Panic in Bangkok (aka Banco à Bangkok pour OSS 117) (1964) – Adequate but forgettable euro-spy outing, with Kerwin Mathews (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)) as the only English-speaking cast member and everyone else dubbed from French. Without the charm through which we see James Bond’s behavior — maybe it’s just the British who can get away with it — the “ladies man” secret agent seems like an insufferable boor, hitting on anything in a skirt. (Also, it’s pitiful to see how the reveal of the mastermind antagonist was telegraphed from about the ten-minute mark — I honestly didn’t realize it was supposed to be a secret.)
Pirates of the Coast (aka I pirati della costa) (1960) – Yet another movie in which the star is the only one speaking English! The star in this one is Lex Barker (most famous for playing Tarzan in five movies, as well as “Old Shatterhand” in the German-made Winnetou Western franchise), and everyone else is speaking Italian. Barker plays a Spanish sea captain, framed for allowing a shipment of gold to fall into pirate hands; he escapes the penal colony ship and becomes a pirate himself to prove his innocence. (Work with me here.) Also starring: The charming smile of Estella Blain, and the Wonderbra-reinforced prow guns of Liana Orfei.
Second Sight (1989) – ’80s sitcom stars John Larroquette and Bronson Pinchot are two-thirds of a psychic detective agency — Larroquette is the detective, Pinchot the psychic. (Stuart Pankin is the other third, a parapsychologist who manages/enables the psychic.) The two stars are obviously professionals (Pinchot especially gets to cut loose with physical humor in full “Vince Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer” mode), but the whole thing feels more like a TV-movie than a theatrical feature. In particular, it feels like the last reel is missing; the “mystery” they’re hired to solve turns out to be a lot more straightforward than I was expecting, and I actually sat through the entire credits to see if there was a pre-Marvel-era cut scene with the final payoff. (There wasn’t.)
Bonus: Because I no longer have to force myself through movies I’m not enjoying simply to write a review, here are a few of the movies I recently abandoned: The Manitou (1977), Ace High (1968), Trog (1970).