MURDERERS' ROW (1966)

Director: Henry Levin

Writers: Oscar Saul (uncredited), Herbert Baker, adapted from Donald Hamilton’s novel

Producer: Irving Allen

Cast: Dean Martin, Ann-Margret, Karl Malden, James Gregory, Camilla Sparv, Tom Reese, Richard Eastham, Duke Howard, Beverly Adams, Robert Terry, Ted Hartley, Marcel Hillaire, Corrine Cole, Dean Paul Martin (as himself), Desi Arnaz, Jr. (as himself), Billy Hinsche (as himself), (and uncredited cast) Frank Gerstle, Dale Brown, Amadee Chabot, Barbara Burgess, Luci Ann Cook, Dee Gardner, Dee Duffy, Lynn Hartoch, Rena Horten, Mary Hughes, Karen Lee, Mary Jane Mangler, Jan Watson, Marilyn Tindall, Jacqueline Fontaine, Nadia Sanders 

Photographer and US secret agent Matt Helm (Dean Martin) is called back into action to find Dr. Norman Solaris (Richard Eastham), the missing scientist who has recently developed a heliobeam capable of mass destruction. It is suspected that Solaris may be providing his weapon to BIG O, a criminal organization bent on conquering the world. BIG O’s current objective is to use the heliobeam to destroy Washington, D.C. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

Dean Martin’s debut as Matt Helm in The Silencers (1966) was quite a success. Martinmania was in full swing as Dino’s high-rated, television variety show’s first season was already underway, so Columbia Pictures recalled Martin’s reluctant US secret agent Matt Helm back into service later that same year for Murderers’ Row. 

While the whole point of this film series seems to be riffing on the James Bond spy craze with Dean Martin’s boozy playboy persona, it also shows the postwar ideal of the establishment male rubbing shoulders with the tuned-out-and-turned-on youth culture. As the cold war dragged on and fears of a nuclear Armageddon endgame became taken for granted, irreverence for the establishment and authority figures was on the rise, particularly with the younger generation. Ultimately, this flick is too breezy to be making any statements, but it suggests that maybe those middle-aged guys in the suits will still keep us safe. 

Yeah, I know. Such analysis is way too highfalutin for an installment in this go-with-the-80 proof-flow, male-wish-fulfillment fantasy. So, let me complete my mission of perfecting the whiskey sour while I rewatch Murderers’ Row. Then I can regale you with my far more appropriate impressions of this important motion picture. Cheers! 

This flick is a fun romp that always cheers me up depicting the hero’s Hugh Hefner-inspired lifestyle. Apparently, photographer Matt Helm’s line of work is so lucrative that he needs Lovey Kravezit (Beverly Adams), his beautiful and all-too-willing secretary, to handle his correspondence and schedule his girlie photo shoots. This profession still affords Helm his luxurious pad seen in the first film that is equipped with an automated booze dispenser and the sliding bed that can drop its occupants into an indoor swimming pool. Watching a carefree, well-to-do, boozing bachelor “hard at work” photographing a succession of gorgeous calendar girls should have me green with envy, but I appreciate that I don’t have to deal with any of that secret agent-cloak-and-dagger jazz. I guess if Helm is going to risk his life to save the world on a regular basis, he deserves some perks. 

Dean Martin seems even more relaxed and has even more quips and innuendo than in the first Matt Helm film. Nearly all of his dialogue consists of funny one-liners that play well off of just about every character he meets. 

James Gregory is back as MacDonald, the head of ICE, that US security agency that keeps bringing Helm back into the spy game. Gregory seems perfect as the pragmatic bureaucrat that hints at just a bit of the cold-blooded attitude found in the Matt Helm source novels. Gregory is probably best known for his role of the treacherous Senator John Iselan in that cold war classic, The Manchurian Candidate (1962).

The vivacious Ann-Margret plays Suzie, the daughter of the missing Dr. Norman Solaris. She seems like a nice girl that knows the score and will use her feminine wiles when the situation calls for it to find her father. She actually becomes pretty proactive and Helm treats her with more respect than some of his female companions in other films in the series. Ann-Margret’s discotheque dance frenzy in an assortment of wildly mod ’60s fashions convinces me she had more fun than anyone else making this movie. What a delectable dynamo! 

Karl Malden seems to be relishing the chance to be the criminal mastermind in an outrageous spy thriller. Despite his indeterminate accent, Malden’s Julian Wall character is not very distinctive. He is just meant to be the ruthless BIG O operative giving the orders who enjoys being bad. Malden gets to deliver a couple of nice lines that indicate he is despicable at the same time he makes us laugh. 

