Made originally as a 90-minute TV special on ABC, and sponsored by Xerox, this all-star vehicle closely resembles the 1947 Dick Powell film, TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, although there is no nod to that in the credits. Ian Fleming wrote the story but died before he could do the screenplay,
and there is more than a little Bondsmanship in it. The same director who helmed DR. NO handles the chores here. After the TV showing in April, 1966, several minutes of footage that were too rough for tube viewing were restored in the theatrical version. Boyd is a drug operative for the US
government. He's murdered in the desert wasteland of Iran while attempting an opium buy. Howard and Marshall are sent to solve the crime and to put an end to the criminals who make and sell the opium. They go to the Iranian capital of Teheran, where they meet Dickinson, Boyd's girl friend. Almost
at once she is missing, however, and the trail rapidly gets cold. Marshall and Howard think they have a way to trace the goods. They hijack a cache of opium, outfit it with tracers that can be followed by Geiger counters, and begin to monitor the drug's progress throughout Europe. The Neapolitan
cops find the stuff after the agents have lost it, and the drugs end up in the possession of Roland, apparently a rich ne'er-do-well who lives aboard his yacht in Monaco's harbor. Howard goes to the south of France, gets aboard the yacht during a party, and meets Roland. He is surprised to see
Dickinson there as well. Howard talks to Roland's wife, Hayworth, and learns that she is addicted to drugs. The next day, Howard is found murdered and Marshall must keep on the job alone. Roland is reached on a train heading for Paris and so is Dickinson, who now admits that she is a special agent
for the United Nations. They are almost killed by Roland's minions, then race back to the boat in Monte Carlo to smash the ring.
Along the way, there are several cameos: by Quayle as Roland's yacht captain, Wallach as a retired gangster, Griffith as an Iranian sheikh, Hawkins and Brynner as police officers, Sharif as a UN scientist, Sullivan as an official with the UN, Mastroianni as an Italian police inspector, Berger as a
nightclub singer hooked on drugs, and, for no apparent reason other than marquee value, the then-hot Trini Lopez as himself. Fast-moving (almost too much so) and colorful, the movie was made in Iran, Monaco, Italy, and the Iranian desert. All the actors worked for low wages and even paid some of
their own expenses, in a sincere desire to stop the dope traffic which was then (and still is) killing thousands of people and making billions of dollars. leave a comment
