User Reviews

The third Matt Helm film - and easily the weakest up to this point. Though Maltin's BOMB rating seems a bit harsh - it IS watchable, after all - it's hard not to notice the drop-off in quality from its predecessor, "Murderers' Row". The villains are nobodies, the gadgets are not as cool as before (levitating gun < delayed / reverse firing gun), the climactic vehicular chase has worse rear projection than the Abbott and Costello movies, and the entire enterprise is slow, unexciting and drab. Bright spot: Janice Rule, who is the smartest Matt Helm assistant so far, and also closer to Dean Martin's age than Ann Margret or Stella Stevens, which makes their (professional and romantic) partnership more believable. Senta Berger has an interesting character, in the sense that you are not sure for a long time whose side she is working for, but ultimately she is underused. The movie's two best bits actually come at the very start (the catchy title song), and the very end (a funny Frank Sinatra gag). *1/2 out of 4.

This Helm flick should be ranked slightly lower than THE SILENCERS or MURDERER'S ROW, but definitely better than that final train wreck - THE WRECKING CREW (great babes though). The Ambushers sports Janice Rule (great actress from the 60's - check her out in THE CHASE with Brando) and Senta Berger, a European beauty with exotic looks and voice. Beverly Adams is on hand again as the sweetheart assistant, Lovey Kravezit.

A 4 out of 10. Best performance = Janice Rule. Give this one a chance. It's not THAT bad! Dino is starting to show a lack of energy by the end of it, but the girls hold him up. If you're not a complete spy-spoof snob, this is a perfect way to waste 100 minutes.

The third of Dean Martin's Matt Helm adventures is generally considered to be the worst of the quartet but, while undeniably the silliest (especially in the film's relentless concession to go-go dancing), it's still never less than enjoyable; I'd say these goofy spy sagas were basically the rough template for the jokey version of James Bond as depicted throughout Roger Moore's tenure in that series!

While here we don't get the hero thinking in song per his usual custom (though Hugo Montenegro's lounge score is as infectious as ever), all of the character's other traits are allowed full sway: the constant intake of alcohol, the lethal attraction to women, the dubious gadgets (guns shooting heat rays or causing people to levitate, an inflatable tent complete with comfort accessories, cigars emitting laughing gas, while even the women spies are given the benefit of narcoleptic lipstick and bullet-shooting bra – the latter device has actually reminded me that I've yet to check out the Vincent Price sci-fi comedy DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE [1965]) that I've recently acquired.

The two leading ladies themselves are well chosen: Senta Berger (somewhat ill-used, though, as the obligatory duplicitous female – especially since she's eventually disposed off rather too quickly, and not even by Helm!) and Janice Rule (quite delightful as Martin's companion but who also gets to play an important role in the mission); besides, as ever, there's a plethora of other beauties on hand – including Helm's ubiquitous secretary Lovey Kravezit (Beverly Adams yet again). The villains, too, are notable: Albert Salmi and Kurt Kasznar; as for the action scenes, perhaps the most elaborate is the one inside Kasznar's brewery…and, of course, a jab at Martin's fellow Rat Packer Frank Sinatra never goes amiss! For the record, the best line in the film has Berger toasting via the traditional Scandinavian epithet of "Skol", with Martin's instant retort being "Sure it's cold – it's got ice in it!"

The plot, for what it is, involves the theft of a flying saucer (though we're never told just what Salmi intends to do with it and, in fact, is later visited by interested parties bidding for possession of it) which, it transpires, can only be flown by a woman – as the atmosphere inside is fatal to the male of the species (huh?). The comic-strip nature of the film extends to the climax – in which Helm chases the runaway saucer (speeding across a railway track with Rule still inside it) on a motorbike (he even goes underwater on top of it and comes up with an alligator seated in the sidecar!) – which, however, is rather marred by the rampant back-projection involved.

This film is a funny spoof of the James Bond series. Dean Martin is hilarious as the stereotypical spy with a drink in one hand and a sexy girl in the other. All the people who call this series a rip off of James Bond are missing the point. I especially loved Kurt Kaznar, playing the despicable character he would play so well in his most famous role on Land of the Giants as Alexander Fitzhugh. Also, Janice Rule is more than just window dressing. She plays the femme fetale role to the hilt and she shows a great flair for comedy in this film. The Matt Helm series was intended to be a parody of that series and did a great job of it.

The theme written by Lalo Schifrin for the previous Matt Helm lark 'Murderers Row' was so good it's bizarre it wasn't used for the rest of the series; instead you get a boringly noisy jazz soundtrack by Hugo Montenegro.

