The Silencers

The Silencers was the first of four films that Dean Martin made as secret agent Matt Helm. The original novels by Donald Hamilton have a far more serious Helm in them. So if you're not a Dean Martin fan expecting to see Dean Martin as himself, don't bother with the film. But there are certainly plenty of those around to watch Dino become our American James Bond. You have to remember that Bond if he was anything was always a gentleman. Dino as Helm is more like a locker room version of Bond, you wouldn't see Bond in the training room bragging about all his conquests. In between the women and his cover job as a photographer Dino does work for ICE, Intelligence and Counter Espionage. In this film Dean's got his assignment to track down a defecting US scientist who is working with the Goldfinger/Blofeld of this film, Victor Buono. Buono's got his own secret organization which wants to cause international mischief between the superpowers, in this case by diverting a missile to target a spot where an underground atomic test has taken place and to blow it up, unloosing all kinds of radioactivity over the Southwest USA. One thing about the Helm films as well as the Bond films, you will always see plenty of beautiful women. In this case we've got Cyd Charisse, Dalilah Lavi, Stella Stevens, and as Dino's personal secretary Lovey Kravezit, Beverly Adams. Adams gets a lot farther with him than poor lovesick Moneypenny does with James Bond. Stella Stevens is such a klutz we're not sure who she's really helping in this film. It's a nice comic performance, one of Stella's best on screen. With musical opportunities fewer and fewer it's always a pleasure to see Cyd Charisse dance with her voice dubbed by Vikki Carr. The first Helm was the best, sadly they deteriorated in quality as the series continued. The Silencers also has Dino singing some nice parody lyrics to some popular standards that his generation and mine will recognize.

There are just two people I feel sorry for. One is Elmer Bernstein, who allegedly wrote the music. Elmer "The Ten Commandments", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Great Escape", "The Magnificent Seven" Bernstein ... nope, sorry, I don't believe it's really him. The music alone makes the film unendurable. Someone wanders around having pratfall after pratfall; now imagine this accompanied by the most shamelessly schmoozy, ingratiating, nudge-nudge wink-wink ditties ground out over and over again on a Hammond organ, and if the result doesn't seem like torture then you haven't imagined it properly. This score is now on Elmer Bernstein's CV for all time. When he is asked to give an account of himself on Judgement Day, he will have to say, "Due to a technicality, the musical score to 'The Silencers' is in my name." Actually, he will probably instead say, "Any questions about my contribution to 'The Silencers' should be directed to my lawyers." The other person I feel sorry for is Stella Stevens. Maybe this is just because I found her attractive. Or maybe I'm sorry for myself, because I would have loved to see more of her, while the idiots who made this film assumed I'd rather be watching Dean Martin - as if. Stevens plays the Dumb Broad. She is NOT the sex object. The latter would in fact have been a much less demeaning role, and I'll bet she regrets to this day the fact that she turned down something classy like "Sex Kittens in Paraguay" in order to appear here. I don't feel at all sorry for Dean Martin. I'm sure he's to blame somehow. His character comes across as a completely charmless lush with - I feel like a fool for even bringing this point up - obscure motivation. The only things that he displays even the most tepid enthusiasm for are booze and lying around. He reacts to the prospect of nuclear war, AND to Stella Stevens thrusting her breasts invitingly against him, with exactly the same kind of indifferent distaste, and anyone who can do this is dead from the skin inwards. Words fail me. I cannot convey how bad this is: like most very bad things, it requires a great effort of will to get any pleasure even out of contemplating its badness. Do NOT suppose that the very little we get to see of the pretty women who are reluctantly prodded in front of the camera in any way compensates for the ordeal of watching the film.

The Silencers is a 6th grade boy's fantasy fueled by the box of Playboy magazines he found under his father's bed in the year 1965. Dean Martin plays a 50 year old sleepy chick magnet who is constantly pursued by hot supermodel types whose sole purpose in life is to get him in bed. But nothing happens because neither Matt Helm nor the lust filled babes know what to do or how to do it. So they keep trying to seduce each other and never get to second base.

The Silencers was ostensively based on Donald Hamilton's novel featuring government assassin Matt Helm. Perhaps unfortunately, they took little more than the name of the title character and a few other characters from Hamilton's novel. In Hamilton's books Helm was a government assassin (code name: Eric) working for an unnamed government agency, who had a stronger resemblance to Sam Spade or Mike Hammer than James Bond. He was of Scandinavian descent and made a living writing Westerns between his service in WW II as a secret agent and his reactivation as such in the first novel (Death of a Citizen). I can imagine the surprise of fans of the novels when this movie came out! No hard nosed government assassin, Matt Helm in the movie is little more than Dean Martin doing his usual Dean Martin routine! That having been said, I can't help liking the film. True, it's not Hamilton's Matt Helm, but it is a bit of Sixties camp that can be enjoyed on its own merits. The Dean Martin persona seems perfectly fitted for a poor man's "James Bond" and Stella Stevens is simply adorable. Probably my biggest complaint with the movie is the music, which is almost annoying. True, The Silencers is not a classic in the espionage genre (it's not even a classic in Bondian espionage genre), but it is a fun way to waste one's time.