Like all of the best supervillains, Julian Wall has a beautiful moll. As Coco Duquette, Camilla Sparv seems under-utilized in this role. She is just another lovely accessory to Julian Wall and to this genre of film that requires plenty of gorgeous women. Coco displays a cool humor and it is immediately established that she is openly interested in men other than Wall. These two characters seem to barely tolerate each other. 

All of the best supervillains also have grotesque and dedicated henchmen. Tom Reese’s hulking thug is never addressed by name and is only listed in the credits as “Ironhead” due to a shiny metal plate atop his bald skull. He is a brute of few words, but it is his confused, grunted response of “What?” to Julian Wall’s too-verbose order to kill that sets up a good laugh early in the film and establishes the tone. Ironhead must have been an influence on the metal-enhanced henchman Jaws in the much later James Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979). Even the use of an electromagnet with Ironhead was also repeated with the later Bond villain. 

While Murderers’ Row never aspires to be anything more than a jokey spy adventure, it is marred by some narrative sloppiness. The ongoing use of tiny assassination devices that will explode when subjected to excessive motion is incredibly inconsistent. The damned things never blow up until it is convenient for the story’s purposes. The apparently suicidal Ironhead inexplicably uses one mini-bomb for a dumb gag with Helm. Another mini-bomb is also somehow recognized by Helm as a potential murder weapon, even though he has never seen it or been told what it looks like. At least the unreliable, deadly device allows Dean Martin to follow up the first film in the series with another Frank Sinatra-bashing gag. 

Other gadget-gimmicks are variations on the modified-gun gags of the first film. Instead of a reverse-firing pistol, here we have a gun that can be set to fire ten seconds after the trigger is pulled and a freezing-spray gun. These would seem to have little practical use, but they do manage to tally up quite a body count.

Speaking of bodies, this flick just might hold the world’s record for most bikinis in a single film. Apparently, at least half the women in 1966 Monte Carlo paraded around in swimwear all day long. Maybe it was a dress code ordinance; this yankee homebody wouldn’t know, but I wholeheartedly approve. 

In addition to the action, humor, and female scenery, this good-time Charlie really grooves to the music score. The great composer Lalo Schifrin created the famous themes of such television shows as Mission: Impossible (1966-73) and Mannix (1967-75). He also composed the soundtrack for Dirty Harry (1971) and for three of its four sequels. Schifrin’s Murderers’ Row music is bursting with that jazzy and snazzy ’60s energy I can’t get enough of. 

Despite being a fan of Donald Hamilton’s original, gritty Matt Helm novels, I just can’t resent this movie series as so many others do. While a faithful adaptation of the Helm novels would have been exciting, I can appreciate these rambunctious spy spoofs for the escape they provide. Dean Martin’s Matt Helm-movie martinis buzz this bachelor’s brain with their reckless mix of spy-genre ingredients tossed off with lounge-lizard aplomb. I know they are no damned good for me, but they sure do take the edge off. That’s just what this movie mixologist ordered.

THE DRAGON MURDER CASE (1934)

Director: H. Bruce Humberstone

Writers: F. Hugh Herbert, Robert N. Lee, Rian James, based on the novel by S.S. Van Dine

Producer: unknown

Cast: Warren William, Margaret Lindsay, Lyle Talbot, Eugene Pallette, Robert McWade, George Meeker, Robert Barrat, Dorothy Tree, Helen Lowell, George E. Stone, William Davidson, Arthur Aylesworth, Etienne Girardot, Robert Warwick, Charles Wilson, (and uncredited cast) Henry Otho, Wilfred Lucas, Milton Kibbee, Sam McDaniel, Bruce Mitchell, Cliff Saum, Eric Wilton, Hedwiga Reicher, Eddie Schubert 

During a house party at the Stamm estate, the guests join Bernice Stamm (Margaret Lindsay) for an evening swim in the outdoor pool. After diving into the so-called “dragon pool,” Bernice’s fiancé, Monty Montague (George Meeker), never resurfaces. Old, dotty family matriarch Mrs. Stamm (Helen Lowell) blames the dragon of North American Indian legend that was supposed to inhabit the river which supplies water to the dammed-up portion making the Stamm’s swimming pool. Police Sgt. Heath (Eugene Pallette) brings District Attorney Markham (Robert McWade) along to answer the call from the Stamm estate. Wealthy intellectual and amateur detective Philo Vance (Warren William) tags along to assist in the investigation. Draining the pool does not reveal the missing Monty’s body, only a series of huge, three-toed tracks in the pool’s clay bottom. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

Under the penname S.S. Van Dine, art critic Willard Huntington Wright wrote a series of a dozen mystery novels published from 1926 to 1939. These featured the erudite, amateur sleuth Philo Vance. While the novels were not critically acclaimed and their hero was often derided as a snob, Philo Vance proved to be very popular. Beginning at the end of the silent-film era in 1929, the Vance character was adapted for the movies. During the 1940s, Vance was the basis for three different radio programs. As late as 1974, an Italian television mini-series adapted the first three Philo Vance novels. 

