in 'The House Of Seven Joys' club when Matt's table and seat suddenly spins around, taking him to Contini's lair. It preempts a similar scene in 'Live & Let Die' four years later. Dean was booked for one more romp - 'The Ravagers' - but hung up his camera and gun for good after this. 'Matt Helm' would next be seen on television, in a short-lived series starring Tony Franciosa.Sharon Tate was brutally murdered by the Manson Family soon after completing the film. 'The Wrecking Crew' was both a sad epitaph to her career and the Matt Helm series.