Many dreadful things followed in the profitable wake of the James Bond series. The Matt Helm series was not the worst of these. They were a comic turn on a serious series of spy novels by Donald Hamilton. Now, I love Dean Martin, and Bond spoofs/rip-offs, I even love some of the Matt Helm films (#2, MURDERER'S ROW, and #3, THE AMBUSHERS), but THE SILENCERS is just plain bad. Director Phil Karlson (WALKING TALL) is mostly to blame for the failure of this film. I know this because he also directed THE WRECKING CREW, the last film in the series, and it had all the same problems. He introduces us to our hero, lying naked in bed, having dreams of models in various silly costumes which are narrated by Martin's singing. Meanwhile, Matt Helm's boss, MacDonald (James Gregory) is trying to call him to get him on his mission. This is supposed to be funny, but it's tedious as hell and a bad start for an action-comedy. In the only well shot scene in the movie, we see agents of I.C.E. (the good guys) chasing agents of BIG-O (the bad guys) in cars on a deserted stretch of highway in Arizona. The viewer is introduced to a fairly standard plot involving the threat of the United States being destroyed with its own missiles. Things never pan out quite right in this movie, though. All the action sequences are mishandled and the attempts at romance and comedy are painful. The bad guys, who are supposed to be imposing and exotic, try to defeat Helm with mundane items like police cars and telephones. Meanwhile, Matt Helm gets a gun that can shoot backwards (leading to a bad running gag) and exploding coat buttons. The film's love interest is Stella Stevens, playing a clumsy girl who somehow got caught up with BIG-O without knowing it ("Big *O*? You are sick! S-I-Q-U-E, sick!"). The scenes between her and Dean Martin are all awful stuff that tries to be funny, but just slows the movie down. A very long sequence has the pair driving to San Juan. Helm gets her drunk to get her to talk, and... Well, don't say I didn't warn you. Things do end up building to a Bond-like climax involving BIG-O's underground base of operations and an animated missile. Our villain, the man in the chair, has to be the saddest attempt to make a white man look Oriental in screen history. I'd call it racist, but it's really just pathetic. MURDERER'S ROW had all these bugs worked out and came in a tighter, funnier package thanks to Henry Levin. THE AMBUSHERS, often called the worst in the series, is still bad, but it's a lot easier to watch than this or THE WRECKING CREW. THE SILENCERS simply does everything wrong. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether it wants to be funny or what. Elmer Bernstein wrote a good score for this, so it's even more annoying that Karlson leaves so much of this film silent. If you are stuck watching this for some reason try to either fast forward or fake a heart-attack. If you want a Bond spoof/rip-off that won't make you want to die, see either MURDERER'S ROW or OUR MAN FLINT. THE SILENCERS can only give you pleasure if you burn the tape and get high inhaling the fumes.

I've been reading the comments and I've only seen one of you talk about Nancy Kovack. I remember when I saw this at the age of 10, and I thought, and still do think, that Nancy was just very sexy. True, she wasn't a real blonde, the brown eyes gave it away, but the husky voice, the come hither act, and those gorgeous legs, made this one flick I love to put on late at night. I heard that the DVD has a smaller picture so when we last see our Nancy baby, that we don't get to see her butt. That's a shame, 'cause it was a nice one. Anyway, I liked her so much in this flick. And, it was what made my mind up that a girl in a man's shirt is very sexy.

This is the best Matt Helm film and along with the somewhat more serious Bulldog Drummond film, Deadlier Than The Male, one of the best tongue-in-cheek spy/adventure films ever made. The production is breezy and entertaining, the direction is hilarious (Martin, Stella Stevens) and seductive (Daliah Lavi) and there are quite a few clever bits of strategy played out by all the characters. Matt Helm likes his women but treats them with respect. The women, unlike in the Bond and Flint movies, are not just window dressing; They become integral to the plot. The mixture of clever plot, sharp dialog and self-deprecating humor make this Bond alternative much more enjoyable than the pretentious, boring, self-congratulatory Flint films. Matt Helm wants to have a good time but knows when to get down to business. Universal Pictures packages this film with the enjoyable film The Wrecking Crew. This package deserves to be part of any spy collection.

My favorite part of this "tongue-in-cheek" espionage flick, is when Dean Martin, convinced that Stella Stevens has the micro-film tape on her, completely rips her dress off of her, leaving the sexy Stevens standing there in her bra, gartered-panties, nylons and high-heels. Great scene !! I'm sure it was Stella Stevens who kept the attention of male viewers throughout this silly movie. Sure , there were other attractive women in the movie. But Stevens was tops !! Dean martin, pretty much being himself as opposed to acting, was entertaining to a degree. However, it was Stella Stevens who stole the show. I didn't even consider being annoyed by her "flighty" character. She's just too damn pretty.

This is an amusing film and Stella Stevens is just wonderful. There's a great scene where she has a special pistol that fires backwards, and pretends to give up, and hand over the gun to the enemy guy, who attempts to shoot her, thus shooting himself. And STella is a major babe.

This is a really bad movie. Do not waste any part of your life watching it. It is not so much a Bond spoof as an eighth-grader's prequel of Austin Powers, by way of Las Vegas. If you've ever read any of the Matt Helm books, you'll hate this movie, because it has absolutely nothing in common with the books besides the character's name. This Matt Helm sings. He has a huge collection of impractical and silly gadgets. His dialog is painfully stilted and inappropriate, and he talks too much. If the Dean Martin character were completely removed from the movie, it would be a third-rate period TV action show. With him in it, it's much worse than that. I hope whoever approved the making of this turkey lost his job and never worked in the movie business again.