The Silencers (film)
Encyclopedia
The Silencers is the title of an American spy film spoof
Spy film
The spy film genre deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy . Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, including works by John Buchan, John Le Carré, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton...

  motion picture produced in 1966 and starring Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...

 as agent Matt Helm
Matt Helm
Matt Helm is a fictional character created by author Donald Hamilton. He is a U.S. government counter-agent—a man whose primary job is to kill or nullify enemy agents—not a spy or secret agent in the ordinary sense of the term as used in spy thrillers.-The character and the series:The...

. It is only loosely based upon the novel The Silencers' by Donald Hamilton
Donald Hamilton
Donald Bengtsson Hamilton was a U.S. writer of novels, short stories, and non-fiction about the outdoors. His novels consist mostly of paperback originals, principally spy fiction but also crime fiction and Westerns such as The Big Country...

, as well as another of Hamilton's Helm novels, Death of a Citizen
Death of a Citizen
Death of a Citizen is a 1960 spy novel by Donald Hamilton, and was the first in a long-running series of books featuring the adventures of assassin Matt Helm...

.


The film was the first of four produced between 1966 and 1969 starring Martin. Whereas Hamilton's books were generally serious spy novels about a former Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 assassin who is recruited to continue killing for an American government agency, the film versions were light-hearted spy romps spoofing the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

 series in the same spirit as Our Man Flint
Our Man Flint
Our Man Flint is a 1966 action film that parodies of James Bond genre. The film was directed by Daniel Mann, written by Hal Fimberg and Ben Starr, and starring James Coburn as master spy Derek Flint...

,
which was released the previous month. The Helm series has been cited as the principal inspirations for the Austin Powers spy comedies of the 1990s and early 2000s.

The Silencers borrows a plot element from the first Helm novel, Death of a Citizen, as it begins with the agent being coaxed out of retirement. Helm's mission is to stop an evil organization called "BIG O" (the Bureau for International Government and Order) from their plan of "Operation Fallout;" diverting an American missile into an underground atomic bomb
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...

 testing site into New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

.

Co-starring with Martin are Stella Stevens
Stella Stevens
Stella Stevens Stella Stevens Stella Stevens (born October 1, 1938 is an American film, television and stage actress, who began her acting career in 1959 and starred in such popular films as The Nutty Professor, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Silencers, The Ballad of Cable Hogue and The...

, Daliah Lavi
Daliah Lavi
Daliah Lavi is an Israeli actress, singer and model.Born in Shavei Zion, British Mandate of Palestine, she studied ballet in Stockholm, Sweden, where she appeared in her first film Hemsöborna...

 and Victor Buono
Victor Buono
Charles Victor Buono was an American actor and comic.-Early life and career:Buono was born in San Diego, California, the son of Myrtle Belle and Victor Francis Buono . His maternal grandmother, Myrtle Glied , was a Vaudeville performer on the Orpheum Circuit...

. Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse was an American actress and dancer.After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s...

 opens the film with a sexy striptease
Striptease
A striptease is an erotic or exotic dance in which the performer gradually undresses, either partly or completely, in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner...

-style dance while lip synching Vikki Carr
Vikki Carr
Vikki Carr is an American singer and humanitarian from El Paso, Texas. She has performed in a variety of music genres, including jazz, pop and country, but has enjoyed her greatest success singing in Spanish.-Career:After taking the stage name 'Vikki Carr', she signed with Liberty Records in 1962...

's vocals of the titular theme song. James Gregory
James Gregory (actor)
James Gregory was an American character actor noted for his deep, gravelly voice and playing brash roles such as McCarthy-like Senator John Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate , the audacious General Ursus in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and loudmouthed Inspector Luger in Barney Miller...

 makes his first appearance as Macdonald, Helm's superior and a recurring character in the series (although Gregory does not play him in all four films).

Plot

Once a photographer by day, spy by night, Matt Helm is now a happily retired secret agent, shooting photos of glamorous models instead of guns and enjoying a close relationship with his assistant, the lovely Lovely Kravezit. But then his old boss, Macdonald, coaxes him back to the agency ICE to thwart a new threat from the villainous organization Big O.

The sinister Tung-Tze is masterminding a diabolical scheme to drop an atomic bomb on New Mexico and possibly instigate a nuclear war in the process. Helm's assignment is to stop him, armed with a wide assortment of useful spy gadgets, plus the assistance of the capable femme fatale Tina and the seemingly incapable Gail Hendricks, a beautiful but bumbling agent.

Along the way, Helm is nearly sidetracked by a mysterious knife-wielding seductress. And he witnesses the murder of a beautiful Big O operative, the sultry striptease artist Sarita.

In the end, Helm prevails, with Gail by his side as he all but single-handedly destroys Tung-Tze's evil enterprise and plot to rule the world.

Production

Director Phil Karlson
Phil Karlson
Phil Karlson was a film director known for his no-nonsense film noirs. Karlson directed 99 River Street, Kansas City Confidential and Hell's Island all with actor John Payne in the early 1950s...

 had the idea to make the film in a tongue in cheek style. Comedy writer Herbert Baker (screenwriter)
Herbert Baker (screenwriter)
Herbert Baker born Herbert Abrahams in New York City 25 December 1920 died 30 June 1983 of cancer in Encino, California was a songwriter and screenwriter for television and films.- Biography :...

 revised Oscar Saul's original script. Dean Martin was a co-producer of the Helm series. Moss Mabry
Moss Mabry
Moss Mabry was a famed Costume designer who lived from . He started off designing costumes for his high school plays, but actually studied mechanical engineering at the University of Florida. He later went to Hollywood to attend art school, eventually signing a contract with Warner Bros....

 provided the costumes except for Martin's Sy Devore suits.

