The Silencers
Note: Much of the material for the review of The Silencers film was provided by Scott Adams

Like many of the Matt Helm novels, The Silencers is a pretty grim and straight-forward affair with surprisingly little jet-setting, unless you count Juarez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso. And if you've been to Juarez, you'll likely agree that you can go there for a number of reasons, but jet-setting isn't usually one of them. No, one of the things that set Helm apart from his Ian Fleming-inspired contemporaries was that he had a base of operations, that chiefly being the American Southwest. Except for occasional jaunts to and fro, he spent most of his time in America and Mexico and very rarely enjoyed any of the posh digs in which other espionage superstars indulged. His organization couldn't afford it. Their business was killing; not springing for fancy hotel rooms and sleek sports cars. Helm is likely the only secret agent from the 1960s whose preferred means of transportation was a junked-up old pick-up truck with a bunch of dirty camping gear thrown in the back. But if you're stranded in the middle of nowhere, what's going to come in handier: a European sports car with that can shoot out an oil slick, or a high-clearance truck packed with a tent, sleeping bag, and other wilderness essentials? It's the many touches like this that keep Matt Helm from being the James Bond rip-off so many people immediately write him off as if they've never bothered to crack open one of the novels (Bond or Helm). Although they have ruthlessness in common, their two worlds seldom cross.

Although it was the first of the movies, and then only took the title from the book and little else, The Silencers is the fourth in the series of novels, so certain things have already been established in previous stories that would help you understand exactly what is going on. Thus, obviously, it's best to read the books in their proper order and not follow the order of the films which take their names more or less at random. For starters, it's assumed by The Silencers that you know who Matt Helm is, who he works for, and what kind of work he does. You know his character and his past -- as well as characters from his past. References are made to a character from The Wrecking Crew (the second book, fourth and final film), and a character from Death of a Citizen (the first book, title never used for any of the movies though elements of the plot figure prominently into the plot for the film version of The Silencers) figures prominently into the plot of this book. Of course, as with most of these potboilers, even if you don't have the background information, you can figure it out pretty quickly and get up to speed with the bits and pieces of exposition they throw out to you just in case you haven't been along for the whole ride.

The Silencers begins with Matt Helm heading toward El Paso, where he is to retrieve an agent working undercover in a seedy Juarez strip club. Why is it that male operatives always have to go undercover as nerds or journalists or photographers and female operatives always have to go undercover as mistresses, strippers, and prostitutes? Things don't exactly go according to plan, as they rarely do, and before too long, Matt finds himself traveling north toward the small mountain town of Carrizozo, New Mexico, with a mysterious woman he knows hates him and is most likely trying to set him up as he struggles to track down an enemy agent and, along the way, stop the bad guys from hijacking a test missile and redirecting it to blow up a bunch of important scientists and politicians.

Matt Helm stories, at least here at the beginning of the series, were as lean and mean as their central character, with no distractions from the mission at hand. But their straight-forwardness shouldn't be misconstrued as predictability. No, you may be traveling with Helm from point A to point B without much nonsense along the way, but that line still leaves plenty of time for double-crosses and triple-crosses. Naturally, no one is who they seem to be and everyone has a hidden agenda, but just who they are and what that agenda may be is kept hazy by author Donald Hamilton until he's ready to reveal it to you. It makes for a fast-paced, exciting read that, even if it doesn't puzzle you from beginning to end, keeps you glued to each page. Hamilton's thrillers aren't necessarily the kind of detective novels you sit down with and try to figure out before the end. You know more or less where things will wind up, and the adventure isn't so much in the revelation as it is in the violent journey.

Hamilton is a master at spinning a rollicking good yarn, and the strength of the main character is what really propels things. Matt isn't some empty vessel to which things happen. He's complex and tortured, and during the moments where he reflects on how the mission requires him to act like a brute even if he isn't, Hamilton manages to convey the feeling that Helm himself is desperate to convince himself what he's thinking -- and the author does this without having to write things like, "And then I wondered if I wasn't just desperate to convince myself of what I was thinking." Helm's inner monologues work on both a written and implied level, and the subtle psychological wrestling of a man with the need to believe he's not really the monster he so often pretends to be is central to everything Matt Helm does, even if it's never explicitly spelled out.

In keeping with Matt Helm's down-home stomping ground and behavior, most of the villains he faces are equally low-key. Though there are the occasional megalomaniacs with dreams of conquest, most of the time he's just facing off against other assassins, thugs, agents, and flunkies. There are no Nehru jacket-wearing masterminds with sprawling secret lairs beneath the ocean. By contrast, the antagonists in The Silencers are camped out in a freezing cold, dilapidated old church outside a small New Mexico town. Likewise, Helm's allies are rarely slick playboys and captains of industry. They are, instead, cab drivers and grumpy fellow agents. He frequently butts heads with Washington not over the classic "your methods are too extreme" argument -- they pay him to be extreme, after all -- but over the simple and all too real-to-life frustration generated by the fact that there are all these investigative and secret agencies running around and refusing to share information with one another, resulting in lots of on-the-job mishaps and misunderstandings as people on the same side find themselves at odds on the same mission simply because no one told them someone else was out there doing the same thing.

