Banco à Bangkok pour OSS 117 (1964)
Directed by André Hunebelle

Film Review

OSS 117 se déchaîne (1963) was in production before the first James Bond movie Dr No (1962) had been released in cinemas, so it can hardly be called a Bond rip-off.  However, the staggering worldwide popularity of Dr No gave OSS 117's first film outing of the '60s a tremendous boost at the box office and it attracted an audience of almost two and half million.  The film's popularity led its production team to rush out a more lavish follow-up, again with director André Hunebelle in the driving seat and the American actor Kerwin Mathews (best known for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1960)) reprising the role of the most famous secret agent in French fiction.

This time round, the first Bond movie had a huge influence on the shape and design of the film.  Filmed in vibrant colour and widescreen, Banco à Bangkok pour OSS 117 ended up bearing a far greater resemblance to Dr No than it did to Jean Bruce's original OSS 117 novel, Lila de Calcutta.  As expected, the film was another box office winner, its audience now reaching just under three million.  With his three Fantômas films enjoying comparable popularity, Hunebelle became one of the most commercially successful French film directors of the decade.  He would direct two more films in the OSS 117 series - Furia à Bahia (1965) and Pas de roses (1968), and produce a further one - Atout coeur à Tokyo (1967).

Lacking the budget and breadth of imagination of their 007 counterparts, the subsequent three OSS 117 movies would increasingly come to resemble cut-price copies of the Bond movies (particularly when Frederick Stafford took over the leading role from Mathews).  Banco à Bangkok pour OSS 117 gets away with its hopelessly pedestrian plot and overt Bond mimicry because it has a strong principal cast and impressive location (namely Thailand), and also because it makes the most of its limited budget.  The pacing isn't great and the film plods along at a gentle canter down a fairly well-worn track, but the production design is surprisingly good.  With its lush noirish photography, solid performances and rich score from Michel Magne, it stands up reasonably well alongside the early Bond movies. 

Having once had to fend off a host of Ray Harryhausen creations earlier in his career, Kerwin Mathews gets off lightly this time with a mildly histrionic Robert Hossein, who brings just the right level of Grand Guignol excess to his portrayal of the villainous Dr Sinn.   Admittedly, the flagrant Dr No look-a-like would be more comfortably situated in a pantomime or children's comicbook, but Hossein gets away with chewing the scenery because he does it with such style.  Alas, OSS 117's habit of constantly reminding us that his libido is at least the equal of Mr Bond's becomes just as little tiresome after a while.  And even though the fight scenes are impeccably staged, these tend to draw attention to the dawdling pace of the stretches of narrative that separate them.

Implausibly cast as Hossein's divine sister, Italian beauty Pier Angeli provides a welcome female presence to help offset the surfeit of male machismo and provide OSS 117 with something else to do other than throw his opponents around the set.  There is much to like about this film, and there is much to moan about, but there's no doubt that Kerwin Mathews's charismatic presence gives it what it needs to rise above the trashy B-movie standard of most French spy thrillers of this era.  You can't help wondering why Mathews was never invited to play the part of 007 when Sean Connery gave up the role - he looks far better suited for the part than any of Connery's successors.

Film Synopsis

French agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, alias OSS 117, is sent to Bangkok to investigate the assassination of an American secret service agent.  He soon discovers that there have been several outbreaks of plague in the region, coincidentally in the same places where programmes of vaccination have been carried out.  Is it possible that the vaccines have been doctored with a deadly virus, and if so why?  In the course of his hazardous investigation, Bonisseur comes into contact with a strange Indian psychiatrist, Dr Sinn, who advises him to leave the country whilst he still can.  Not a man to be intimidated by veiled threats, OSS 117 wheedles his way into the confidence of Sinn's beautiful sister Lila and uncovers a plot of truly terrifying proportions...