SEBASTIAN (1968)

Larky Cold War espionager (home office division), not quite a spoof, but certainly not serious, earns points for late-‘60s ‘Mod’ trimmings, an all-gal encryption decoding center (run by Dirk Bogarde - he's Sebastian), D.P. Gerry Fischer’s unfoggy London Town in primary colors, and for Jerry Goldsmith’s ‘Swingle Singers’ stylings on the soundtrack.  But debits for a motorless narrative that doesn’t set up a big Cold War crisis for its decoding staff to tackle till the third act.  (A young Donald Sutherland shows up briefly to explain it all.)  Pretty good fun all the same as Bogarde runs around town (literally) hunting up savvy puzzle-solving ‘birds’ to replace departing staffers.  That’s how he crashes (again, literally) into Susannah York (whom he’ll also bed) while fighting off MI6 bureaucrats worried about inside ‘Lefties’ leaking State secrets.  (Like longtime aide Lilli Palmer.)  Not a bad cast there, plus John Gielgud as their boss and Michael Powell (yes, the Michael Powell) one of the producers, but not directing.  Instead, we get journeyman tv megger David Greene in a rare feature outing.  Who wants genius when you can settle for competence?

DOUBLE-BILL:  Near spoofs of the spy racket are tricky to pull off, asking to be laughed with and taken seriously enough to generate real emotion & suspense.  Typical examples from the two years immediately before this are James Coburn’s OUR MAN FLINT/’66 and IN LIKE FLINT/’67.  Both now looking pretty lame with half the cast all but winking at the camera to signal intent.