John Seal
Alberto Baldan Bembo's propulsive score drives this minor West German-Italian-Spanish-Iranian co-production, which features Peter Graves as Alec, a super-agent out to recover the titular weapon of not-quite-but-sorta-kinda mass destruction. It's been stolen from the Soviets by the villainous Baron (Curt Jurgens), a baddie not all that dissimilar from The Spy Who Loved Me's Karl Stromberg. John Carradine also appears as evil scientist Nikolayeff, who's helping the Baron use the purloined missile to upend a peace summit that will presumably take the wind out of his efforts to conquer the world. Can I get a bwa-ha-ha? The film is entertaining enough, though done in at times by some deadly post-syncing that has the volume levels bounce up and down with reckless abandon, and the Tehran location footage fascinating.
dima-12
Peter Graves is the iconic 70's agent material, and MISSLE X is one of his lesser features exploiting the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE persona. However, the non-Hollywood production atmosphere fills this one up with highly paid stars doing some exploitation work that you can't usually see under the major studio banner.MISSILE X delivers violence, menace and a few neat Packinpah influenced shootouts in this noirish and yet very Bondian tale o stolen Soviet cruise missile being smuggled into Iran and put on wholesale.The whole American male agent alternately versus and with Russian female agent fighting the villain played by Kurt Jurgens makes MISSILE X look like a THE SPY WHO LOVED ME rip-off. And that definition holds. However, this film is derivative that it simply cannot stand such singled out rip-off allegation.Tehran is well used as a location and the mixture of Iranian luxury juxtaposed on very poor suburbs precisely explains why the revolution eventually took place there. This film, with its' unashamed Western jive and aim to exploit the Persian setting may as well be used as the epitome of Iranian revolution and the Shah's decadence.Overall, MISSILE X is the ideal programmer for the 70's superagent fare hounds. It may as well be worth the search.
Melllvar
Set in Iran just before the revolution,this film is a low budget spy adventure,which I saw as Cruise Missile, that wastes a good cast in a cliched movie.Peter Graves plays an American agent sent to investigate the murder of a fellow agent who was investigating an international businessman known as The Baron,played by Curt Jurgens. The Baron has obtained a Soviet nuclear missile with which he intends to attack an international conference being held in the Persian Gulf.John Carradine had a pointless role as a Russian scientist who was aiding the Baron.It was not his finest hour. The most curious thing though, were all the references through background news broadcasts to the Ayatollah Khomeni causing trouble in Paris. I gave this movie a 4.If you're looking for James Bond or Mission:Impossible(TV) don't see this film.If you want to count cliches you might find this funny.
AD
