Oliver Reed stars as the unlikely-monikered Ivan Dragomiloff, the head of an international (though wholly European) bureau of assassins (hence the title) who will kill anyone for the right price. When investigative journalist Sonya Winter (Diana Rigg) shows up at his doorstep asking him agency to accept a contract to kill him, the game, as they say, is afoot.
The movie doesn't take itself seriously and you shouldn't either. The arch dialogue sounding like something from an off-off-off-Broadway play -- is preposterous but fun, and Reed and Rigg twist their tongues around such ludicrous tongue twisters that by fifteen minutes into the film you're laughing at the movie, not with it.
But it's also fun to watch two pros spar with one another with such purple prose, and everyone else in the film even Savalas is along for the ride, playing racial stereotypes and accents to the hilt (the film is, after all, 36 years old). Adding to the laughs are overdone costumes; set in the years just prior to WWI, Rigg spends most of the movie in Gibson Girl get-up, while Reed moves from one overdone suit to the next.
The plot is actually a pretty good idea and I could see a remake of this film being done (hopefully with a more contemporary setting), though that would lose you the most rib-tickling part of all, a long fight scene atop a creaky zeppelin between Reed and Savalas and his cronies.
Reed here is sharp and funny I hadn't realized he had a gift for comedy like this and he's also remarkably handsome and lean (my strongest memories of him are playing Bill Sykes in Oliver and Athos in the good Musketeer movies, both shabby characters). Reed in fact comes off as Johnny Depp's cinematic predecessor, giving a crisp, precise but offbeat performance. Rigg is howlingly miscast as the 'young Miss Winter' (she was 31 when she made the film), a tee-totaller straight-lace who, predictably, eventually comes around; but her wonderfully expressive face is put to good use here, and hey, Di Rigg in a gunny sack is still Di Rigg. I won't say much about Savalas cast as a sort of English William Randolph Hearst because I find he plays one character no matter who it is, and you either like his unirole acting style or you don't. I don't. It was, however, nice to see Clive Revill hamming it up as an Italian count, and a host of B actors from the Avengers (most notably Warren Mitchell, who at 80 is still working); all of them manage to understand perfectly the tongue-in-cheek tone of the film and seem perfectly at home.
This movie will probably play as overly silly to most modern audiences, though it is light-hearted fun; but any fans of Rigg or Reed or even slightly campy comedies should give this one a look. Reed, again, is surprisingly deft (Deppft?), and Diana Rigg, well, let's just say I'm beginning to understand why she is chiefly remembered as Emma Peel (and the only woman James Bond ever married, but hey, that's just good taste).
The movie doesn't take itself seriously and you shouldn't either. The arch dialogue sounding like something from an off-off-off-Broadway play -- is preposterous but fun, and Reed and Rigg twist their tongues around such ludicrous tongue twisters that by fifteen minutes into the film you're laughing at the movie, not with it.
But it's also fun to watch two pros spar with one another with such purple prose, and everyone else in the film even Savalas is along for the ride, playing racial stereotypes and accents to the hilt (the film is, after all, 36 years old). Adding to the laughs are overdone costumes; set in the years just prior to WWI, Rigg spends most of the movie in Gibson Girl get-up, while Reed moves from one overdone suit to the next.
The plot is actually a pretty good idea and I could see a remake of this film being done (hopefully with a more contemporary setting), though that would lose you the most rib-tickling part of all, a long fight scene atop a creaky zeppelin between Reed and Savalas and his cronies.
Reed here is sharp and funny I hadn't realized he had a gift for comedy like this and he's also remarkably handsome and lean (my strongest memories of him are playing Bill Sykes in Oliver and Athos in the good Musketeer movies, both shabby characters). Reed in fact comes off as Johnny Depp's cinematic predecessor, giving a crisp, precise but offbeat performance. Rigg is howlingly miscast as the 'young Miss Winter' (she was 31 when she made the film), a tee-totaller straight-lace who, predictably, eventually comes around; but her wonderfully expressive face is put to good use here, and hey, Di Rigg in a gunny sack is still Di Rigg. I won't say much about Savalas cast as a sort of English William Randolph Hearst because I find he plays one character no matter who it is, and you either like his unirole acting style or you don't. I don't. It was, however, nice to see Clive Revill hamming it up as an Italian count, and a host of B actors from the Avengers (most notably Warren Mitchell, who at 80 is still working); all of them manage to understand perfectly the tongue-in-cheek tone of the film and seem perfectly at home.
This movie will probably play as overly silly to most modern audiences, though it is light-hearted fun; but any fans of Rigg or Reed or even slightly campy comedies should give this one a look. Reed, again, is surprisingly deft (Deppft?), and Diana Rigg, well, let's just say I'm beginning to understand why she is chiefly remembered as Emma Peel (and the only woman James Bond ever married, but hey, that's just good taste).