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DICK MALLOY

agent_077_mv_fromtheOrient agent_077_mv_ladychaplin agent_077_mv_tiffany agent_077_mv_bloodymary
 
Full Name: Dick Malloy
Codename: Agent 077
Nationality: American
Organization: CIA
Occupation Agent

Creator: Sergio Grieco
Time Span: 1965 - 1967

ABOUT THE SERIES

Dick Malloy, Agent 077, is an agent with the CIA.

We first meet him when he is engaged in "wrestling training' with a lovely negligee-clad young woman in his apartment. He receives a phone call ordering him back to HQ for his next mission and being the dedicated operative that he is, he throws on his clothes, kisses her goodbye passionately heads to work. After being given the details of his latest assignment from his Director, Malloy has the decency to comment about his having to "interrupt something" to which his understanding boss assures him that his secretary, Miss Perry, "will send her roses, and excuses, just as usual".

Malloy is a man in excellent physical shape, tall (likely around 6'2") and very slender with dark blond hair worn stylishly over the ears but still trimmed. He is clean-shaven which makes his ready smile so much more apparent and seductive. When outdoors, Malloy is prone to dress in a very stylish knee-length white trenchcoat buckled snuggly around his waist, his head topped with a fedora. Except at night when heading out for a rendezvous at a public watering hole where you will find him dressed in a tux with an expensive caped overcoat [mind you, when he flew into the city for this meeting, he carried a rather small suitcase raising an interesting question].

To show this operative is as particular about his alcoholic intake, at a nightclub he asked for "two whiskeys, each one double, in one glass". Much as he does enjoy his libations, which does include champagne with his lady friends, his primary interest outside of work are those aforementioned beauties - they are always quite gorgeous and definitely sensuous - and he is not content to have just one per mission, the more the merrier. Once when a female associate with whom Malloy obviously had had close contact before chides him that he usually has only one thing on his mind, he smiles and agrees that "it's the basis of my life". Caution should be taken on their parts, though, as a good percentage of them end up not living though not necessarily by his roving hands.

What self-respecting 60s operative would be without his share of nifty gadgets; Malloy definitely has his although none seem especially noteworthy. He has what looked to me like a revolver which was said to have one more round in the magazine than that normal 7 (so maybe no a six-shooter. Most interesting of the gadgets in play during these adventures, though, was used by a particularly deadly femme fatale for the other side when she pretends to be a stranded motorist needing assistance on a rainy night and when an unsuspecting military officer offers to look at the engine for her, she reveals that the flashlight she had been holding also has a retractable knife in it, demonstrating that good deeds often get punished. This woman will find later on that showing the least amount of interest in Malloy will bring out the murderous nature of her comrades.

MOVIES

Number of Movies:3
First Appearance:1965
Last Appearance:1967

With the exceptional success of the James Bond movie franchise, not to mention the phenomenal interest in television's The Man From U.N.C.L.E, it was not surprising that the European movie industry would leap into the market with its own stream of similar fare. These would historically be known for their B-movie nature as quantity definitely ruled of quality. Make 'em quick and easy, get them out there to earn a few lira or peseta or drachma or franc before being shunted aside for the next guy's version. [By the way, if this sounds a bit derogatory, well, okay, but I was back in the late 80's an obsessed action adventure video hound and watch so very many of these over the years so when thinking back on them, I tend to smile, not scowl.]

Collectively these movies are known today as Eurospy films and they were not uncommonly put together by a coalition of small studios from different nations, said product then dubbed into the various languages of the nations where the movies would be marketed. In the case of this trio of movies about Dick Malloy, the ad hoc company was an Italian/French/Spanish mixture.

To make sure the films would also find a home in the States, back then usually as part of a double-bill at the ubiquitous drive-in's, it was not uncommon to hire a good looking American actor to play the lead. Some would find considerable success - think Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti western series about The Man With No Name - but most would not.

One of those that did alright at best is this Malloy series with the ruggedly handsome Ken Clark playing the ruggedly handsome Dick Malloy. He had been doing so-so in the nascent television market when the lure of starring roles in Eurospy movies was offered and he made the best of it.


1 Mission Bloody Mary Mission Bloody Mary
aka Operation Lotus Blue
Director: Sergio Grieco
Writers: Sandro Continenza, Marcello Coscia, Leonardo Martin
Actors: Ken Clark as Dick Malloy, Helga Line as Dr. Elsa Freeman, Philippe Hersent as CIA Chief, Erika Blanc as Miss Perry
Released: 1965

"Mission Bloody Mary is the search and destroy mission to retrieve a Nuclear Bomb from a radical crime syndicate called the Black Lily."

2 From The Orient With Fury From The Orient With Fury
aka Fury On The Bosphorus
Director: Sergio Grieco
Writers: Sandro Continenza, Arpad DeRiso, Leonardo Martin, Giovanni Scolaro
Actors: Ken Clark as Dick Malloy, Margaret Lee as Evelyn Stone, Philippe Hersent as CIA Chief, Fabienne Dali as Simone Coblence
Released: 1965

"A scientist who has invented a weapon capable of disintegrating solid matter is kidnapped by a criminal gang, which intends to sell the scientist and his weapon to the highest bidder. A secret agent and the scientist's daughter set out to track down the kidnappers and rescue the scientist."

3 Special Mission Lady Chaplin Special Mission Lady Chaplin
Directors: Sergio Grieco, Alberto De Martino
Writers: Sandro Continenza, Arpad DeRiso, Leonardo Martin, Giovanni Scolaro
Actors: Ken Clark as Dick Malloy, Daniela Bianchi as Lady Arabella Chaplin, Philippe Hersent as CIA Chief, Helga Line as Hilde
Released: 1966

"Lady Chaplin is a beautiful woman, she is a fashion stylist and she owns an atelier in Paris. Zoltan is a rich American specialized in submarine researches. Dick Malloy is an American secret agent. What have the three in common? Perhaps a sunk American atomic submarine with sixteen missiles still on board? And why every other scene one, two, ten or more men are trying to kill Malloy in every conceivable way?"

4 Tiffany Memorandum Tiffany Memorandum
Director: Sergio Grieco
Writers: Sandro Continenza, Roberto Gianviti
Actors: Ken Clark as Dick Hallam, Irina Demick as Sylvie Meynard, Loredana Nusciak as The Shadow
Released: 1967

Note: This movie is NOT part of the Dick Malloy trio of Eurospy movies. However, since the same actor, Ken Clark, plays a man who looks like (duh!) and acts like Malloy and gets involved in the same sort of shenanigans and uses what seems to be the same handgun, not to mention the film is written by the same screenwriter as the Malloy movies and directed by the same man as them, well, it is easy to see why this one is often lumped in with the others. Oh, did I forget to mention that both heroes had the first name of Dick?
"Dick Hallan, a journalist for the Herald-Tribune gets mixed up in international politics through a series of incredible coincidences and is finally coerced by the CIA (not really) to follow the intrigue to its unremarkable end."

MY COMMENTS

If you sit down to watch any of these three (or four) Dick Malloy adventure films, be prepared for a lot of fighting. I mean a bunch of it. Sometimes it will be with gunfire and sometimes it will be hand-to-hand but whichever it is, the next bout will be coming just around the next corner. Before that, there will be short encounters with a beautiful woman, of course. Love a lady, fight a goon, rinse and repeat.

That might sound pejorative but since that is what one should expect from a Eurospy film, this series provides what it was asked to do. And it does so with Malloy always have that charming sideways grin.

GRADE

My Grade: C+

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