Texas rich girl Gail Springer (aka Gail Hendricks, if she feels like using the last name of her last husband) is the only main female character. Although she's got money, the Matt Helm books love to turn this upside down and, instead of using it as an explanation as to why she can get whatever she wants whenever she wants it, use it instead as a way to explain why she's rather naive about the way a world such as Matt's works. She's spoiled, self-centered, but not an altogether unlikable person considering what she has to endure from both Matt and his enemies. She's sexy of course, and elegant, and yes indeed she'll end up in bed with the hero, but those moments are never dwelled upon. Unlike some of the more lascivious secret agent books that would follow (Nick Carter, I'm looking in your direction), Matt Helm books don't dwell on the sex. It's one of those things where we'll maybe see the woman slip out of her dress and lie down next to Matt, and then we cut to the next chapter and the next morning. Given how sleazy some spy series can get, it's a nice, almost old-fashioned approach. Incidentally, The Silencers is one of the few Matt Helm novels I've read that doesn't contain a little mini-rant about how he likes his women to wear dresses or skirts, not pants, and carry themselves with some feminine dignity.

The Silencers is a brisk read, exciting from the get-go and relentless throughout its slim but action-and-intrigue packed volume. There's plenty of violence, most of it of the hand-to-hand variety with only a few shots fired from a gun. It's not as edgy and bitter as some other novels (specifically Death of a Citizen and Murderers' Row, to name two) in the series in regards to how Matt thinks of himself and his job. He's not a happy guy, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he doesn't rake himself over the coals and stew about how he was dragged back in rather against his will. It's the fourth book, after all, and he figures it's just time to get on with things. Not to say that this book doesn't have a biting edge, especially given today's intelligence environment and the revelation (if you can call it that) that none of our sundry agencies want or are even able to communicate with one another and share vital information that could all make us a lot safer without having to pry into our grocery purchases and library memberships. But political commentary takes a distant back seat to Donald Hamilton's desire to craft a suspenseful, action-packed, and intelligent espionage novel. He's done just that with The Silencers.

As the first movie in the series, The Silencers actually plays it somewhat close to the plot of the book while mixing in elements from Death of a Citizen, albeit with a lot more skirt chasing, drunkenness, and general wackiness. The basics are there, dressed up with a lot of nonsense and changes to ensure that there could be a lot more scantily-clad women, James Bond-type gadgets (Matt Helm's gadget in the novel is a big-ass belt buckle he uses to slice and pummel the crap out of someone), and moments where Dean Martin can make a sex joke followed by a funny face. It doesn't look, at first, as if we're going to be sticking to the plot or spirit of the book. Eventually, pieces of the novel's plot will kick in, but we'll never see that mean, cutting literary mood.

The Silencers opens with four assassins receiving gold bullets with Matt Helm's name inscribed on them. As with a lot of cool touches in so-so movies, these personalized golden bullets are never brought up again. Maybe the agents just keep them as souvenirs, or give them to retired spies at their going-away banquets or something.

Matt Helm has retired from ICE (Intelligence and Counter Espionage), and spends his time lounging around his swank bachelor pad. He's taken a few freelance photo jobs in the interim (Helm's cover in the books was often that of a freelance photographer), and as he hangs out on his circular bed, he dreams of them (accompanied by a Dean Martin song, naturally). When it's time to wake up, the bed moves forward and tilts to gently slide him into the pool/bathtub, where his secretary, Lovey Cravesit (Beverly Adams), is waiting -- along with a Scotch. His boss tries to get him back on the force, but he decides he likes retirement better, as just about anyone would. Needless to say, there's not much of the Matt Helm from the novels on display just yet. The literary Matt Helm has no secretary with a double entendre name, no swank bachelor pad, and isn't nearly so relaxed and freewheelin', though I do believe he imbibes of a distilled spirit from time to time.

It's often commented on that most women in movies today need a good meal and should be a little curvier and sexier a la the women before the age of Twiggy - a la many of the women on display in this movie, as a matter of fact. Well, pick on the women all you want, but the sad fact of the matter is that action movie men need some work as well. Sure, today's action heroes may have abs of steel, but they lack that beefy red meat and Budweiser huskiness that remind you of the guy down the street who could pound your ass if you didn't turn the stereo down. If you asked to see Robert Mitchum or Joe Don Baker's six pack, they'd open the fridge, not lift their shirts. Then they'd probably karate chop you a good one for being a wise guy. If you've ever watched those "World's Strongest Man" competitions, you'll notice that none of the guys lifting cars full of women have sculpted bodies, and neither does Dean Martin as he hangs out shirtless in the first section of the movie. American males! Start eating red meat before it's too late!