Poor Albert Salmi looks constipated as the "sadistic leader" of the usual group of fanatics, while Janice Rule and (particularly) Senta Berger are squandered as a pair of groovy sixties chicks (although it's diverting to see an actress of Rule's calibre, usually associated with far less frivolous stuff, scampering about in a tiny dress and big boots).

The gimmicks this time include the bra that shoots bullets from 'The Tenth Victim', a device that makes goons' trousers fall down, "happy gas", some sort of Ray gun and a flying saucer built and piloted by Earthlings.

Some think this is the worst. I say it is the best. A must see Austin Powers fans. Matt Helm inspired the rotating round bed. This movie had the gun in the bra (Fembots) and the Arab assassin. Co-star Janic Rule was great as a fellow agent. The dialog was like Steed and Miss Peale. Better than the past Helm females that were comic relief. The story was put together well, a bit silly about a flying saucer that only women can operate, but the plot line was solid. Not much filler action or girl scenes. Great location shot and the jazzed Mexican background music fit just right. Good action scene in the beer factory. The lifting machines used to lift kegs may have inspired the fight in the Alien film. A fun film.

I'd like to know more about the people writing negative reviews of a movie like this: how old are they? were they even alive during the 60s? This movie is a product of a different age. It was a simpler time. You could get away with making movies that had this kind of production values, script and, yes - allusions to rape in an action-comedy notwithstanding - moral values (I'm not saying they're high, they're just an indicator of the time).

Do you watch Charlie Chaplin or Laurel & Hardy and complain about the cinematography? You're watching a movie from the 60s guys - it's a time capsule. It can teach you about what life was like then, because at the time the Matt Helm movies were all completely acceptable and even successful.

I dread to think how you lot would handle a 'Carry On' film - yet they were some of the most successful movies ever made in England. You'd probably brand them sexist, vulgar, childish and uninventive though...duh!

This movie is bad even by Matt Helm standards. It's as incomprehensible as the previous movie, "Murderers' Row", but lacks the ambiance of a French locale or the flamboyant villain that saved that one. The action sequences are totally lacking any credibility whatsoever. It's a shame that this one chased away so many movie goers that they decided not to turn out for the splendid (by Matt Helm standards) "The Wrecking Crew", the last and best of the series.

And those who excuse it as "a product of it's time" are the ones missing the point. There were plenty of good spy parodies made in the 1960s (including the first and last Helm movies), this just wasn't one of them. It has nothing to do with "production values" of the era or the period corniness. Just like people understand that most Elvis movies were corny but entertaining, they realize there were a few out and out stinkers. Well this film is a stinker. In fact, it was so bad it was originally listed in the book "The Fifty Worst Films of All-Time" when first published in 1978.

The Matt Helm series of movies featuring Dean Martin are based upon the novels of the same character (loosely), but they are all parody movies. Similar to how "Naked Gun" spoofed many popular themes at the time, these films all poke fun at the spy movies by featuring the outrageousness of the films right in your face. Bond drinks martinis, Helm drinks - a lot. Bond beds a girl or two, Helm beds them all. Bond has fancy gadgets, Helm has them plus his home has them too. Bond has villains with sinister purpose (and sometimes a quirk or two), Helm has villains that are sometimes freaks or simply idiotic. These movies are blatantly obvious as spoofs and their value is that they are interesting to watch at least once or twice.

Nice, entertaining movie -having in mind that this is not a serious film but a James Bond parody full of clichés, male chauvinism, sex object female characters and absurd situations. Still, it is a nice sixties movie full of colour, impossible groovy fashions and happy pop music. The final joke about Sinatra and Martin music is an eye blink to the rat pack films they made together. Dean Martin seems to be having a good time as watchers do. Light entertainment.

The Matt Helm series never quite had the class that James Bond did. 007 is still going strong with many actors who now have done the role and it shows no signs of slowing down. But the locker room type humor that typifies the Matt Helm series was definitely wearing thin when The Ambushers came out.

Dean Martin is once again intrepid secret agent Matt Helm whose cover as a fashion photographer takes him to Acapulco in search of a satellite that was captured. By of all people, a Mexican beer baron who is considerably more than that. Try and imagine August Busch or Jacob Ruppert in the spy business as well and you have the part Albert Salmi plays.

Salmi did vile and disgusting things to pilot Janice Rule upon her capture because, well he's Albert Salmi. She's traumatized and only in the company of Dean Martin with whom she shared some tender moments back in the day will she go back and try to find the thing.

