Turtleneck. Polka dots. Swinging.

 Murderers’ Row, second of the lame Matt Helm quartet with turtleneck-bedecked Dean Martin schlocking it up by cashing in on Bond & Flint territory. Plot?  Bad guys want to blow up something big—a continent this time—with some kind of ‘ray’, and agent Helm must stop them.  Can he?  Can you stop yourself from watching?  Wasting themselves are Karl Malden, Ann-Margret, Camilla Sparv (the Swedish looker was a hot international item for maybe four years), James Gregory and Tom Reese.

Directed by Henri Levin, this 1966 turkey made a lot of money, some from kids like me, who hoped it would be as sexy and fun as The Silencers. Even at eleven I knew this sucked: today, enduring more than five minutes of its one hundred and five is enough to make you want to take up smoking. A couple of those minutes are covered by the movies best attribute, Lalo Schifrin’s jazzy title theme. Helm #2 slurped into spot #20, grossing $15,900,000.

Sparv’d for attention. Hey, those are kind of jokes you get with Matt Helm.