Directed by Jean-Louis Roy • Drama • With Howard Vernon, Serge Gainsbourg • 1967 • 97 minutes
Swiss director Jean-Louis Roy’s long-lost mid-1960s Cold War super-spy thriller is a marvelous and surreal hall of mirrors, part-DR. STRANGELOVE, part-ALPHAVILLE, with sly nods to British TV shows like “THE AVENGERS” and “DOCTOR WHO.” The film stars a Who’s Who of great Sixties character actors starting with the unforgettable Daniel Emilfork (THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, THE DEVIL’S NIGHTMARE) as crazed scientist Herbert Von Krantz, who’s invented a device to sterilize all nuclear weapons. A mad herd of rival spies are desperate to get their hands on the device, including legendary French singer Serge Gainsbourg as the leader of a sect of bald, turtleneck-wearing assassins. Gainsbourg’s deranged jazz-lounge song, “Bye Bye Mr. Spy” – performed by him on a funeral parlor organ, no less – is arguably the film’s high point. “An accomplished spy is at the same time psychologist, artist, funambulist, conjurer,” to quote one of the characters – and the same could be said of Roy’s exotic camera obscura of B&W Cold War paranoia.
“Full of incidental pleasures… a magnetic curio, a fascinating relic of a vanished strain of European cinema.” —The New York Times
Up Next in New York Times Critic’s Pick
-
Francine (w/ Melissa Leo)
Directed by Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky • Drama • With Melissa Leo • 2012 • 74 minutes
After years of incarceration, a quiet, lonely woman, Francine (Academy Award® winner Melissa Leo), is released to start a new life in a small, rural town. But despite opportunities for warmth and conn...
-
My Love Affair With Marriage
Directed by Signe Baumane • Animation • With Dagmara Dominczyk, Matthew Modine • 2022 • 108 minutes
A new award-winning animated feature about a spirited young woman determined to find love in the bewildering world, "My Love Affair With Marriage" follows Zelma on her 23-year quest for perfect lo...
-
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out ...
Directed by Felix Herngren • Drama • With Robert Gustafsson • 2015 • 114 minutes
Powered by the antics of a mischievous centenarian on the run, comic fable The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared abounds with irreverent charm.
After a long and colorful life working in mu...
