Maroc 7 (1967)

Jewel thief Simon Grant (Gene Barry) finds out that fashion impresaria Louise Henderson (Cyd Charisse) uses all the jetting around the world to do fashion shoots that come with her occupation as a cover for her activities as head of a high stakes thieving operation. She’s got a photographer (Leslie Phillips) with a rap sheet as her man for the rough stuff, and one of her models, Claudia (Elsa Martinelli), as walking, talking, distraction and gopher. If things go as Simon wants them to, she’ll also acquire an aging jewel thief as a partner for her big photo shoot in Morocco, where she’s pairing grave robbing with her more typical thievery shtick, looking to steal a medallion from a hidden tomb. He’s not planning to give her a choice, obviously.

Simon has several problems to cope with: firstly, Louise doesn’t react too well to a guy muscling in on her through blackmail. Secondly, she’s as ruthless as any hardened gang boss, and not afraid to frame blackmailers for murders she and her henchman commit in the course of her operations. Thirdly, Claudia is apparently really into older men like him. And lastly, nobody can be trusted. In fact, not even Simon himself is what he pretends to be: rather, he is a police agent gone undercover to break up Louise’s operation in strenuous cooperation with the local police under one Inspector Barrada (Denholm “The Frenchman” Elliott). Clearly, bouts of violence and a fistful of double crosses can be expected.

Despite on paper belonging to a somewhat different genre, Gerry O’Hara’s Maroc 7 is very much a film in the same vein as most Eurospy movies. As the spy movies of its time do, it puts a manly-man protagonist with dubious ideas about personal space when he encounters women and an inflated idea of his own irresistibility through a series of action and suspense set pieces in front of “exotic” (that is to say, non-Western) locations.

Not being an Italian movie but a British one, this never gets quite as crazy as the more out there continental movies of the style, really less crazy than the later Connery Bond movies (not to speak of Roger Moore, as we prefer it around here anyway). I wouldn’t exactly call anything happening “realistic”, but this certainly isn’t a film to wallow in the bizarre, the outlandish or the just plain weird. At the same time it’s never attempting to be a “serious” crime thriller. There are certainly elements here that suggest a thematical closeness to more noirish fare – what with the amount of double crosses and the inclusion of three femme fatales (at least if you stretch the definition a little) – but the film never treats these betrayals as emotionally heavy or morally interesting and prefers to handle them as parts of a fun genre romp.

“Fun romp” is certainly the tone the filmmakers have decided on, and they stick to it throughout the film, letting Barry’s character take betrayals, attempts at his life and romancing a beautiful young woman he doesn’t trust completely in stride, with little suggestion he’s ever in much actual physical or emotional danger. This isn’t really a criticism, mind you: Maroc 7 simply isn’t a film that aims for anything more, and it does hit what it is actually aiming for competently enough, if, perhaps, not quite with the amount of style one would ideally hope for.

O’Hara certainly is a somewhat too unassuming director. He tends to shoot things by the book – straightforward and mostly effective but never with particular flair. Which is perfectly fine for the film this wants to be, always keeping things exciting enough to make for a diverting time, but never quite as exciting as you’d wish them to be. Though, to be fair, the Moroccan locations are rather nicer to look at than “just fine”. On the acting side, most of the cast seems satisfied with aiming for the same satisfying but not too satisfying level as well. Only Martinelli aims a little higher than only being very beautiful and perhaps also very treacherous, but Barry, Charisse and Elliott pretty much level out at the same upper middle of enthusiasm as the rest of the film.

That’s not meant as too much of a criticism against Maroc 7. Being a fun, traditional bit of entertainment is nothing to sneeze at.