Licensed to Kill (1965 film)

Licensed to Kill The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World
original British film poster
Directed by	Lindsay Shonteff
Produced by	James Ward Alistair Films
Written by	Lindsay Shonteff Howard Griffiths
Starring	Tom Adams Karel Stepanek Veronica Hurst Peter Bull John Arnatt
Music by	Herbert Chappell
Cinematography	Terry Maher
Distributed by	Embassy Pictures
Release date(s)	July,1965 17 November 1965
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Licensed to Kill is a 1965 superspy imitation James Bond film starring Tom Adams as British secret agent Charles Vine. It was directed and co-written by Lindsay Shonteff. Producer Joseph E. Levine picked it up for American and worldwide distribution and reedited it under the title The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World.^[1]

Plot

Facing numerous assassination attempts, a Swedish scientist who has invented an anti-gravity device and his daughter seek to provide the invention to the United Kingdom. With James Bond unavailable, H.M. Government provides Agent Charles Vine, a former mathematician, as a bodyguard and exterminator.

Cast

• Tom Adams as Charles Vine
• Karel Stepanek as Henrik Jacobsen
• Peter Bull as Masterman
• John Arnatt as Rockwell
• Francis de Wolff as Walter Pickering
• Felix Felton as Tetchkinov
• Veronica Hurst as Julia Lindberg
• Judy Huxtable as Computer Center Girl
• Carol Blake as Crossword Puzzle Girl
• Claire Gordon as Hospital Doctor
• George Pastell as Russian Commissar

Aspects of production

After making two films in the horror genre, director Shonteff made an entertaining low budget James Bond exploitation film. Tom Adams' saturnine Charles Vine, like Bond has a licence to kill and is also accompanied by his own electric guitar theme music. Vine is a well dressed cool womaniser and a cold blooded killer who makes quips after performing both functions. However, Vine displays his humanitarian side by placing a suppressor on his pistol when shooting in front of a Hospital Quiet Zone.

As opposed to the big budget Bond adventures, Vine never strays far from London. There are no explosions or elaborate special effects, no large and futuristic sets, and the science fictional McGuffin is talked about but never seen. The films low budget works for it with Vine's version of M, Rockwell (Arnatt) having to keep warm with an electric heater and lamenting that H.M Government spends more on toilet paper rolls to troops than his entire department. Shonteff and Griffiths uses the subtlety and wit of the early Bond films rather than the cartoonish excesses of the later ones to tell the tale. The film also features a first rate cast with the satirical Adams as Vine who is "first in his class in weapons and unarmed combat and took a first at Oxford in Maths", John Arnatt as the patient but slightly insulting Rockwell and the delightful Peter Bull as the enemy mastermind Masterman.

Shonteff provides witty setpieces of the Bond films like a car chase, assassination attempts from a transvestite named She He (Thunderball), an evil twin (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'s The Spy with My Face), a master assassin named Sadistikov as well as a helicopter attack (both from From Russia With Love). Vine handles them all with his Mauser C96 broomhandle pistol that he wears in a behind the back holster that Vine admits copying from a "detective on television" (Tightrope). Unlike other superspy films, Shonteff's film makes two cheeky references to Bond as an actual fellow agent.^{[citation needed]}

Based on the success of the film, Columbia Pictures offered director Shonteff a five picture contract, but they disagreed over conditions^[2]

Welsh Trinity College Oxford graduate and former RAF Intelligence Howard Griffiths ^[3] emigrated to Australia where he wrote extensively for Australian television series such as the spy series Hunter (1967), and police shows Division 4, Homicide, and Blue Heelers.^[4]

The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World

Original US film poster

Joseph E. Levine had great financial success after cheaply purchasing an Italian film called Hercules and releasing it in America with a massive publicity campaign, and decided to do the same with Licensed to Kill. However, the American release reedited the film by having the opening assassination performed by a Mum pulling a Sten gun out of her pram of twins changing to a pre-credit scene. Levine engaged songwriters Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen to write a title song performed by Sammy Davis Jr and arranged and conducted by Claus Ogerman over the credits with the new title. The American release then eliminated scenes of Francis de Wolff talking to John Arnatt about seeking Bond for the assignment, and Vine in bed with a girl and a crossword puzzle giving double entendre clues. The American release also eliminates much of the dialogue about the anti gravity device, called "Regrav" that makes the denouement of the film less comprehensible.

The American publicity for the film echoed the 'Number 2, but tries harder' advertising of the Avis Rent a Car System prevalent at the time. Levine launched a November 1965 nationwide 100 word essay contest to be titled "the most unforgettable second best secret agent I have known".^[5]

Sequels

What Eon Productions reaction was to the blatant imitation is not known, but Shonteff was missing from the two Vine sequels starring Tom Adams-

• Where the Bullets Fly (1966) (directed by Warwick Films and Hammer Films director John Gilling) that was also released by Embassy Films
• Somebody's Stolen Our Russian Spy/O.K. Yevtushenko (1967) a Spanish made film that languished in a film laboratory until 1976.^[6]

Shonteff later made three films with the hero named "Charles Bind"

• Number One of the Secret Service (1977) starring Nicky Henson
• Licensed to Love and Kill (1979) starring Gareth Hunt
• Number One Gun (1980) starring Michael Howe

References

1. ^ Blake, Matt & Deal, David The Eurospy Guide Luminary Press 2004
2. ^ Bryce, Allan Nickels and Dimes and No Time. The Ups and Downs of Lindsay Shonteff featured in Jaworzyn, S Shock Xpress" The Essential Guide to Exploitation Cinema Titan 1994
3. ^ The Australian Obituary 16 Nov 1999
4. ^ Howard Griffiths
5. ^ ISSUU.com
6. ^ Giffard, Denis, editor The British Film Catalogue 1895-1994, British Film Institute

External links

• Licensed to Kill on IMDb
• The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World - AOL Video (American trailer)