Meanwhile, in an underground fortress beneath Santa Fe, agents of Big O (no, they never explain what it means) meet to discuss the latest plan for world domination. Leader Tung Tzo (Victor Buono -- why no, he isn't Chinese) decides to reroute the upcoming White Sands missile tests to Santa Fe, blanketing the Southwestern United States in radiation. The United States will automatically assume it was the Russians and launch a missile strike, and Big O can come out of hiding to take over the decimated world. Sure, it's a little far-fetched, but at least they're using nuclear weapons instead of some asinine super-weapon like a spore gun or a sex ray. The plan is almost complete, but they need to get a computer tape, which I suppose contains the missile launch codes.

This much, in a way, sticks to the plot of the book, except that then it wasn't some secret SPECTRE-like organization; it was the Russians. And it wasn't blanketing the entire Southwest in radiation; it was taking over one missile to blow up a brain trust and strike fear into the hearts of Americans who realized the Russians could remotely steal any of our missiles out of mid-air and redirect them to any target they wanted. And rather than the exotic Tung Tzo, one of the main villains was name Sam. But as far as film adaptations go, it's as close as most of them get, and closer than many of the James Bond movies got. At least it shows someone behind the movie read the book, even if they decided to take the basic premise and turn it into a boozy Dean Martin action-comedy.

Matt Helm comes home in his station wagon (yes, the world's foremost secret agent drives a station wagon - it's not a beat-up truck, but it's close enough) to find a naked woman waiting for him, compliments of his boss. As they start to kiss, Tina, an ICE agent appears and shoots the woman, whom she claims was about to assassinate Helm. Tina (Dahlia Lavi, who was also in the spoof film adaptation of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale) convinces Helm to come out of retirement and track down a defecting American scientist, presumably the one who is about to give the computer tape to Big O.

This set-up is straight out of Death of a Citizen, the first Matt Helm novel. Wel, more or less. In the book, the woman is another agent, and Helm never makes out with her (he is still happily married at this point). Tina was one of Matt's partners in espionage and assassination during the war (the war being World War II), and in Death of a Citizen she returns years later to draw Matt back into the fold on a mission to prevent a top scientist from divulging secrets that could decimate American national security. Although in the book Matt first encounters (and pretends not to recognize) her at a cocktail party, she does indeed show up shortly thereafter at Matt's home (which, in the book, is also populated by his wife and children) with the dead body of another female agent she claims was there to kill Matt. So it's pretty darn close, or as close as you can get with Dean Martin Rat Packin' it up.

Matt and Tina have to run a gauntlet of enemy agents. These are dispatched with a bunch of secret agent karate chops and Matt Helm's knife-shooting camera. The station wagon goes into overdrive or something, and they arrive at a club in time to lounge around the pool and look out for the defecting scientist. Hanging out by the pool, Matt gets a few drinks spilled on him by clumsy redhead Gail Hendricks (Stella Stevens, who romanced Elvis in Girls! Girls! Girls!) who, despite her name, bears little resemblance to the elegant and prideful woman in the novel. Matt is a little annoyed by her, which naturally means that fate isn't quite done with these two yet. She apologizes by saying, "I'm surprised you didn't take umbrage."

"Oh, I take a belt now and then," Matt replies.

That night at the floorshow, Matt and Tina somehow deduce that a dancer named Serita has the tape and will pass it to the defecting scientist during her dance. Before she can pass the tape, however, Serita is shot. A crowd gathers around her, and Matt thinks that she passed the tape to Hendricks (all more or less similar to events as they happen in The Silencers novel). Helm follows her to her room where he is gassed. Somehow his boss gets the tape and figures out something is up in Santa Fe that probably has something to do with the upcoming underground atomic test. Again, we're seeing plot points more or less congruous to those in the book, though the dancer then was a secret agent and Matt was never gassed. But like I said, it's close enough, and given how wildly subsequent films in the series will veer from the content of their namesake, you take what you can get.

