Muffed Diving
OSS117 Is Unleashed
aka OSS 117 se déchaîne
France/Italy 1963
Directed by André Hunebelle
Gaumont/Kino Lorber Blu Ray Zone A
Warning: Some spoilers.
The OSS117 novels comprise a vast array of stories about the French/American espionage agent, Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath with the titular code number. Starting in 1949, the first 88 novels were written by Jean Bruce who died in a car accident in 1963 (the same year OSS117 Is Unleashed was released). Then his widow Josette took over and wrote another 143 before she apparently retired in 1985. And then, keeping the family business going, I guess, her daughter Martine with her husband François... wrote another 23 novels before the series was finally finished in 1992 (to date). And I can’t tell you what any of these 254 spy yarns are like because, it seems to me, they’ve never been translated into English? At least, not that I’ve found. If anyone wants to point me in the right direction for English translations I’d like to give them a go.
OSS117 Is Unleashed is actually the second of the OSS117 films. The first big screen adaptation from the successful series of novels was in 1958. However, this is the first of the five films presented in Kino Lorber’s OSS117 - Five Film Collection, which gathers the adaptations from a very specific stance... look at the timing. The first big screen Bond film Dr. No (reviewed here) had just been a pretty big international hit and must have prompted the producers to start their own rival series... the first two of which, starting with this one, starred American actor Kerwin Mathews (who I’m sure readers will remember from such films as The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad, which I reviewed here and The 3 Worlds Of Gulliver, review coming soon). These ones are directed by André Hunebelle, who would soon go on to direct the three 1960s Fantômas revival films (which I reviewed here, here and here) but, he hasn’t really quite caught that larger than life, tongue in cheek vibe with the series here... at least not yet (he directed a few of these... I’ll let you know).
And, if this is the case that the cinematic revival of the character was one of many films jumping on the new Bond band wagon (such as Matt Helm and Derek Flint, reviews all coming soon), then I have to say this opening shot of a film, the only one of these five in black and white, doesn’t give the Bond franchise much in the way of competition.
It’s a fine little spy film, for sure, starting off with an American agent who muffs his diving job looking for the location of a grotto harbouring a new atomic submarine spotting device, by getting shot dead in the water. Special agent OSS117 is sent to Bonifacio in France, to find out what happened to the agent, getting involved with the freelance diver who was helping the agent and his dubious girlfriend, who has been secretly acting against him to target the agent, blackmailed into the plot by the bad guys who are controlling the device. So, of course, when Hubert gets there, shenanigans ensue and the world is, fairly anticlimactically it must be said, saved from the atomic submarine spotting device (even the secret base blowing up at the end is the size of a small car explosion in an American film... I hope they upped the budget for these as they went on).
Kerwin Mathews is surprisingly at home in the role, pouring on the charm, sexism and action man heroics in equal parts. He actually looks like he could do some of the stuff asked of him, getting away with it fairly well on the close up shots... much more so than his stuntman in some of the fist fights who, quite honestly, looks nothing like him. There are some nice lines in the movie at certain moments too. For example, when Hubert steals a non-consensual snog from the car hire girl at the airport (who returns as a running gag later in the movie), she softens and compliments him on having a gift for the French tongue.
The film kinda misses the feel of the first Bond outing by a long chalk, though. The dynamic editing and hard hitting score stings are notably absent and, while Michel Magne’s score is pretty good and makes for a nice stand alone listen on CD, it’s noticeably inappropriate in some sections of the movie. Technically it’s no match for the Bond films... although I hope that improves as the series goes on. The opening song is great, presented as credits animate across various shots of foaming white boat wake but, yeah, it’s not exactly a power ballad but then again, Dr. No didn’t have one of those either. And though there is one sequence where a friendly agent makes contact with Hubert by using a sequence of code phrases, there’s none of the excessive caution about staking out his surroundings that Bond was so meticulous about in his early cinemtic outings.
However, OSS117 Is Unleashed is very nice and I’m kinda looking forward to the next ones, to see how much they up the ante with, I presume, various gadgetry and harder hitting (and more frequent) action scenes but... this one is probably going to disappoint anyone going in expecting a screen incarnation who can give us what the British and Americans were doing at the time. And I’ve seen much more interesting eurospy movies too (something I hope to be getting to see more of at some point soon). I can’t speak for the other movies in this set (yet) but it makes for a nice historical watch and I’m keen to see where they go with the series after this one. I’ll keep you informed right here, of course.
Saturday, 12 July 2025
OSS117 Is Unleashed
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