Wednesday, December 19, 2012

ANÓNIMA DE ASESINOS - Piero Umilani - "Man On The Spying Trapeze" (1966)

                                     
Nothing sez Christmas like a good old-fashioned Euro-Spy flick, so tonight's feature is "Anónima De Asesinos" or auf Englisch, "Man On The Spying Trapeze," interestingly enough, a title that has absolutely nothing to do with the movie at all, but it is a pretty good play on words just the same!

The music in "Man On The Spying Trapeze" was written by the outstanding composer Piero Umilani who passed away back in 2001. Besides having 147 credits for movies and TV, Piero will live forever in the hearts and minds of people everywhere because he was the man who composed the wildly popular ditty "Mah Nà Mah Nà" for the 1968 documentary "Svezia, Inferno E Paradiso" (Sweden: Heaven And Hell). Just in case you think you don't know what I'm talking about, then check out this Muppets video, and you will never wonder again! What a phenomena !!!

"Man On The Spying Trapeze" stars Wayde Preston as super spy Jerry Land, whose own story just might be more interesting than the movie itself! Before he ever spoke a line in a movie or on TV, the 6'4" Wayde played string bass with numerous bands, fought in the Korean War, was a park ranger, a rodeo cowboy and an airline pilot! From 1957 to 1960 he was the star of a popular western TV series called "Colt .45" that ran for 67 episodes, and after this movie was made, he starred in a bunch of spaghetti westerns with titles like "Vivo Per La Tua Morte" (A Long Ride From Hell) and "Dio Perdoni La Mia Pistola" (God Will Forgive My Pistol)!

I love this shot of half Mexican, half Japanese, Noé Murayama as Mr. Wong, a man always on the wong side of the law! Because of his look, Noé was in over 150 movies, almost exclusively as a villain in titles like "Dr. Satán Y La Magia Negra, "Blue Demon Contra Cerebros Infernales," and "Víbora Caliente!" (Hot Snake)

The nightlife in Beirut is swinging to say the least!!

Mr. Wong is still hiding in the shadows, and taking it all in!!

Just like all good spies, Jerry Land is quite the ladies man!!

On the plane flight to Beirut, Jerry Land met this hot rich gal who invites him to her yacht for a party, but when he arrives, he finds out these are the friends she was talking about that she wanted him to meet!

One of those good friends just also happens to be Mr. Wong!!

Mr. Wong also happens to be quite the inventor!! And you thought waterboarding was bad??

To make his escape, Jerry slips into the only clothes available. Unfortunately it was all just a setup, and Mr. Wong and his cronies are all waiting for him when he arrives back at his apartment!!

Jerry is not without some special spy tools like this powder he puts on the floor that can only be seen with some special glasses, so that he can tell if any new intruders are lurking about!

The streets of Beirut are also not safe at all, but Jerry is quite adroit at kicking ass!

Now he's getting blackmailed because he was set up to look like a murderer!!

Ah So, Chop Chop!! Jerry finds out his boss is a two faced conniving lying bastard!!

The military wraps it all up in the end, but it's pretty hard to be very effective when you literally have two left feet!! Mah Nà Mah Nà!!!

3 comments:

  1. Hello, I am Francesco Argento, author of umiliani.com and manager of Liuto Music Publishing. Just to inform the readers that at the end of March 2013 it will be available the OST of Jerry Land (aka Anonoima de Asesinos) in CD for the first time, released by Beat Records.

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  2. Fantastico Argento!! I hope everybody goes out and buys it!!!

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  3. I liked this film, but when I found out it had Kay Fisher, I sort of hoped she'd play some kind of femme fatale (which she didn't). She was so good as a SORT OF mean character in MEANEATER OF HYDRA, I think she would have made a good spy movie villainess.

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