UPPERSEVEN (1966)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I don't know if Red China was really making colonial moves on the nations of Africa in the 1960s, as UPPERSEVEN claims in its fictional tale. But by the 21st century, the CCP really did invest heavily in "the Dark Continent," thus giving this slightly upscale Eurospy movie a bit more sociological heft.

The hero Upperseven ("Superseven" in the German version of this Italian-West German production) also gets a few points for featuring a spy-hero with a knack for putting on flawless latex masks in order to masquerade as anyone-- or at least, anyone who shares his general height and build. I assume the nickname is just one more variation on "Double-O Seven." Yet the hero has become famous enough for his disguise-tricks that his enemies not only use the nickname for him, he's also famous for his primary weapon, a gimmicked-up "ebony cane." Whereas a lot of Eurospy flicks introduce the menace first and then show the hero getting his spy-gimmicks from a weapons-designer, UPPERSEVEN jumps feet first into action, with the hero and his fancy cane interfering with a gold-smugging operation. Violence erupts, and the mastermind of the operation, a notorious felon named Kobras, gets away.

When the hero's not wearing assorted disguises, he reports to his superior as Paul Finney (Paul Hubschmid). Strangely, though there's much concern about an impending shipment of money to South Africa to foil the plots of the Chinese, Finney's boss insists that the legendary operative take a vacation. But apparently Kobras ferrets out some intel about Finney, even if he doesn't know him to be Upperseven, and decides to do away with him. A comely lass (Rosalba Neri) tries to lure Finney into an assassin's trap. Finney responds with "The Cisco Kid Trick," in which the hero rather unheroically dresses a traitorous woman in male garb and shoves her into the path of gunfire intended for the hero.

Finney's then assigned a CIA helper named Helen (Karin Dor of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE fame), and he shows her his etch-- I mean, his collection of latex masks-- before they inevitably make out. The film then sends Finney and Helen to various places to burn up time, though none of these incidents, even when they have some good fight-scenes, have any impact on the plot.

Kobras succeeds in ripping off the money-shipment, which will help him fund a missile-base in Africa-- though in truth the base has been completely constructed by the time of the heist. Further Kobras and his sexy henchwoman (Vivi Bach) manage to mousetrap both Helen and Finney, while also revealing Finney's Upperseven identity.

It's not clear why Kobras doesn't just kill the duo, but instead transports them to the missile base. Naturally, that gives Upperseven the chance to pull out one of his hidden disguises, so that he masquerades as Kobras himself, and for good measure ends up making love to the mastermind's girlfriend. Once he gets Helen free, she gets one fight-scene. In the big conclusion the hero manages to turn an array of automated machine-gun pillboxes against Kobras' henchmen, beat Kobras in pitched battle, and blow up the missile base. 

Hubschmid brings a cheery, hail-fellow-well-met charm to his disguise-master hero, even if the scene where he sends the lady spy to her death compromises that attitude somewhat. Neri, Dor and Bach are winningly sexy, and Nando Gazzolo as Kobras furnishes a rare Eurospy-villain with something like a personality. There are one or two gimmicks that border on the marvelous-- the aforementioned pillboxes and a magnetized wall that can pull a man's gun out of his jacket-- but I decided both skew more toward the uncanny. A final scene faces the hero and his girl with the mundane menace of a traffic citation. The writer-director was Alberto de Martino, who would later earn a measure of fame for assorted Eurohorror films.