In the mid-1960s, driven by the popularity of James Bond, tongue-in-cheek spy films ( Our Man Flint, The Spy With a Cold Nose) and television shows ( The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Honey West) popped up like daffodils in a Wordsworth verse. Dean Martin, whose crooning voice and carefree, half-soused persona had earned him his own hour-long variety show in 1965, jumped on the bandwagon. His vehicle was Matt Helm, hero of a series of books by Donald Hamilton which, to put it mildly, didn't tax Martin's talents.
In each of the four Helm films, gathered as an anthropological service on this week's DVD set Matt Helm Lounge, he is surrounded by gorgeous, lingerie-clad women whose only goal in life is to sleep with him or sponge him down once his revolving bed has deposited them in an in-house swimming pool doubling as bubble bath. He is invariably yanked from his sybaritic life as a fashion photographer by the U.S. spy network ICE (Intelligence Counter Espionage), and sent to rescue the world from some madman while dallying with, yes, gorgeous, lingerie-clad women.
And, well, that's about it. The plots are interchangeable, the wit is occasional and the budget is just large enough to keep Martin's character in booze, which, disconcertingly, he drinks even while driving. The only way to measure these disposable romps is by the appeal of the performers and the snap of the dialogue, and by that measure the first outing, The Silencers (1966), is ahead of the otherwise workmanlike pack. Victor Buono is the unflappable villain, whose voice and underground lair are identical to Dr. Evil's in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Stella Stevens delivers the best performance of the four films, as an accident-prone bargirl who may or may not be an enemy agent. Other femmes fatales in the series, which includes Murderers' Row (1966), The Ambushers (1967) and The Wrecking Crew (1969): Elke Sommer, Ann-Margret, Sharon Tate, Janice Rule and Daliah Lavi, all of whom at some point get stripped to their undies, that being the price of inclusion.
James Garner had his own kick at the spy-spoof genre in 1966's A Man Could Get Kille d, but by 1974 he was starring in one of the better TV action series, The Rockford Files, as a reluctant private investigator who lives in a mobile home in Malibu. He keeps up a handy friendship with detective Dennis Becker (Joe Santos), is never sure who's telling him the truth and usually gets beaten up for his trouble. In a 2005 interview included in the DVD set The Rockford Files: Season One, Garner says the series took a physical toll. "You show me an actor, a leading man, who has done the action drama series for more than four years. He doesn't have a leg to stand on; his legs are gone, back gone and generally our brains go." He smiles. "I managed to just barely hang onto that."
The week brings three new black-and-white entries in Twentieth Century Fox's Fox Film Noir series, each with commentaries by experts in this fatalistic genre. Henry Hathaway's Kiss of Death (1947) is the one with Richard Widmark as a giggling psychopath. The role made the movie, and Widmark's career. Otto Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), definitely not to be confused with Shel Silverstein's children's book of that name, reteams Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney from Preminger's 1944 classic Laura. Hathaway's The Dark Corner (1946) has Lucille Ball as a secretary trying to clear her boss (Mark Stevens) of murder.
Fantastic Four, the live-action version of the Marvel comic, offers an engaging three-hand commentary by stars Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and the very British Ioan Gruffudd. Gruffudd recalls learning his lines phonetically to master the American accent, only to have rewritten pages thrust at him just before shooting.
Also out: the second season of the reliably cozy mystery series Murder She Wrote, with Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher; the fourth season of 24; and Ted Kotcheff's Fun With Dick and Jane (1977), co-written by Mordecai Richler, with Jane Fonda and George Segal as upper-middle-class types who turn to crime when their standard of living plummets. The inevitable promo for the Jim Carrey remake pops up before the movie starts, and there's a ribald -- perhaps Richlerian? -- exchange in a restaurant. Segal to Fonda: "Would you be embarrassed if I kissed you in a public place?" Fonda: "I'd be embarrassed if you kissed me in a private place with all these people around."
EXTRA! EXTRA!
The DVD of Cinderella Man, Ron Howard's fact-based triumph-of-the-underdog film with Russell Crowe and Renée Zellweger, is full of bonus features that examine the making of the movie and Crowe's portrayal of Depression-era boxer Jim Braddock. But the treat is in watching three rounds of the actual fight between Braddock and Max Baer while novelist Norman Mailer, invited by the filmmakers to share his knowledge of the ring, comments on the action. On Baer's surprising vulnerability to Braddock's punches: "He wasn't used to getting hit. You see, one of the things that happens to champs is that very often their sparring partners won't hit them hard. . . . They were getting $50 a day, that's all. So you're gonna hit the champ and embarrass him with the people watching him, and get clobbered for $50 a day? No."
CLASSICS FOR KIDS
This one isn't a classic, since it hit theatres only a few months ago, but its supporting cast has classic echoes. In Sky High, Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston are superheroes who send their superpower-challenged son to superhero high school, where he suffers the usual (but smartly acted) teenage angst while bouncing between the dorky but friendly sidekicks and the cool but insufferable heroes. If the film has inevitable echoes of The Incredibles, the school's staff reaches for other pop-cultural touchstones, which parents might have fun trading with their kids. Patrick Warburton, the voice of the villain, was television's The Tick. Dave Foley (as the teacher of sidekicks) and Kevin McDonald (as the school brain) were two of the Kids in the Hall. Bruce Campbell, as the teacher who divides students into heroes and sidekicks, was the cult hero of Sam Raimi's R-rated Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. And Lynda Carter, TV's Wonder Woman, plays the principal who wraps up the film by saying, "I can't do anything more to help you. I'm not Wonder Woman."