Reception

Released at the height of James Bond mania, The Silencers was a major box office hit in 1966. There were three follow-up films: Murderers' Row
Murderers' Row (film)
Murderers' Row is a 1966 American comedy-spy-fi film starring Dean Martin and very loosely based upon the Matt Helm spy novel Murderers' Row by Donald Hamilton, which was published in 1962....

(also released in 1966), The Ambushers
The Ambushers (film)
The Ambushers is a 1967 spy comedy film filmed in Acapulco starring Dean Martin, Senta Berger and Janice Rule. It is loosely based upon the novel of the same title by Donald Hamilton....

(1967) and The Wrecking Crew
The Wrecking Crew (1969 film)
The Wrecking Crew, released in 1969 and starring Dean Martin, Elke Sommer, and Sharon Tate is the fourth and final film in a series of American comedy-spy-fi theatrical releases featuring Martin as secret agent Matt Helm....

(1969). A fifth film, The Ravagers, was announced but never produced.

Music

Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions...

 provided the score, with Vicki Carr singing the title song and "Santiago." Two soundtrack albums were released; Bernstein's original score on an RCA Victor album that does not feature any artwork of Dean Martin, and a Reprise
Reprise
Reprise is a fundamental device in the history of art. In literature, a reprise consists of the rewriting of another work; in music, a reprise is the repetition or reiteration of the opening material later in a composition as occurs in the recapitulation of sonata form, though—originally in the...

 album by Martin singing several songs that were featured in the film along with some instrumentals by the Mike Leander Orchestra.

A scopitone
Scopitone
Scopitone is a type of jukebox featuring a 16 mm film component. Scopitone films were a forerunner of music videos. The Italian Cinebox/Colorama and Color-Sonics were competing, lesser-known technologies of the time....

 video of the title song was sung by Joi Lansing
Joi Lansing
Joi Lansing was an American model, film and television actress, as well as a nightclub singer. She was most noted for her pin-up photos, and for her minor roles in B-movies...

 . Carr's version of the title song was also used on the soundtrack of the film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a 2002 biographical spy film depicting the life of popular game show host and producer Chuck Barris, who claimed to have also been an assassin for the Central Intelligence Agency...

.

Cast

  • Dean Martin
    Dean Martin
    Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...

     as Matt Helm
  • Stella Stevens
    Stella Stevens
    Stella Stevens Stella Stevens Stella Stevens (born October 1, 1938 is an American film, television and stage actress, who began her acting career in 1959 and starred in such popular films as The Nutty Professor, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Silencers, The Ballad of Cable Hogue and The...

     as Gail Hendricks
  • Victor Buono
    Victor Buono
    Charles Victor Buono was an American actor and comic.-Early life and career:Buono was born in San Diego, California, the son of Myrtle Belle and Victor Francis Buono . His maternal grandmother, Myrtle Glied , was a Vaudeville performer on the Orpheum Circuit...

     as Tung-Tze
  • Daliah Lavi
    Daliah Lavi
    Daliah Lavi is an Israeli actress, singer and model.Born in Shavei Zion, British Mandate of Palestine, she studied ballet in Stockholm, Sweden, where she appeared in her first film Hemsöborna...

     as Tina
  • James Gregory
    James Gregory (actor)
    James Gregory was an American character actor noted for his deep, gravelly voice and playing brash roles such as McCarthy-like Senator John Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate , the audacious General Ursus in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and loudmouthed Inspector Luger in Barney Miller...

     as Macdonald
  • Robert Webber
    Robert Webber
    Robert L. Webber was an American actor who starred as Juror #12 in the 1957 film 12 Angry Men.Webber was born in Santa Ana, California, the son of Alice and Robert Webber, who was a merchant seaman. He was a U.S. Marine during World War II serving on Guam and Okinawa...

     as Sam Gunther
  • Nancy Kovack
    Nancy Kovack
    __forcetoc__Nancy Kovack is a former American actress.-Biography:She attended the University of Michigan at age 15 and graduated by 19. At the age of 20 she had won eight beauty titles....

     as Barbara
  • Arthur O'Connell
    Arthur O'Connell
    Arthur O'Connell was an American stage and film actor. He appeared in films in 1941 and television programs...

     as Wigman
  • Roger C. Carmel
    Roger C. Carmel
    Roger Charles Carmel was an American actor.Of his hundreds of roles, he is best remembered for playing the flamboyant and hapless criminal Harry Mudd on the original Star Trek. Other memorable roles include the accountant Doug Wesley on The Dick Van Dyke Show and Colonel Gumm on Batman...

     as Andreyev
  • Cyd Charisse
    Cyd Charisse
    Cyd Charisse was an American actress and dancer.After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s...

     as Sarita
  • Beverly Adams
    Beverly Adams
    Beverly Adams is a Canadian-born actress and author.-Early life and career:Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Adams moved to Burbank, California as a child. As a teen, she competed in and won beauty contests before becoming an actress. During her career, Adams appeared in various guest roles in television...

    as Lovey Kravezit
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