Sperhauk lent me his copy of The Assassination Bureau because no one spoke up at FNM night for it and he watched it. When he passed it along to me because I wanted to see it. I had heard of it and was interested. Plus there's Diana Rigg. She stars with Oliver Reed, Telly Savalas and Curt Jürgens in this 1968 British film that was adapted from the unfinished Jack London novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Michael Relph with some additional dialog by Wolf Mankowitz. Relph also produced and Basil Dearden directed. Dearden directed a lot of movies but I don't really recognize any of them as ones I'd seen. Wolf, on the other hand, has written a few movies that I did see, Casino Royale, The Day The Earth Caught Fire and The Two Faces Of Dr Jekyll.
Just before WWI Diana Rigg goes to the head of a London newspaper, Telly Savalas, and tells him of an organization that kills people for money. She wants to expose it. The Assassination Bureau Limited is headed by Oliver Reed. Diana makes contact and offers him a job, kill the head of TABL. Reed accepts, even though it's him, and for his own reasons he tells the regional heads they need to kill him or he will kill them. It's a cat and mouse game across Europe as the members try to kill off Ollie. There's plenty sneaking around, gun shooting, knife throwing and other murder methods. Diana gets hooked up with him and even saves his life. There's a bit of a romance and plenty of nice scenery.
It's a very 1960's film, hints of the psychedelic pop up now and again, and there's plenty of interesting music by Ron Grainer, whom some will remember as the bloke what wrote the Doc's theme. All in all the movie is noisy romp, not too serious, with plenty of running about and silliness. Well worth checking out for the fan of such things. I'd watch it again.
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