Matt's new assignment is to go to Santa Fe and see what the evil organization's plan is, while at the same time ferreting out an ICE double agent working for Big O. He'll have to do it alone, as Tina has been captured by enemy agents and presumed dead. Nobody is sure if Hendricks is an enemy agent or not, so she gets to chose between teaming up with Helm or going to jail. It made more sense in the movie, I think. She reluctantly agrees to assist Helm. Before they take off, Matt gets his new gadgets. This time he gets a gun that shoots backwards and coat buttons that function as hand grenades. Matt and Hendricks drive off for Santa Fe, with Helm fixing a few drinks for the road. It's pretty funny to see the relaxed attitudes towards drinking these movies had. A Scotch on the rocks makes everyone a little more pleasant and witty, unlike most of the drunks you know in real life. Of course, we all know in these more enlightened times that drinking doesn't make you charming, funny or sexy (well, except for the author after a few gin and tonics), but then again, we also know that world domination plots don't really have too much chance of working. Anyway, the couple doesn't get along, even fighting over the radio, which leads into a pretty good Sinatra joke.

Hendricks wants to listen to 'Ol Blue Eyes sing "Come Fly With Me," but Matt tells her to "turn him off, he's terrible." He switches the station and naturally finds "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime."

"Now there's a guy who can sing," he says.

I don't suppose I'm giving too much away by revealing that Matt gets captured, gets a tour of the facility and listens patiently while Tung Tzo goes over the organization's plan for world conquest. If you thought about it hard enough, you also probably figured out that Tina was the double agent, mostly because she was the only other agent with substantial screen time. When she appears and gives the standard "come over to the dark side" sell, she has changed her hairstyle into a bobbed Cruella DeVille 'do. This is a nice touch, and it would make things a lot easier if evil people were so easily recognizable in real life. Actually, in real life, they usually have the words "real estate developer" or "landlord" or "Rosie O'Donnell" in their names somewhere. Naturally, the world lives on, and Matt ends up getting a little secret agent action in the end.

Although Dean Martin was a controversial choice for the role of Matt Helm, once it became clear that this was more of a spoof of James Bond plopped down into a plot from a Matt Helm novel, you get used to it. This isn't the ruthless son-of-a-bitch from the books, but as a swaggering, swank playboy of a secret agent, Dean Martin is perfect for the role. Hey, it may not be the literary Matt Helm, but if you get over that, Dino is a lot of fun. He at least seems to be cognoscente and putting forth some effort, which is more than you can say for his performances by the end of the series. Naturally, if you don't like Dean Martin, you're not going to like the Matt Helm movies too much. Dean pretty much gets to be Dean, and spends a lot of his screen time looking at girls, crooning songs, and drinking. How much you like Dean's drunken shtick is probably about how much you'll enjoy the Helm movies.

Stella Stevens is a devastating beauty, and she would have been perfect for the role of Gail Hendricks as defined in the book. As it turns out, she's not at all bad as Hendricks the nutty, sexy gal either. Once again, despite the name it's a very different character than in the book, but Stella has good comedic chops and fills the role nicely. Daliah Lavi is equally exquisite as the treacherous Tina. She was an old hand at spy films by the time this one rolled around, having starred in a number of European productions like The Return of Dr. Mabuse and Operazione Terzo Uomo before going on to star in the ill-conceived but never-the-less interesting Bond spoof Casino Royale in 1967 and the sequel to the wonderful Elke Sommer-Sylvia Koscina spy film Deadlier than the Male, called Some Girls Do, in 1969. Victor Bouno as Tung Tzo uses his patented "menacing evil fat effeminate guy" role again to good results. There was nothing like him in either Death of a Citizen or The Silencers. Sam Gunther and Dr. Naldi are two more characters common between the book and the movie.

So it bears little resemblance to the atmosphere and mood of the Matt Helm novels, but it's still obvious screenwriter Oscar Saul was familiar with the source material and took a lot of elements from the plots of The Silencers and Death of a Citizen and reassembled them in much the same way peplum films of the 1960s would reassemble classical mythology to fit whatever idea the producers had dreamed up for Hercules, or in the same way a drunk guy who half remembers both novels will tell you what they were about before he passes out or wanders off to get more Scotch. In fact, it's entirely possible initial drafts of the script played things much closer to the mean and ornery Matt Helm of the books since Saul's previous job as screenwriter was on the unforgiving Sam Peckinpah film Major Dundee. It's my guess that the increasing wackiness of the James Bond films coupled with the casting of Dean Martin resulted in a lot of the original script getting tossed in favor of Benny Hill-esque gags and ad-libbing.

Even so, The Silencers is a fun film for fans of the spy genre in all its glorious excesses. It's a spoof, after all, and while Our Man Flint managed to be both a superior spoof and a superior spy film, The Silencers is enjoyable in the same way the crazy gibbering of a drunken uncle at a family function is crazy. Hardcore fans of the Donald Hamilton books will no doubt be as turned off by the portrayal of Matt Helm, as fans were the first time around. But the film was a hit with many others, especially teen and young adult boys who were hungry for the spy crazy and could relate to Martin's antics. Or rather, who wanted to relate to Martin antics.

Labels: Espionage