Simply Perfect

Good movie but grossly overrated

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Sergio Corbucci(or "The other Sergio", not to be confused with the great master Sergio Leone), was a real movie machine intermittently connected to the conveyor belt of Italian film industry, starting early from the '50s to the late '80s. He made sword-and-sandal(peplum) movies, action movies, police movies, a lot of westerns, dramas, musicals and a lot of comedies. This one is a special eurospy, with a predictable plot: a microfilm (hidden in a tooth pulled out of a dead man's mouth) which everyone wants: the British Intelligence, the Greek police, some Greek villains, some Bulgarian villains and some Albanian villains. The microfilm, as usual, contains names of double agents. There is a "surprise" at the end, we find out that the British agent is also Russian spy... Ty Hardin as Jason and Paola Pitagora as Greta are both OK, natural. Vittorio Caprioli as Pizza, the friend of Jason, is the same Caprioli, here more dramatic than funny. The most convincing is the globe-trotter actor Gordon Mitchell (he also played for Fellini and in a Romanian communist film "Cuibul Salamandrelor"(The Salamander's Nest). He's The Albanian and his look, specially his eyes, are stealing the whole movie.

Spy thrillers were the rage during the 1960s thanks to the success of the James Bond franchise. Rome-born Sergio Corbucci helmed more than Spaghetti westerns during his career that spanned almost 40 years. He made Spaghetti westerns, crime melodramas, comedies with Terrence Hill & Bud Spencer, and teamed up on "Moving Target" with Warner Brothers' "Bronco" star Ty Hardin. A trench coat clad Michael Rennie of "The Third Man" co-stars with the rugged Hardin as an upper echelon British secret agent while perennial villain Gordon Mitchell virtually steals the show as a vicious thug known only as 'the Albanian. Mitchell drools so much evil that at one point in a museum gallery, he breaks the penis off a Greek statue for no apparent reason. "Moving Target" benefits from the on-location lensing of the action in Greece with some scenes filmed at the Acropolis. Although this doesn't qualify as one of Corbucci's more inspired efforts, "Moving Target" is tolerably entertaining with straightforward violence. Occasionally, tragic things—like the death of an adolescent caught in a crossfire—occur.This complicated Cold War thriller about double agents boasts more twists than a spiral of barbed wire. Indeed, about every ten minutes or thereabouts, Corbucci and his scenarists, Massimo Patrizi of "The Price of Power" and Franco Rossetti of "Django," turn things around and then around again. "Moving Target" concerns a seasoned thief Jason (Ty Hardin of "PT-109") who shares Houdini's talent for getting out of tough spots. As the action unfolds, the authorities have him in handcuffs and he is disembarking from a plane when the bad guys create a diversion that enables our handsome hero to escape. Jason doesn't get far before the guys who helped him escape demand that he steal a tooth from a dead man being held in prison. Later, we learn that the tooth contains sensitive micro-film information that documents most of the double agents on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The value of such information is considerable since both NATO and the Soviets want to get their hands on it.The devious villains frame Jason for the murder of a girl. The catch is that she hasn't been murdered. Jason doesn't know that he is being deceived so he cooperates with the villains. They are prepared to pay him $10,000 to steal an object near and dear to them. Our ignorant hero proceeds to break into prison by riding under a vehicle entering the premises and then sneaks into the mortuary and pries the tooth out of the dead man's jaw. The equally ignorant driver—he has no idea that Jason hitched a ride on his vehicle—has the guards lug the casket out and load it in his van. Instead of the real dead man, Jason has concealed himself in the casket to make good his escape. The villains are willing to give Jason the incriminating photos of the girl as well as $10,000. Jason changes his mind about the rendezvous that the villains selected ahead of time after he obtains a tooth from the corpse. Rather than abide by the villains' rules, our hero makes up a new set of rules to protect himself.Meanwhile, Worthington Clark (Michael Rennie) maintains a low profile as he shadows our hero. Clark wants Jason for himself and doesn't want the local authorities to nab him. At the same time, Clark has competition from the other side; a ruthless skull-faced Albanian (Gordon Mitchell of "Atlas against the Cyclops") pursues Jason with a vengeance. The Albanian is a terrific villain who lacks any qualms about killing or roughing up the opposition. Never does it let up his pursuit of Jason in this hard charging actioneer.The twists and turns heighten the hokum of this rather humdrum spy thriller that consists largely of foot chases, car chases, fistfights, etc. Hardin, Mitchell, and Rennie are a sturdy enough cast. The ending has three catches to it. I obtained my copy of "Moving Target" on VHS from Something Weird Video and the audio portion of the film is scratchy toward the end. Surprisingly, Ty Hardin doesn't bare his chest like he did in "Bronco" and "PT-109," and for the first third of the action wears a golf cap that doesn't fall off no matter what the circumstances. Just when you think that you have this nimble thriller all figured out something happens in "Moving Target" that changes everything entirely.

After director Corbucci made his mark with the seminal Spaghetti Western DJANGO (1966), he didn't merely restrain himself to that genre – though his work in the field is surely among the most highly regarded (incidentally, I'll be delving for the first time into two more such efforts in the coming days). For this "Euro-Cult" outing, he changed the typical desert landscape in Almeria for the equally evocative streets and landmarks of Athens; the film, in fact, is a generally lighthearted foray into contemporary espionage – however, the results aren't nearly as rewarding as Corbucci's more individualistic 'horse operas'! To begin with, the American hero (Ty Hardin) is rather bland – he's a notorious thief who's brought in by plane to serve a sentence in the Greek capital; however, before he has even had time to put his feet on the ground, Hardin is 'kidnapped' by Communist spies in order to retrieve a microfilm embedded in one of the teeth of a dead man! A number of other entities soon reveal themselves to be just as interested in its contents – including "Albanian" Gordon Mitchell and mysterious British agent Michael Rennie; the only man the hero can trust is former associate Vittorio Caprioli – playing a character called Pizza(!) and currently the owner of a sleazy but popular nightclub in town (with vivacious blonde stripper Graziella Granata as star attraction). Another girl is also involved – Paola Pitagora – who's introduced as a 'murder victim' of Hardin's, with which the Communists can then blackmail him into acquiescence!; that said, she's an unwilling accomplice – since the girl's infant nephew (her deceased sister had been involved with the man in possession of the microfilm) is being held behind the proverbial Iron Curtain.It's pretty convoluted stuff albeit reasonably engaging while it's on – with plenty of double-crosses, chases (especially effective when atypically set against the imposing ruins of the famed Acropolis), fistfights, shoot-outs, explosions, and what have you…even if, in the long run, it emerges as little more than a footnote in the director's career! The film turns a bit serious during its latter stages as both women are killed off, and Caprioli takes a severe beating from Mitchell and his thugs; the narrative then concludes with a dual twist – first revealing the identity of the chief spy, who's subsequently deported, but then we're shown that he has made off with a copy of the prized microfilm (which, for what it's worth, involved fabricated evidence to incriminate a specific faction for a proposed coup d'etat to be executed by their rivals!) after all. The bouncy score by DJANGO, KILL!'s Ivan Vandor is notable – as are the stylish end credits (a characteristic element of spy sagas from this era).