zardoz-13 You've never seen David McCallum play a moRe anti-heroic characer than he does in director Brian G. Hutton's above-average narcotics thriller "Sol Madrid." McCallum appears as the eponymous protagonist who works undercover for Interpol and lives to bust drug dealers. Indeed, he believes that he shouldn't have to play by the rules because the bad guys don't. The biggest heroin dealer of them all here is Emil Dietrich. "Dirty Dozen" psycho Telly Savalas is charming as the cigarette-smoking villain who lives high, wide, and handsome in his estate in sunny Acapulco, Mexico. Initially, our hero doesn't have his sights set on the urbane Dietrich. He learns from his superior that the mistress of a Mafioso kingpin, Dano Villanova (Rip Torn of "Men in Black"), has left him. Moreover, the man with a computerized mind who knows everything about the Mafia's account, Harry Mitchell (Pat Hingle of "Hang'em High") has fled from the Mafia, too. At first, Sol's mission is to find Mitchell and persuade him to testify against the Mafia. Stacey Woodward (Stella Stevens of "The Ballad of Cable Hogue"), joined Mitchell for $250-thousand dollars. but she didn't accompnay him to Mexico. Sol Madrid breaks into Woodward's bedroom, surprises her, confiscates her loot, and they head off to see Dietrich and his guest Mitchell. Madrid works his way into Dietrich's confidence when he manages to smuggle heroin into California by means of an oil pipeline. The Interpol agent reels in Dietrich afterward for $25 million. Meanwhile, another Interpol agent working undercover in Acapulco is a smiling dude known as Jalisco (Ricardo Montalban of "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan"), and he works as a cabbie when he isn't crusading for law and order. Eventually, Madrid is able to persuade Dietrich to sell him heroin on the premises of his house, something that Dietrich had never done before. During the big bust scene, our hero gets into a fight with the villain, and you can guess who survives the confrontation. Sol Madrid emerges as one of those cops who doesn't take prisoners and he isn't afraid of anything. Eventually, he is able to rescue Stacey from the mitts of the mafia. Once the evil Villanova ferrets Stacey out, he incarcerates her in a cabin and gets her hooked on heroin.What sets "Sol Madrid" apart from all of McCallum's other films is the savagery of his character. He exposes a double-agent in one scene and shoots the man at point blank range without a qualm and lets him fall down and die. Later, he tangles with a well-dressed Mafioso and drowns the dastard face down in a muddy pool in Mexico. I don't think that I've ever seen David McCallum play a character as brutal of Sol Madrid, and he displays no remorse for his murderous behavior. "Sol Madrid" was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer a year before Hutton made history with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in the explosive World War II thriller "Where Eagles Dare." Hutton's next film was "Kelly's Heroes. If you want to see David McCallum as you have never seen him before, check out "Sol Madrid."

blanche-2 I well remember David McCallum from his Man from U.N.C.L.E. days, enjoy him now on NCIS, and saw him on stage as Emperor Josef in Amadeus on Broadway. At that time I interviewed him. I have never met anyone less like a matinée idol in my life: unassuming, detached, nervous, but very polite and obviously hard-working. Only those my age would know that in the '60s, with his cute blond haircut, adorable face, and accent, he was the object of so much affection.Here he stars in Sol Madrid, probably MGM's attempt to capitalize on his matinée idol status. He plays undercover agent Sol Madrid who is assigned to destroy drug traffic coming from Mexico, engineered by a man named Dietrich (Telly Savalas) and distributed by a man named Villanova (Rip Torn).With the help of a U.S. officer working undercover in Mexico, Jalisco (Ricardo Montalban), Madrid uses Villanova's ex-girlfriend (Stella Stevens) to get into Dietrich's home, where he poses as a drug dealer looking for a huge amount of heroin.This is not a very interesting script, but the Acapulco locations are beautiful, and it's a last chance to see the wonderful Paul Lukas -- this was his final film. Savalas has a showy part and acquits himself well. Rip Torn is appropriately evil, and Montalban very good. McCallum doesn't exhibit much in the way of personality; he underplays, but the character he portrays is clever and can get a job done with a sort of quiet authority, and when he needed to be more demanding, he was. So in spite of some criticism of his performance here, I think his instincts were right. Stella Stevens was a good choice for Villanova's girlfriend - tough and edgy.Not great, but not bad.

mts-23 David McCallum (Sol Madrid) filmed this movie in Mexico during the summer hiatus of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 1967 probably to capitalize on his great popularity in the TV series. From information here, it appears that the movie was not released until after The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was canceled in Jan. '68. I recently saw this film for the first time and enjoyed it very much. Great cast of actors who must have been under contract to MGM at the time, great scenery, good story, tight plot and good pacing. I really feel that MGM made a mistake in not making this into an action/adventure series of movies starring McCallum. Although tame by today's standards, maybe the film was considered too "adult" to be marketed to McCallum's teen fans or maybe it had to do with the timing of its release. Whatever the reason, I think MGM missed out and I would have really enjoyed more "Sol Madrid, Interpol cop" movies.

Pocketplayer OK...it's late and TCM is playing this flic so I decided to check it out. After all I'm house-sitting and don't have cable myself, so I'm taping movies. This movie came on around 1:00AM and I decided to video tape it.I like Telly Savalas and wondered how he would do in a lead role. David McCallum was known to me visually, but I wondered how he would do as a lead. Stella Stevens looked good from any angle and surprisingly was spirited, not just a pretty face and curvy bod. Ricardo Montalban was known from the TV series, but I don't think I've really seen him in any early movies. In fact, I caught the actor from The Longest Yard and this is what I like about these older movies-you catch glimpses of actors who had roles in larger films.I thought the movie had a big feel about it despite McCallum's low key delivery. He was acting from the Clint Eastwood school, and Clint can pull that off as few can. This movie reminded me of a big budget film with B actors playing lead roles. The overall plot was decent, but like said previously, there were a lot of holes. I thought the heroin scene with Stevens was pretty advanced for that time period, even if it was the 60's. They charted some risky territory as her character was pinned down and forced to take the needle. Not the best of flics, but I'm going to keep the tape. I thought it was a decent movie and being 35 years old, there is a lot of grace given while watching. It's a lot better than most of what comes out of Hollywood today!