Licensed to Kill (1965 film)
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| Licensed to Kill The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World |
|
|---|---|
| Directed by | Lindsay Shonteff |
| Produced by | James Ward Alistair Films |
| Written by | Lindsay Shonteff Howard Griffiths |
| Starring | Tom Adams Karel Stepanek Veronica Hurst Peter Bull John Arnatt |
| Music by | Herbert Chappell |
| Cinematography | Terry Maher |
| Distributed by | Embassy Pictures |
| Release date(s) |  July,1965 17 November 1965 |
| Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Licensed to Kill is a 1965 superspy imitation James Bond film starring Tom Adams (actor) as British secret agent Charles Vine. It was directed and co-written by Lindsay Shonteff. Producer Joseph E. Levine picked it up for American and worldwide distribution and reedited it under the title 'The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World'.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Facing numerous assassination attempts, a Swedish scientist who has invented an anti-gravity device and his daughter seek to provide the invention to the United Kingdom. With James Bond unavailable, H.M. Government provides Agent Charles Vine, a former mathematician, as a bodyguard and exterminator.
[edit] Aspects of production
After making two films in the horror genre, director Shonteff made an entertaining low budget James Bond exploitation film. Tom Adams' saturnine Charles Vine, like Bond has a licence to kill and is also accompanied by his own electric guitar theme music. Vine is a well dressed cool womaniser and a cold blooded killer who makes quips after performing both functions. However, Vine displays his humanitarian side by placing a suppressor on his pistol when shooting in front of a Hospital Quiet Zone.
As opposed to the big budget Bond adventures, Vine never strays far from London, there are no explosions or elaborate special effects, no large and futuristic sets, and the science fictional McGuffin is talked about but never seen. The films low budget works for it with Vine's version of M (James Bond), Rockwell (Arnatt) having to keep warm with an electric heater and lamenting that H.M Government spends more on toilet paper rolls to troops than his entire department. Shonteff and Griffiths uses the subtlety and wit of the early Bond films rather than the cartoonish excesses of the later ones to tell the tale. The film also features a first rate cast with the satirical Adams as Vine who is "first in his class in weapons and unarmed combat and took a first at Oxford in Maths", John Arnatt as the patient but slightly insulting Rockwell and the delightful Peter Bull as the enemy mastermind Masterman.
Shonteff provides witty setpieces of the Bond films like a car chase, assassination attempts from a transvestite named She He (Thunderball (film)), an evil twin (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'s The Spy With My Face), a master assassin named Sadistikov as well as a helicopter attack (both from From Russia With Love (film)). Vine handles them all with his Mauser C96 broomhandle pistol that he wears in a behind the back holster that Vine admits copying from a "detective on television"; no doubt the Tightrope (TV series). Unlike other superspy films, Shonteff's film makes two cheeky references to Bond as an actual fellow agent.[2]
Based on the success of the film, Columbia Pictures offered director Shonteff a five picture contract, but they disagreed over conditions.[3]
Trinity College Oxford graduate and former RAF Intelligence Howard Griffiths (screenwriter) [4]emigrated to Australia where he wrote extensively for Australian television series such as the spy series Hunter (Australian Crawfords TV series) (1967), and police shows Division 4, Homicide (TV series), and Blue Heelers.[5]
[edit] The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World
Joseph E. Levine who had great financial success from cheaply purchasing an Italian film called Hercules (1958 film) and releasing it in America with a massive publicity campaign, decided to do the same with Licensed to Kill. However, the American release reedited the film by having the opening assassination performed by a Mum pulling a Sten gun our of her pram of twins changing to a pre-credit (film production) scene. Levine engaged songwriters Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen to write a title song performed by Sammy Davis Jr over the credits with the new title. The American release then eliminated scenes of Francis De Wolff talking to John Arnatt about seeking Bond for the assignment, and Vine in bed with a girl and a crossword puzzle giving double entendre clues. The American release also eliminates much of the dialogue about the anti gravity device, called "Regrav" that makes the denouement of the film less comprehensible.
The American publicity for the film echoed the 'Number 2, but tries harder' advertising of the Avis Rent a Car System prevalent at the time.
What Eon Productions reaction was to the blatant imitation is not known, but Shonteff was missing from the two Vine sequals Where the Bullets Fly (1966) (directed by Warwick Films and Hammer Films director John Gilling) and the Spanish made Somebody's Stolen Our Russian Spy (1967) that languished in a film laboratory until 1976.[6]
[edit] References
- ^ Blake, Matt & Deal, David The Eurospy Guide Luminary Press 2004
- ^ Lindsay Shonteff, Licensed to Kill
- ^ www.lindsayshonteff.com
- ^ The Australian Obituary 16 Nov 1999
- ^ Howard Griffiths
- ^ Giffard, Denis, editor The British Film Catalogue 1895-1994 British Film Institute
