Very Cool!!!

Good movie but grossly overrated

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Patrick O'Neal, of "The Kremlin Letter" (1970), here is some kind of skinny James Bond, who gets more punches than he gives, but, from time to time, he's invisible. Ira von Fürstenberg, who looks like a twin sister of Margaret Lee, is Arabella, kind of Bond girl. Donald Pleasence, post original Bond, makes a caricature of a villain. So does Henry Silva, a bad character parody. Nicoletta Machiavelli, who looks very good in this movie, is helping Henry Silva. All are spies and spies one another, American, Russian, Chinese, the whole planet etc. One half spies the other half... The music is signed by the great Ennio Morricone but it's not great. Director is master Alberto Lattuada, who has made many good films, including two absolute masterpieces: "Lights of Variety" (along with Fellini) and "Mafioso" with the great Alberto Sordi. Another interesting movie made by him is "Fraulein Doktor". This one is neither a masterpiece nor stupid. It's worth seeing if you like Bond parodies and for the sake of the stars.

Newspaper reporter and would-be spy, Perry Liston (Patrick O'Neal), finds himself in a Chinese prison. He's housed with old, dying man whom he befriends. Before the old man dies, he gives Liston a ring that has the power to make him invisible. Liston escapes, makes his way to Europe, gets mixed up with a crazed villain, and, in the end, must save mankind from destruction (or something like that). Other than the invisibility angle, this is all pretty standard Eurospy stuff. And, it's in these moments that I really enjoyed Matchless. But, the invisibility ring and all the "hilarious" shenanigans it produces really put a damper on my enjoyment. It's all too slapstick for my taste. I enjoy a spy film with a generous helping of tongue-in- cheek, but, at times, this goes way overboard into the realm of being absurd. And that's too bad because the rest is a pretty decent movie. Of course the plot makes little sense (do plots ever make sense in these movies?) and it's all shot fairly cheaply, but it's got something about it I enjoyed. The cast is really the standout. Donald Pleasance was never better. His take on the super-villain in Matchless is as good as I've seen. He's a hoot! Joining Pleasance are the manically laughing Henry Silva and the drop-dead gorgeous Ira von Furstenberg. Supposed star Patrick O'Neal is the weakest of the main cast. And the poor dubbing/looping of his dialogue doesn't help.Overall, Matchless is a decent Eurospy effort that's hurt by some lame attempts at humor. A wishy-washy 5/10 is about the best rating I can give it.

Lavishly produced with superbly imaginative direction and some marvelous color photography, shot on location in New York, London and Munich, this movie stars luscious Ira Furstenberg, who is sexily got up in alluringly weirdo costumes. A pity all this is lavished on yet another of those so-so sub-007 spy spoofs. Patrick O'Neal is a fine actor, though he does not possess the necessary comic insouciance to carry on his unwilling secret agent. Other members of the cast, including Donald Pleasance, Henry Silva, Howard St John and Sorrell Booke are similarly handicapped with the result that a lot of the movie's humor falls flat. Fortunately, no-one could complain about Miss Machiavelli, however, nor could they denigrate the film's sets and compositions which are as eye-filling as Princess Furstenberg herself.

Wonderful mindless fun entertainment. Goofy plot, passable acting, clumsy dialog, but it is the kind of movie that doesn't ask much of the viewer, and viewers shouldn't ask much of it except for a bit of fun. I had fun. There is a wonderful bad guy, there are beautiful women like in the James Bond films, and there is a rather hapless quasi-Bond type who gets caught up in the intrigue. This is a film in the 1960s spoof genre, with its chase scenes, cars, planes, helicopters, parachutes, kites, boats, and on and on. It pokes fun at the James Bond type of movie, while at the same time having a bit of its own espionage action, just enough that the film could stand on its own (shakily) as a spy/seduction movie. This is worth renting if you can get it. It is too bad they don't make more of this fun entertainment these days.