TRUNK TO CAIRO (1966) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Randy (right) and Richard way down on Level 31 hosting The Texas 27 Film Vault

Balladeer’s Blog continues its marking of the FORTIETH year anniversary of the sadly neglected cult program The Texas 27 Film Vault. Thanks to my endless research through VERY old newspapers and other sources here’s a look at the very first bad movie offered up and mocked by Randy and Richard, our machine-gun wielding Film Vault Technicians First Class (EO6).

ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE: Saturday February 9th, 1985 from 10:30pm to 1:00am. Broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma.

SERIAL: There was no serial due to the length of the movie plus the Host Segments with Randy and Richard.

MOVIE: Trunk to Cairo (1966). If the only bad movie show you know is MST3K think of:  Operation Double 007, Danger: Death Ray and Secret Agent Superdragon. 

Audie Murphy, America’s most decorated soldier of World War Two, was okay in westerns or military films but he is laughable as a pseudo-suave James Bond wannabe in this flick. For starters his voice is so mild and his mannerisms so meek that he comes across like Ned Flanders: Licensed to Kill!

Menahem Golan (as in Golan-Globus Productions) directed and produced this flick that was distributed stateside by American International Pictures, so this was a royal wedding of sorts in terms of psychotronic cinema. 

Murphy plays Mike Merrick, a CIA agent who is assigned to work with Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad in order to infiltrate an Egyptian base. A Nazi war criminal scientist played by the very British George Sanders is working with the Egyptians to build rockets capable of wiping out Israel, Europe and the United States. Marianne Koch portrays Helga Schlieben, the scientist’s (Sanders) daughter.

So we have a CIA agent with a Texas accent masquerading periodically as both an Egyptian & a German even though he speaks neither language. GREAT personnel choice by the Agency! 

We also have the aforementioned veddy, veddy British Sanders turning in a comic opera-level rendition of a strutting German. Throw in various Israelis portraying Egyptians and enjoy! Hans von Brosody actually seems out of place as a German playing a German. Must have been some kind of screwup at Central Casting.

This baby also features HILARIOUS day-for-night shooting, a terrorist attack on sunbathers and supposedly Italian submarines with Hebrew signage on their instrument panels (Oy vey!). 

The final minutes of this enjoyably awful movie take the viewer from Cairo to Rome, partway back to Cairo and then back to Rome in a thoroughly ridiculous sequence of unlikely events meant to highlight Mike Merrick as an American James Bond. Even the humorless Roger Moore would be able to see how absurd Merrick’s superspy antics are.

Audie Murphy and the other actors try to play it all as seriously as if they’re on Masterpiece Theater and completely fail to capture the light-hearted thrills of the 007 films. Unfortunately, the script’s periodic attempts at intentional humor are so bad they could be used to induce vomiting if you accidentally swallow something poisonous.

Soon Balladeer’s Blog will present another moment from the history of The Texas 27 Film Vault‘s Film Vault Corps – “the few … the proud … the sarcastic”. Be here to support their mission to “protect America’s schlock culture heritage.”

FOR ADDITIONAL INFO ON THIS SHOW – https://glitternight.com/texas-27-film-vault/

© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.