MARC MATO, AGENTE S077 - Benedetto Ghiglia - "Espionage In Tangiers" (1965)

We love a good Spy flick down here in the depths of depravity known as The Dungeon, and the weirder the better, or as they say in France, C'est quoi ce bordel, or something close to WTF?! Tonight's feature is a pretty good example, and it's called "Marc Mato, Agente S077" or "Espionage In Tangiers!"

You can't have a good Spy flick without a crazy professor and some sort of newly perfected ray gun device! This is professor Grave as played by Alfonso Rojas, a man with a saucepan of Spaghetti westerns under his belt, including this freakin' great title, "Go Kill Everybody and Come Back Alone!"

This go round the professor is a good guy, and it's up the the saviors of freedom to protect his invention from the bad guys on the other side!

Take the Ray Gun, and insert that chunk of a chip, and Wow, what power!! Now you see it, now you don't!

Add one dose of playboy secret agent, and we're ready to roll!! This round, the man of the hour is an Argentinian actor who was born as Héctor González Ferrantino, but acted as Luis Dávila, in the role of Marc Mato, or Mike Murphy Agent S. 077, just depending on how you want to look at it! I never could figure out how these guys knew what name to answer to when it came time for roll call!

Welcome back to the future! Sometimes I feel like I should be writing for "Arts and Architecture" magazine!

Marc/Mike is sent on assignment to Tangiers, and what a small world it is! José Greci as Lea is on the wrong side of the law on the very case he's working on, and is also on the plane too! How is that possible? What an amazing coincidence!! José Greci was born with the first name Giuseppina, and why she changed it to José, I don't know, must be some kind of story there! She doesn't look like any of the José's I know!

After landing, Mike/Marc doesn't even get out of the airport before somebody's got their sights zoned in on him!

Things don't get much better when he reaches his Hotel, seems that room 213 has the welcome wagon out, and Mike/Marc isn't thrilled with the free hors d'oeuvres they're offering!

If nothing else, this movie has some beautiful classic cars in it!

Tangiers is a large city in Morocco, and a couple of miles outside of town there's a place called "The Cave Of Hercules" that is a big tourist attraction because they claim Herc spent a night there before trying one of the 12 labors he had thrown at him by Apollo! This is a quite similiar situation to the 12 or more labors Marc/Mike himself is going to have to endure if he wants to crack this case!

Tangiers has long been a center of spying, smuggling, art, and literature, all thrown into a vast melting pot full of beautiful women, intrique and violence! Mix it all up, and you've got an interesting highball that's got a kick, but goes down smooth!!

Mike/Marc has come up with a new and interesting technique to extract information from not The Penguin, but The Kingpin!

Laser Rays and two way mobile video, these cats were way ahead of their time!! The way out soundtrack was created by Maestro Benedetto Ghiglia of "Pigpen," "The Wildcat," and "Psychout For Murder" fame!

I lost count of the fight scenes in this film, but I will tell you this, I was just getting ready to use the quote from Brother Ray's "Let's Go Get Stoned" about "messing up the man's place", and I wanted to get it correct so I Googled it, and wherever I went, there was a popup that said I was over the millionth visitor, and it shut down my computer, so take my advice and don't search for that! The Curse of Ray Charles lives on!!

Perla Cristal landed the role of the very sinful Madeleine! By the luck of the draw, today is Perla Cristal's 73rd birthday!! Happy birthday Perla!! You probably also remember Perla for her roles in the Dr. Orloff movies, and "The Fury Of The Wolfman!!

Hey Man, turn around, you can't drive like that, you're going to get us into a wreck!!!

Pretty cool dungeon scene replete with pumped in water much to Mike/Marc's chagrin!!

Anybody up for a rollicking game of "Twister?"

Another long chase scene at the end culminates on a beach and a rope ladder that seems to go on forever!

The evil Boss and the girls are feeling pretty smug about their achievements.........

.......Only to be foiled by the professor who now has snapped, and completely lost his mind, and screws up the whole thing!! Fun movie and it's a double feature DVD combined with "Assignment In Rome!" You can't go wrong!!!

THE AVENGERS - "Who's Who???" (1967)

This evening's Saturday Night Special is Season 5, Episode 16 of "The Avengers," and especial it is. I get so tired of trying to find interesting things to watch, and then something like this pops up, and I'm re-invigorated for a week or two, and now I'm going to tell you why!

This episode of "The Avengers" from 1967 was titled "Who's Who???" and boy did they mean it! The title might be the only thing they were serious about. This thing is a cluster from the get-go. and I loved each and every minute of it!

The writers must have been having a real good time when they came up with this sub-title. but it's absolutely true. That's exactly what happens!

'The Villains' in this show are Patricia (Blood Beast from Outer Space) Haines as Lola, and Freddie (Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed) Jones as her significant other Basil, and they both do an exceptional job!

These are the real John Steed and Mrs. Emma Peel. This is the last time you'll see them as themselves for a while!

Arnold (The Revenge of Frankenstein) Diamond is whack job scientist Dr. Krelmar. He's invented this amazing mind-meld machine that is capable of transferring or exchanging the mind of one person with another person. Steed has been captured by the loathsome Lola and Basil, and is about to have his mind exchanged with Basil's.

Let the exchange party begin! Those red and blue dice are Basil's good luck pieces.

Now it's Lola and Mrs. Peel's turn.

Meet the new Avengers, aka Lola and Basil.

Twice during the course of the show, they break for an "Important Announcement."

The announcement is to let any late comers or otherwise confused peoples know that these two people who look like 'The Villains,' are in reality, Steed and Mrs. Peel.

And these two, who look like Mrs. Peel and Steed, are really "The Villains."

Patricia Haines should have won an award for her fantastic portrayal of Mrs. Peel, and I think she might be the only other actress who ever got to play the role besides Diana Rigg.

All her mannerisms are right on the money, and Freddie Jones playing Steed is equally impressive!

But the real fun part is watching 'The Villains" as Steed and Emma, because you get to see Steed and Emma act in ways you've never seen before.

Fans of "The Avengers" all know that these two have an interesting but quite platonic relationship, so to see them getting cozy is just crazy! Drinking Ale and smoking cigars, the Mrs. Peel character starts dancing.

'The Villains' plan is to destroy the whole "Floral Network," one flower at a time. They do get as far as killing Daffodil, Pansy, Bluebell, and a few of the other blossoming agents.

Steed finds out that the head of his new body is a lot smaller than his old one, and his boulder hat no longer fits properly!

The bodies of all the wilted flowers just keep piling up!

It's hilarious to watch Mrs. Peel as a gum chewing ditz!

And then it happens, something you've never seen before in an episode of "The Avengers," John Steed and Emma Peel share a romantic and passionate kiss. Of course it's not them, but it looks like them, so it's just plain good old fashioned weird!

After enough time passes Lola and Basil decide they like themselves better as Steed and Mrs. Peel, than they do as themselves. Life is better, they're better looking, and they have cooler stuff, so they decide to go ahead and finish the job, and rub out the real Steed and Mrs. Peel. That's when their caper goes astray, and they get caught and turned back into themselves again. I'll let you figure out who is in this last shot.