aka Death Pays In Dollars
Reader, be warned, I'm going to spoil the ending of the film somewhat fierce. I have to, trust me.
When a surviving Nazi, his very pulp-German henchwomen and much less German henchmen and his merry band of assorted international criminals finally find the tons of perfect counterfeit money Hitler had made to destabilize the Allied economy, but didn't get around to use anymore, it looks like they're going to be rich.
Too bad that Monique, one henchmen's girlfriend, makes off with a part of the money. One lasered to death henchman later, and the bad guys are chasing Monique through New York, where the woman's tendency to throw the fake money (which is supposed not to be identifiable as fake, yet still is identified as such) has already drawn the interest of the CIA.
All discrete and competent American agents are already in the field somewhere, so the section chief has no choice but to draft agent-in-training Bill Dixon (Stephen Forsyth, later of Hatchet for the Honeymoon fame) for the mission.
Seeing what happens during the rest of the film, they might as well not have bothered sending anyone. Proving his competence, Bill lets Monique be kidnapped by the baddies. He follows them to Marrakesh where a friendly British agent (Gianluigi Crescenzi) does most of the heavy lifting, while Dixon stumbles into traps and ogles women.
Fury in Marrakesh, directed by Luciano Martino (brother of the Sergio), should work excellently as a touchstone for a viewer's disposition towards Eurospy films in the special Italian style.
It has all the typical and necessary elements of its genre in place:
- The suave and highly unlikely protagonist who could as well not have shown up for all the good he does, but who is at least excellent with his fists as well as with the ladies
- Said ladies, all pretty, and either the protagonist's future bedmates (though Dixon isn't all that competent here, either) or evil sexy killing machines or both or...but I'll explain the last "or" later
- A plot that is only a thin excuse for a fun assortment of globe-trotting (New York! Marrakesh! The Swiss Alps!), chases, pulpy fistfights and explosions; a plot which in this case has some especially puzzling moments - why exactly does the disguised main bad guy save our hero's life?
- Directorial execution that is nothing if not enthusiastic and fast-paced, the Eurospy movie being one of the few B-movie genres that nearly never falls into the habit of talking anything to death. There are always women to ogle or men to hit!
- The spy gadget scene, silly, fun and usually providing our hero with a shooting cigarette lighter
- The dubious dubbing. Fury is an especially fun film in this regard, since it also exists in a version that dubs the "hero" (I am using the word loosely here) Bob Flemming, thereby incorporating it into a different series of films. What Dixon's/Flemming's initial name is, is anybody's guess.
- Moments of utterly nonsensical "what the fuck!?". I'd like to see another film beat the ending of Fury in that respect, when the pretty female Asian agent (Mitsouko), who has just helped Dixon out (=has done all the actual work) in the thrilling finale, suddenly pulls off her wig and turns out to be the best transvestite agent the CIA could possibly wish for, leaving Dixon with the sort of problem James Bond never had
If all that sounds fun to you (and golly, does it ever sound fun to me!), you'll probably love Fury in Marrakesh as much as any other Eurospy movie you are going to encounter in the future.
If it doesn't, I am sorry to say that, dear reader, there is not much hope for you.
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2 comments:
From your description, it sounds to me like this is another Cleopatra Wong-like instance of a screenwriter painting himself into a corner by introducing the concept of counterfeit money that is completely unidentifiable as such, only to find later that said money needs to be made identifiable for the purpose of advancing the plot. I'm sure that at the time these screenwriters would never have imagined that there would someday be sad souls like ourselves who would actually pay attention to the plots of these movies and notice their inconsistencies.
This does indeed sound like a lot of fun. You've inspired me to return to the Eurospy well once more.
This one even goes the extra mile to explain that the CIA (in its OSA guise, I suppose, overthinking it even further) years ago found the printing plates for the counterfeits and so knows (without checking, of course) that the random money some random woman throws around must have been made with those plates.
It's a paradox. Or a zen koan. Or something.
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