The Wrecking Crew *** (1968, Dean Martin, Elke Sommer, Sharon Tate, Nancy Kwan, Nigel Green, Tina Louise) – Classic Movie Review 6319

‘Matt Helm’s final assignment is a blast!’ Don’t you just love taglines that review the film? Why have film critics when you can have ad men? Director Phil Karlson’s 1968 spy caper adventure movie The Wrecking Crew, which brings old red eyes Dean Martin back for his fourth and final Matt Helm movie, is a suitably robust but entertainingly daft adventure, representing a return to the form of the first film in the series, The Silencers (1966).

This time ace spy Matt Helm is on the trail of gold bullion hijackers, led by Count Massimo Contini (Nigel Green), in William P McGivern’s workable screenplay based on the novel by Donald Hamilton.

There is a high line in Sixties glamour from Elke Sommer, Sharon Tate, Nancy Kwan and Tina Louis to contrast with the laconic, flashy work from original Silencers director Karlson. Martin is still a class act, on good, amusing form, with Nigel Green a good, lip-smacking baddie.

Sharon Tate (1943–1969).

Scoring a personal success, Sharon Tate plays Freya Carlson in her penultimate movie, following Eye of the Devil (1967), The Fearless Vampire Killers, Don’t Make Waves and Valley of the Dolls. The Wrecking Crew is the movie Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie) pays a cinema visit to see in Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019).  

Tate was pregnant with her first child while filming her final film, an Italian comedy Twelve Plus One [Una su Tredici] (1969). Back home in LA, she was murdered on 9 August 1969 (aged 26), along with Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Steve Parent and Voytek Frykowski by Charles Manson’s followers Charles Watson, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel. 

It is Chuck Norris’s film debut as a man in the bar at the House of Seven Joys.

Also in the cast are John Larch, John Brascia, Weaver Levy, Bill Saito, Fuji, Pepper Martin, Ted Jordan, Whitney Chase, Tony Giorgio, Allen Pinson and Wilhelm von Homburg as Gregor.

Running 105 minutes, this Columbia release is shot in Technicolor by Sam Leavitt, produced by Irving Allen and Harold F Kress, scored by Hugo Montenegro, Mack David and Frank DeVol, and designed by Joseph C Wright.

It follows The Silencers (1966), Murderers’ Row (1966) and The Ambushers (1967).

A TV movie and series followed in 1975 with Tony Franciosa as Matt Helm.

Martin performs The Story of Love on the soundtrack. In reality, Martin hardly ever had a drink and just played the boozy playboy as his popular image. Martin was effortlessly funny, and his buddy Frank Sinatra was always jealous of that as he was not at all a funny person but wanted to be.

Bruce Lee trained Tate for her martial arts scenes.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6319

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Margot Robbie plays Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019).