Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Junior Bronson This is a serviceable western comedy film. It's the third movie in the Helm series of movies and I remember watching them as a child. I loved the first one but the next two had a pretty big drop off in quality, especially this movie, which is not just third chronologically but third in quality.Dean Martin is funny like always but the movie just seems cheaper. The love interest is very good but the story is by the numbers and just more of the same. Particularly cheap looking are shots with a green screen effect (back in those days they actually just screened a film behind them) which looks just tacky and awful.The gadgets aren't as fun either, it's like they ran out of the good ideas in the first two films. Still it's fun with some great gags and we didn't get bored watching it so I give it a 6. Probably a tad generous.

bkoganbing The Matt Helm series never quite had the class that James Bond did. 007 is still going strong with many actors who now have done the role and it shows no signs of slowing down. But the locker room type humor that typifies the Matt Helm series was definitely wearing thin when The Ambushers came out.Dean Martin is once again intrepid secret agent Matt Helm whose cover as a fashion photographer takes him to Acapulco in search of a satellite that was captured. By of all people, a Mexican beer baron who is considerably more than that. Try and imagine August Busch or Jacob Ruppert in the spy business as well and you have the part Albert Salmi plays.Salmi did vile and disgusting things to pilot Janice Rule upon her capture because, well he's Albert Salmi. She's traumatized and only in the company of Dean Martin with whom she shared some tender moments back in the day will she go back and try to find the thing.Oh by the way, they need Rule because the satellite can't be flown by a man. Something in the atmosphere when the switch is thrown kills all members of the male species. The bad guys don't find this out until too late.Dino walked through this one as did the rest of the cast which looks bored, but also eager because the Matt Helm films did make money back in the day.Well at least we know that the hormonal kinks must have been worked out before July of 1969 when Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins went to the moon

MARIO GAUCI The third of Dean Martin's Matt Helm adventures is generally considered to be the worst of the quartet but, while undeniably the silliest (especially in the film's relentless concession to go-go dancing), it's still never less than enjoyable; I'd say these goofy spy sagas were basically the rough template for the jokey version of James Bond as depicted throughout Roger Moore's tenure in that series! While here we don't get the hero thinking in song per his usual custom (though Hugo Montenegro's lounge score is as infectious as ever), all of the character's other traits are allowed full sway: the constant intake of alcohol, the lethal attraction to women, the dubious gadgets (guns shooting heat rays or causing people to levitate, an inflatable tent complete with comfort accessories, cigars emitting laughing gas, while even the women spies are given the benefit of narcoleptic lipstick and bullet-shooting bra – the latter device has actually reminded me that I've yet to check out the Vincent Price sci-fi comedy DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE [1965]) that I've recently acquired.The two leading ladies themselves are well chosen: Senta Berger (somewhat ill-used, though, as the obligatory duplicitous female – especially since she's eventually disposed off rather too quickly, and not even by Helm!) and Janice Rule (quite delightful as Martin's companion but who also gets to play an important role in the mission); besides, as ever, there's a plethora of other beauties on hand – including Helm's ubiquitous secretary Lovey Kravezit (Beverly Adams yet again). The villains, too, are notable: Albert Salmi and Kurt Kasznar; as for the action scenes, perhaps the most elaborate is the one inside Kasznar's brewery…and, of course, a jab at Martin's fellow Rat Packer Frank Sinatra never goes amiss! For the record, the best line in the film has Berger toasting via the traditional Scandinavian epithet of "Skol", with Martin's instant retort being "Sure it's cold – it's got ice in it!" The plot, for what it is, involves the theft of a flying saucer (though we're never told just what Salmi intends to do with it and, in fact, is later visited by interested parties bidding for possession of it) which, it transpires, can only be flown by a woman – as the atmosphere inside is fatal to the male of the species (huh?). The comic-strip nature of the film extends to the climax – in which Helm chases the runaway saucer (speeding across a railway track with Rule still inside it) on a motorbike (he even goes underwater on top of it and comes up with an alligator seated in the sidecar!) – which, however, is rather marred by the rampant back-projection involved.

Poseidon-3 Third in a series of Matt Helm films starring Martin, this is often noted as being the worst or next to worst. Martin plays a swinging, hot-to-trot parody of James Bond in a film that takes every double entendre and gadget from that series and cranks them up to the nth degree. This time out, Martin must recover a stolen flying saucer with the aid of the female pilot who was stolen with it, then released. Rule (a pretty uncharacteristic choice for a film like this) plays the astronaut/pilot. Martin first attends a camp where he's refreshed in the ways of the spy (and where a battalion of voluptuous babes called The Slaygirls are being trained.) Then he's off to Mexico to track down the ship which is believed to have been nabbed by (the decidedly UN-Hispanic) Salmi. Various complications ensue including run-ins with bumbling second banana Kasznar and drop-dead eye candy Berger. It's pretty clear that the film isn't aiming for greatness, or even seriousness, when the two primary weapons are a bra that shoots bullets and a device that makes men's pants fall down! The latter device is pitifully ridiculous in that it melts belt buckles and somehow that leads to men's buttons, hooks and zippers also failing so that an army of henchman are forced to reach for their dangling trousers rather than catch their man.There's a groovy title song played over credits that display a huge array of bikini-clad, heavily made up beauties that wind up having little or nothing to do with the plot. All of the kicky, funky music is by Hugo Montenegro and it's one of the film's better attributes. The film is only really bad if one is expecting serious spy drama or high brow jokes. The villain's chief gadget is a dopey looking satellite dish that shoots sparks out of it (along with a hand-held version.) It serves its greatest purpose pouring drinks for everyone. The one-liners in this film are of the lowest caliber possible and the ultra-macho point of view will likely be off-putting to some viewers. However, for those eager to see the type of kooky, colorful romps that inspired Mike Myers to create "Austin Powers", this is required viewing. (Check out how Dino's car trunk pops out an inflatable tent complete with bed, nightstand, lamp and metal chairs!) Martin isn't exactly flexing his acting muscles here, but he was playing into his image at the time of a boozy womanizer. Rule is a better actress than this fluff deserves and she doesn't really fit the boobs and hair-type of role, but she does well anyway. Berger is unbelievably luscious. Wearing what have to be the cinema's largest-ever earrings and sporting an impossibly golden tan, hair piled high and an aquamarine lounging gown, she is one of the most underrated beauties on record. She deserved a bigger career in Hollywood than she wound up with. There's a poolside fashion show of ultra-60's Oleg Cassini creations and most of the women wear false eyelashes so heavy they can almost open their eyes. It was a time that can never be repeated, so one should relish films like this as the time capsules they are and rent Oliver Stone movies when they want to be challenged.