Can You Break a Cheery Spy?

The Liquidator. Overproduction is the No. 1 problem of the James Bondustry. In 1966, moviegoers have been offered no less than 22 examples of secret-agentertainment. The Liquidator, like Our Man Flint, attempts to make money on the formula by making fun of it. This time, unfortunately, the fun is less noticeable than the formula.

The focus of the fun is a hero (Rod Taylor) who is trained to be an 007 but turns out to be an 0. Assigned by The Chief (Trevor Howard) to assassinate an enemy agent, Taylor discovers that he is just too nice a guy to do such dirty work. So he hires a thug to plug his victims, and starts chasing his favorite redhead (Jill St. John) around a pad that looks like the 9th Regiment Armory lined with orange velvet. The Bondoggle ends, however, when the redhead comes up with an angle as well as a wiggle, and from there out the show is a straightforward shoot-em-up.

Best gag: the audience is permitted to inspect a top-secret cable just long enough to glimpse the code words QWERT YUIOP--the top line on the typewriter. Best performance: Actor Taylor's. He plays a rather subtly caricatured Sean Corny who looks so much like the man who plays Bond that he even seems to be wearing the same Charles of the Ritz chest wig.

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