Bond Take-Off

KISS THE GIRLS AND MAKE THEM DIE-1966-Mike Connors is Kelly, an international James Bond like CIA agent in this tongue in cheek spy drama with comedy overtones, a co-production between Columbia Pictures and Dino De Laurentiis.. 

Kelly is in Brazil tailing a rich industrialist named Ardonian (Raf Vallone) and his connection with some missing women. Ardonian is in league with Red China in a plot to sterilize the US but in actuality he wants to sterilize the whole world except for himself! The missing women are kept in suspended animation until he needs them. Dorothy Provine (THE 30 FOOT BRIDE OF CANDY ROCK) is Susan Fleming, Ardonian's bimbo girlfriend who wears some really weird outfits and has a Rolls Royce with Aston Martin like features. Terry Thomas is her chauffeur who beats up 5 guys. Later, after it's revealed she is with British Intelligence, she and Kelly team up. They wind up in an underground lab where Provine ends up on a rocket. There's some dumb humor (including a slip on a banana peel) but the real highlight of this movie is Ardonian's massive desk and multi-screen TV monitoring system in a couple of scenes. There's great shots of Rio though. 

Beverly Adams (HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI, TORTURE GARDEN) is one of the victims. Connors would star in the long running TV series MANNIX the next year. Co-director Henry Levin made a similar secret agent satire the same year, MURDERER'S ROW with Dean Martin as Matt Helm (which according to Mike Connors he almost played). 

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Sound So Nice They Had To Tell Them Twice

TWICE TOLD TALES-1963-This trio of tales are based on stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne and were probably made to cash in on AIP's successful Corman/Poe series (TALES OF TERROR was released the year before). While director Sidney Salkow is no Roger Corman, he does a capable job on such a noticeably low budget. And he got “Poe” star Vincent Price to be in all three segments! (He's also the narrator)

In “Dr. Heidegger's Experiment”, the old doctor of the title (Sebastian Cabot) celebrates his over 40 year friendship with Alex Melbourne (Price) but the doc still pines for his lost love Sylvia (Mari Blanchard) who died on their wedding night. When a storm damages her tomb, the duo investigates and finds her ancient body preserved with no signs of decay. After some experimentation, Dr. H. finds that the water seeping into her tomb is actually some kind of eternal youth serum. He and his friend drink it and become young again. The doctor decides to use the serum on his dead wife. He brings her back to life with tragic (but predictable) results.

Next is “Rappacino's Daughter”, where a once famous scientist (Price again) has made his daughter (Joyce Taylor) poisonous through the infusion of a deadly plant into her blood stream (or something like that). Anything she touches dies. He has presumably done this to “protect her from sin” after his own wife's infidelity. A young medical student (Price's RETURN OF THE FLY co-star Brett Halsey) falls in love with her. The scientist tricks the student into becoming poisonous too. The student's professor (Abraham Sofaer) creates a serum that might cure them. The deadly love birds drink it and die. The scientist commits suicide.

The final segment is a truncated version of the novel “The House of Seven Gables”, a version of which Price co-starred in in the 1940's. Jerold Pyncheon (Price of course) and his wife Alice (Beverley Garland) return to the haunted house he grew up in and where every male Pyncheon has died. Jerold wants a treasure hidden in a secret vault but a family foe Jonathan Maulle (Richard Denning) stands in his way. Alice becomes possessed by the spirit of a woman who once loved a Maulle ancestor, who was hung by a Pyncheon ancestor. When Jerold's sour puss sister (Jacqueline DeWit) says she deserves a share of the elusive booty he kills her and then buries Alice alive! After finding the treasure he's strangled by a skeleton hand. Somehow Maulle rescues Alice as the House of Seven Gables crumbles. Gene Roth has a small role as a cab driver.

Screenwriter/producer Robert E. Kent worked with Edward L. Cahn on some of the best horror/Sci-Fi movies of the '50's (IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE, INVISIBLE INVADERS). Despite it's budgetary drawbacks TTT is entertaining. Director Sidney Salkow worked with Price again when he co-directed LAST MAN ON EARTH.

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