Oh by the way, they need Rule because the satellite can't be flown by a man. Something in the atmosphere when the switch is thrown kills all members of the male species. The bad guys don't find this out until too late.

Dino walked through this one as did the rest of the cast which looks bored, but also eager because the Matt Helm films did make money back in the day.

Well at least we know that the hormonal kinks must have been worked out before July of 1969 when Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins went to the moon

Third in a series of Matt Helm films starring Martin, this is often noted as being the worst or next to worst. Martin plays a swinging, hot-to-trot parody of James Bond in a film that takes every double entendre and gadget from that series and cranks them up to the nth degree. This time out, Martin must recover a stolen flying saucer with the aid of the female pilot who was stolen with it, then released. Rule (a pretty uncharacteristic choice for a film like this) plays the astronaut/pilot. Martin first attends a camp where he's refreshed in the ways of the spy (and where a battalion of voluptuous babes called The Slaygirls are being trained.) Then he's off to Mexico to track down the ship which is believed to have been nabbed by (the decidedly UN-Hispanic) Salmi. Various complications ensue including run-ins with bumbling second banana Kasznar and drop-dead eye candy Berger. It's pretty clear that the film isn't aiming for greatness, or even seriousness, when the two primary weapons are a bra that shoots bullets and a device that makes men's pants fall down! The latter device is pitifully ridiculous in that it melts belt buckles and somehow that leads to men's buttons, hooks and zippers also failing so that an army of henchman are forced to reach for their dangling trousers rather than catch their man.

There's a groovy title song played over credits that display a huge array of bikini-clad, heavily made up beauties that wind up having little or nothing to do with the plot. All of the kicky, funky music is by Hugo Montenegro and it's one of the film's better attributes. The film is only really bad if one is expecting serious spy drama or high brow jokes. The villain's chief gadget is a dopey looking satellite dish that shoots sparks out of it (along with a hand-held version.) It serves its greatest purpose pouring drinks for everyone. The one-liners in this film are of the lowest caliber possible and the ultra-macho point of view will likely be off-putting to some viewers. However, for those eager to see the type of kooky, colorful romps that inspired Mike Myers to create "Austin Powers", this is required viewing. (Check out how Dino's car trunk pops out an inflatable tent complete with bed, nightstand, lamp and metal chairs!) Martin isn't exactly flexing his acting muscles here, but he was playing into his image at the time of a boozy womanizer. Rule is a better actress than this fluff deserves and she doesn't really fit the boobs and hair-type of role, but she does well anyway. Berger is unbelievably luscious. Wearing what have to be the cinema's largest-ever earrings and sporting an impossibly golden tan, hair piled high and an aquamarine lounging gown, she is one of the most underrated beauties on record. She deserved a bigger career in Hollywood than she wound up with. There's a poolside fashion show of ultra-60's Oleg Cassini creations and most of the women wear false eyelashes so heavy they can almost open their eyes. It was a time that can never be repeated, so one should relish films like this as the time capsules they are and rent Oliver Stone movies when they want to be challenged.

Matt Helm is kitsch, outdated and egocentric, but the girls are really gorgeous and hot, this turn the guest stars are fabulous, Kurt Kasznar from "Land of the Giants" had an convincing performance, and Albert Salmi as his Boss, the plot is too weak and has some many flaws, unpretentious the picture becomes a easy and pleasant to watch if you forget those inconsistencies, the sequence on Spaceship is fair enjoyable, funny enough to hold you on the chair since the beginning to the end, Acapulco provides an easy looking on those marvelous spots, Senta Berger and Janice Rule dispensed any additional comments in such beauty, Just enjoyable!!!

Resume:

First watch: 1985 / How many: 3 / Source: Cable TV-DVD / Rating: 6

Two step above Murderer's Row (which I opine is NOT a movie), The Ambushers is not a BAD movie, just mediocre. The opening title, performed by no less than Tommy Boyce And Bobby Hart of Monkees song writing fame, is repleat with titillation and thus belies the content of the film.

The women, unlike The Silencers and The Wrecking Crew are of average appeal. On the other hand, the women, unlike in such crap as the pretentious Flint films, play an active role. Murderer's row aside, the Matt Helm films treat women with far more respect than just about any other spy movie(s). Yes, women are sex objects, but after sex, or an attempt at sex, they become an integral, and often intelligent, part of the action.

