This Spanish toy catalogue from 1968 had a page of spy and detective toy guns.
Matt Helm was not on my radar as a kid in the Sixties at all. In face I don't think I'd heard of him until I started collecting old paperback novels in the 90's. I recall one called The Silencers maybe.
Matt Helm was big enough in Spain in '68 to have his own toy weapons set with silencer and all. is this a re-issue of an American set?
Did you have any Matt Helm toys or collectables?
In the movies, Dean Martin was Matt Helm.
ReplyDeleteThe King of Cool no less!
DeleteI recall seeing at least some of the Matt Helm movies on TV, with Dean Martin in the title role. They were James Bond type films, with plenty of lovely ladies. There were four movies made, with a fifth planned but never made.
ReplyDeleteThe Silencers - 1966
Murder's Row - 1966
The Ambushers - 1967
The Wrecking Crew - 1969
There was a flying saucer in The Ambushers, and I know I saw that one.
There was also a 1970s TV series, in which Helm was a private eye. This starred Tony Franciosa, 1975-76.
That's quite a run of films Paul. They must have been popular. Dean Martin will have been a big attraction with the whole Rat Pack thing going on. I never knew about the series. I guess by the mid-Seventies the spy craze had gone cold.
DeleteI remember seeing at least one of the Matt Helm movies at the cinema as a kid. I remember being most worried that he and "the girl" went to sleep in his car with the door open and the light on. I was so worried he'd wake up with a flat battery!
ReplyDeleteha ha! that's sweet Looey! I caught a bit of a Matt Helm film recently as part of a documentray about Dean Martin. I suppose they were after an American James Bond type movie to cash in on the spy craze. Deano's easy manner went well with the role.
DeleteI'm sure my older Brother had the same long silencered toy pistol as the one in the Matt Helm set here. It was called the Golden Sniper I think and may have been mail order from Ellisdons of Liverpool.
ReplyDeleteI can't find anything on Google, but i had a Lone Star golden Luger with attachable shoulder butt, scope and silencer. I wonder if that was what your brother had?
DeleteOops. Correction, the title of the second film is Murderers' Row.
ReplyDeleteI've seen most of the Matt Helm movies and they're really a parody of the Spy Genre, than actually fitting in the Spy Genre.
ReplyDeleteHere's the opening credits from "The Ambushers" to give you a taste of what they were like:
https://youtu.be/9MXobZJpFIk
Thanks Scott. I guess for a genre to be parodied it must have reached a certain level of success so in a way its a compliment! I wonder if Deano ever met Sean Connery?
DeleteWith great reluctance and embarrassment, I must confess that I loved the MATT HELM movies as a teenager.
ReplyDeleteI first encountered them in the early 1970s, when they aired on Yorkshire TV (here in the UK), late on a Friday evening -- one a week, in order.
Now...
I really think they are dreadful, for all manner of reasons.
In the mid-1970s, prompted by my love of the films, I did buy a handful of the paperbacks -- which were issued in quite elegant editions by Coronet -- and found them a strange read... They bore no resemblance to their big screen incarnations. They are not comedies. Helm is not a stereotypical secret agent -- but a conscienceless, psychotic assassin working for the U.S. Government. I did read that the author of the books -- Donald Hamilton -- was very unhappy with what Columbia did with his work. Having read the books, I was not surprised...
At some point during the end titles of the fourth film (THE WRECKING CREW), a fifth title is announced -- THE RAVAGERS -- but it was never made.
I read in a contemporary film magazine that the reason for this was that Dean Martin -- who was fifty years old when he made THE WRECKING CREW -- felt that he was too old to continue with the series. More recently, it has been claimed that he stepped back from the role because he was distressed by the murder of Sharon Tate, who co-starred in THE WRECKING CREW.
On final interesting point about the MATT HELM films...
On eBay about fifteen years ago, someone offered for sale a complete set of the original blueprints for the flying saucer from THE AMBUSHERS -- the whole thing, including not just the fuselage (if that's the word) but containing details of the structure of the landing legs... the whole thing.
Just think...
You could have rebuilt it.
That would have been something to have in your back garden...
Dal.
Great memories Dal. When it comes to Matt Helm you must know more than most, having read the books and seen the films! I always enjoy reading books than have been turned into films to see what has changed. I must look in my Spy Toys book to see what other merchandise came out of the Matt Helm franchise. Could there be a figure?
DeleteHi, Woodsy.
DeleteI hope all is well...
I meant to touch on tie-in merchandise in my post and forgot...
In the 1970s, when I was deeply enamoured of the films, I did poke around at various Movie Memorabilia sales, to see if any related material existed -- and found there was very little -- even though the films were very successful.
Bizarrely, there were TWO albums released for the first film -- THE SILENCERS.
One was "Dean Martin sings songs from THE SILENCERS" (!) -- which apparently featured the Dean Martin songs used in the film -- I did not buy this -- the other was of Elmer Bernstein's incidental score.
There was also a commercial release of Lalo Schifrin's music for the second film, MURDERER'S ROW...
These were released in several countries...
As far as I am aware, there weren't any singles or albums released of the music for the other two films: THE AMBUSHERS and THE WRECKING CREW -- neither of the incidental scores by Hugo Montenegro or the opening title songs by Tommy Boyce and Booby Hart for the former or Mack David and Frank DeVol's, "House of Seven Joys" from the latter.
I could be completely wrong about that, though, because -- your kind words aside -- I am no expert!
:-)
It's a shame, too, because Montenegro's score for THE WRECKING CREW is superb.
There were the usual paperback tie-in editions of the original novels -- which I used to have, but no longer do. If I remember rightly, one of them was very odd, because the only movie-related material was a single photo on the reverse; the front of the book was the standard, non-movie cover. I can't recall which one this was for...
There were, however, three gobsmackingly politically inappropriate items: pin-up style calendars for the last three films, featuring photos of the female cast members -- including the "Slaygirls" (the actresses cast as Helm's photographic models) -- for 1967 (MURDERER'S ROW), 1968 (THE AMBUSHERS) and 1969 (THE WRECKING CREW).
These go for hundreds of dollars these days.
The justification for this was that Helm's "cover" in the films was that of a "girlie" magazine photographer.
In the books, if I remember rightly, he was a photo-journalist -- which (I think) illustrates the difference in intent between the character Donald Hamilton created, and his silver-screen counterpart.
The fact this toy gun has turned up, however, does make you wonder what else may be out there...
Hoping this is of interest, and that it finds everyone in good health and good spirits,
Dal.