1934’s The Dragon Murder Case was the sixth film in the series and based on the seventh Philo Vance novel. Many considered the novel to be inferior to those before it, and the film adaptation is not often well regarded. Perhaps many Vance film fans missed William Powell who had established himself in the role (which he did not care for) in four of the five previous films. None other than a pre-Sherlock Holmes Basil Rathbone had also played Vance in one film.

This morbid movie fan has always had a soft spot in his black heart for this Philo Vance flick. Although the mystery and its solution is not as complicated as some previous Vance films, I like the weird menace angle it teases us with. It is also rather unique in that half the movie is over with before the body of the murder victim can be located.

In The Dragon Murder Case, the very popular ’30s film actor Warren William plays Philo Vance the same year that he would become the first actor to portray writer Erle Stanley Gardner’s defense attorney hero Perry Mason. He would play Mason in four consecutive films. William would also star as a detective alongside Bette Davis in Satan Met a Lady (1936), the loose and comedic second adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Maltese Falcon. William would return to the role of Vance in the mystery-comedy The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939). From 1939 to 1943, William would star as The Lone Wolf in nine films of that detective character’s series. Horror buffs will remember William in the supporting role of Dr. Lloyd in 1941’s The Wolf Man.

While the Philo Vance of the novels could be rather off-putting in his snobbery, the Vance of the films seems a bit more appealing. That is probably not due particularly to any change of the character’s personality for the films, merely that the medium of the novels would spell out Vance’s attitudes in much more specific detail. Warren William’s relaxed confidence and refinement seems to be quite suited to the role.

Like many amateur detective heroes, Philo Vance is given plenty of autonomy by the authorities and can be pretty rash in his tactics. If anything had gone wrong during his reenactment of the Monty Montague disappearance, Vance could have been charged with manslaughter or, at least, reckless endangerment. I guess Vance’s already proven crime-solving genius earned him one helluva lot of trust with the authorities.

With dullards like Sgt. Heath around, rash action is welcome. Eugene Pallette portrayed the clueless cop five times, more than any single film actor would play Philo Vance. His character seemed pretty typical for its time. The guys actually on the payroll to solve crimes are usually outclassed in every way by the sleuths outside of the police department. This trope has held true from Sherlock Holmes to Batman. Despite Vance’s reputed snobbery, here he seems pretty tolerant of Sgt. Heath, even as he gently mocks Heath’s tendency to jump to conclusions.

As the featured ingénue that seems to be a major impetus in the plot, Margaret Lindsay does not have much to do. Like just about everyone here, her character of Bernice Stamm is just one piece in this crime-puzzle cast. Nevertheless, she manages to be pleasant and likable without ever getting too angsty about her less-than-ideal, impending marriage to Monty Montague. As a Warner Bros. contract player in the ’30s, Lindsay was kept mighty busy. Her favorite role would be alongside George Sanders and Vincent Price in Universal Pictures’ gothic-flavored The House of the Seven Gables (1940).

Third-billed Lyle Talbot’s Dale Leland is the lovesick guy that has an obvious motive for killing Monty Montague, the fiancé of his true love, Bernice. While he gets plenty of screen time, this seemingly passive role probably had Talbot relishing the times he was loaned out from First National Pictures/Warner Bros. to play the energetic leads in the low-budget crime thrillers The Thirteenth Guest (1932) and A Shriek in the Night (1933).

George Meeker is one of those guys that you inevitably run across in movies of the ’30s and ’40s. He was a very busy actor that wound up usually being cast as the unprincipled supporting character or an outright villain. Actually, his role here as the ill-fated Monty Montague seems a bit less unpleasant than usual, until we find out just how he managed to hook up with Bernice Stamm. Once we learn what his character is about, there is no love loss felt about his fate.

The Stamms really seemed to be begging for trouble when they drew up the guest list for their house party. They not only invite bride-to-be Bernice Stamm’s passed-over sweetheart, they also invite Ruby, an old flame of the ill-fated Monty. Dorothy Tree plays the sexy, blonde Ruby. This macabre movie junkie remembers her best as a vampire bride in both the Bela Lugosi-starring classic Dracula (1931) and the simultaneously produced Spanish version.

I suspect that a lot of the appeal to most of the depression-era audience for films like this was to vicariously experience the lavish comfort of the upper class that they envy, while they can also gloat over strife among the well-to-do and the nasty fates some of them suffer. (Works for me.) Having that ingenious snob Philo Vance crash the party to try solving this whodunit or whatdunit just for the hell of it makes me glad that I attended this sinister soiree called The Dragon Murder Case.