The Ambushers is dated and does not wear well. Unlike The Silencers and The Wrecking Crew there are no scenes that are especially clever and even though you don't feel as though many scenes should have been left on the cutting room floor you don't get the impression that the writers stayed up late trying to come up with anything clever.

Dean Martin TRIES to look enthusiastic but the script lacks sharp wit and consistency from scene to scene.

The fight scenes throughout the Helm series are poorly choreographed, but that goes for most spy movies anyway. After all, these guys, including James Bond and Derek Flint, are not REALLY martial artists.

As I state in my review of Murderer's Row, Columbia Pictures does the public a huge favor by packaging garbage (Murderer's Row) with mediocrity (The Ambushers).

If you really must see beautiful, intelligent women coupled with a smart, tight story line, see The Silencers and The Wrecking Crew.

This is a serviceable western comedy film. It's the third movie in the Helm series of movies and I remember watching them as a child. I loved the first one but the next two had a pretty big drop off in quality, especially this movie, which is not just third chronologically but third in quality.

Dean Martin is funny like always but the movie just seems cheaper. The love interest is very good but the story is by the numbers and just more of the same. Particularly cheap looking are shots with a green screen effect (back in those days they actually just screened a film behind them) which looks just tacky and awful.

The gadgets aren't as fun either, it's like they ran out of the good ideas in the first two films. Still it's fun with some great gags and we didn't get bored watching it so I give it a 6. Probably a tad generous.

There are bad movies (ones with poor acting, writing, etc.) and then there are BAD movies (stinkers which haven't one ounce of inspiration). "The Ambushers" falls into that latter category. The third (and worst) Matt Helm spy-yarn, it is offensive, stupid, witless, and--worst of all deadly sins--boring. Matt Helm may be tracking a lost U.S. saucer to the jungles of Mexico, but Dean Martin is fast asleep at the wheel. His attractive co-stars can't even rouse him from his mumbling stupor. This film is truly rank, poor in every conceivable department. It's hard to fathom it, but Martin was once a pretty decent actor, yet everything at this point was slipping: his talent, his looks, his focus, his patience. NO STARS from ****

Well my review will be simple.do you like the cult movies...this is for you.

simple..funny..typicall 60's.

i can see now from where Austin Powers humor is coming from

The first movie in the Matt Helm series, The Silencers, was a decent James Bond spoof, and good fun. This falls short of that mark, seeming to just go through the motions with no fresh ideas.

Avoid this, watch The Silencers instead.

These movies were tongue in cheek spoofs, not 007 movies. They were deliberately written as one liner after one liner. They are Laugh In, 60's hyper hip, jet set, free love, and an Airplane, Austin Powers, type play on spy movies of which there were many back then.

If you seek socially redeeming value outside of humor then move on to something else. If you expect Matrix effects, well.....run like hell. If you want to see an original spoof before they were the rage and made at a rate of 4 or 5 per year for each movie genre...relax and enjoy.

I shall add that the 10 lines of text minimum is ludicrous. Not everyone has to give a play by play and pretend at being a professional critic. Some of us just want to say whether we liked it and if we recommend it.

(1967) The Ambushers ACTION ADVENTURE COMEDY SCIENCE FICTION

The thesis regards ICE (Intelligence Counter Espionage) agent, Matt Helm (Dean Martin) attempting to retrieve a secret flying saucer as he poses as husband and wife, with another ICE agent.

The first time I saw and liked this movie I was like seven or eight years old, but as I got older, and re-watched the movies again it is not as effective as when I saw them as a child. When I was a child the flying saucer made a good impact on me not as much as it used to anymore. They needed to be rebooted with a much higher budget for they used to be the answer to the James Bond movies along with "Our Man Flint".

It's the continuing adventures of superspy Matt Helm (Dean Martin). The government is testing a flying saucer with pilot Sheila Sommars. She is captured evil Jose Ortega. Back at ICE rehabilitation center, Matt runs into a zombie Sheila who is under treatment. He is assigned to recover her memory to find the missing saucer. She has the delusion of being married to him after their last mission together as a honeymooning couple.

This needs to be a fun franchise and Matt needs to have some humanity. It occurs to me that despite the bevy of adoring beauties, he lives an empty life. Sheila actually provides an opportunity for him to care. When he sees her traumatized, he should help out of the goodness of his heart. It shouldn't have to be an assignment. Once he realizes that she thinks that they're married, he can play along to help her and that leads to the evil villain. The sex jokes and go-go dancing are no longer that fun. Unless the franchise decides to go full spoof, the comedy is pretty much done.