Wrecking the Wrecking Crew

So, what does a movie have to do be classified as 'classic'?  I only ask because, right now on Sony Movies Classic, they are showing the Matt Helm flick, The Wrecking Crew.  I'm assuming that, in this instance, they are using the term 'classic' in the same sense are car enthusiasts do - it is old.  Well, made in 1969, which will seem old to many viewers (seems like only yesterday to me).  Indeed, that's the whole point of the channel: it is somewhere for Sony to show the older, generally pre 1990s, movies from its library.  Most are black and white pictures from the forties and fifties, but every so often something from the sixties or seventies (sometimes even the eighties) turns up in glorious colour.  Like The Wrecking Crew.  Now, I know that it is the last and the least of the Matt Helm series, but, aside from its age, there is nothing about it that could justify the description of 'classic'.  I actually watched it for the first time in years when it turned up on Movies4Men (now Sony Movies Action) last year.  I was quite shocked at how shoddy it looked.  It was made on a lower budget than the three preceding films and it showed.  James Gregory, who had previously played Helm's boss turned the film down after being offered a reduced pay cheque and was replaced by John Larch (the police chief from Dirty Harry and the police detective in Play Misty for Me).  A distinct step down in supporting cast quality.  It also skimped on the locations, rarely leaving the backlot.  Copenhagen, for instance, is an all too familiar US city standing set, redressed with vaguely continental looking road signs and populated with European cars (manly Mercedes, VW Beetles and Ford Cortinas), rather than the usual Chevrolets and Buicks.

The interior sets look equally cheap and familiar.  In fact, the whole thing has  look of a TV movie.  To be quite honest, just about any of the many ultra low budget Bond knock offs turned out by Lindsay Shonteff look better than The Wrecking Crew. They also have more coherent plots, better dialogue and more convincing leading men.  As in previous Matt Helm films, Dean Martin brings his inebriated charms to the role, to little avail.  Don't get me wrong, I like Dean Martin.  He had genuine charisma and more often than not delivered well pitched and highly entertaining performances.  But here, he isn't even trying.  Perhaps his pay cheque was reduced, too and he was appearing due to contractual obligation.  Whatever the reason, he looks completely disengaged, not to mention completely out of shape.  Consequently, he is completely unconvincing as a womanising all action secret agent.  In the fight scenes he is all too obviously overweight and middle aged, sluggishly going through the motions, (and it is all too obvious when he is being doubled by a stunt man).  But his lack of energy reflects the film as a whole, which lethargically limps through a series of poorly staged set-pieces. There are some points of interest: Bruce Lee co-ordinated some of the martial arts sequences, while his student Chuck Norris gets his first screen appearance (as a briefly glimpsed heavy).  The best performance in the film belongs to the ill-fated Sharon Tate, who makes the most of her role as a clumsy agent assisting Helm.  Although anyone who only knows Tate as a character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will be disappointed to find that she actually didn't look like Margot Robbie, though she is very engaging.

Further Helm movies were planned, but never made.  The fact is that the film series was very much of its era, the late sixties, and by 1969 was looking tired and anachronistic.  It is hard to see how it could have continued in this format into the seventies.  Unlike the James Bond series, whose success it was trading off of, it showed no self awareness or propensity to reinvent itself to suit changing tastes and audience demands. (The Helm character was revived for a one season mid seventies TV series starring Tony Franciosa - it was a pretty much standard private eye series, with Helm no longer a secret agent but instead a PI).  I can't recall if the previous three Matt Helm movies looked quite as slipshod as this one as I haven't seen them in years, but from what I can remember, they certainly didn't look big budget.  On a final note, the books these films are derived from, written by Donald Hamilton, are quite different.  For one thing, they are deadly serious - all the movie series took were the character names, titles and the barest of plot details.  Don't let the films put you off reading them.