The third successive effort in the William Castle canon to veer from his successful gimmicky Horror formula was, despite the catchpenny title (incidentally, this being especially evocative of the director's popular but disappointing 13 GHOSTS {1960} and the film under review itself having received the dreaded BOMB rating from Leonard Maltin, I was quite wary of it to begin with!), the most drastic one since, unlike its predecessors – the two Tom Poston vehicles ZOTZ! (1962) and THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1963) – it did not feature fantasy elements at all. Indeed, it disparately combines the then-prevalent Cold War espionage sagas and "Beach Party"-type youth movies in a fairly enjoyable concoction with a decent, second-tier cast: leading man Murray Hamilton(!) as a secret agent, Hugh Marlowe as the U.S.' ambassador for Great Britain and Khigh Dhiegh as his "Red China" counterpart.
Marlowe's teenage daughter (Kathy Dunn) is the heroine of the piece, a student at a Swiss girls' college expressly reserved for the offsprings of international diplomats. However, these just want to hang out with boys – and only the protagonist and the Chinese girl within the group, curiously chummy (even if the latter is shunned by most of the others) seem to have other interests. Still, Dunn herself is besotted with Hamilton, her father's top agent but whose 'performance' has slackened of late and is being threatened with outright sacking! This actually sets the main plot in motion, as the girl determines to help him from behind the scenes in tracking down a defecting foreigner – who, as it turns out, she runs into just being eliminated at Dhiegh's house (the latter being uncle to Dunn's Chinese friend). Further romantic complications abound: Hamilton is in love with his closest associate, dubbed "Soldier" (Joyce Taylor) – while, for plot purposes, Dunn romances a succession of teenage boys away from a 'nymphomaniac' colleague though one of them, whom she realizes is a spy, turns the tables on her and almost offs her from a balcony! Dunn's swift and successful undercover work earns her the name "Kitten" and the anonymous agent is thus sought by all sides – with the oblivious Marlowe urging Hamilton, now back in his superior's good books, to reveal his identity to him and, when ultimately exposed, even the Reds decide to keep it quiet as they would not want it known that they were given a hard time by a mere child!
The film, then, has much of the fun quotient one associates even with Castle's "frightfests" – though, in this case and as with his other comedies, it descends more readily (if perhaps too often) into silliness! The director had obviously channeled Hitchcock before; here, he was unashamedly imitating his durable (and highly influential) comedy-thriller formula. Tellingly, having embraced monochrome for his first clutch of horror efforts, with this and the afore-mentioned THE OLD DARK HOUSE, Castle turned to colour – hoping, perhaps, for a more mainstream appeal – only to revert back to type for his next three straight genre outings and, then, stick to colour for his sparse remaining output!
Marlowe's teenage daughter (Kathy Dunn) is the heroine of the piece, a student at a Swiss girls' college expressly reserved for the offsprings of international diplomats. However, these just want to hang out with boys – and only the protagonist and the Chinese girl within the group, curiously chummy (even if the latter is shunned by most of the others) seem to have other interests. Still, Dunn herself is besotted with Hamilton, her father's top agent but whose 'performance' has slackened of late and is being threatened with outright sacking! This actually sets the main plot in motion, as the girl determines to help him from behind the scenes in tracking down a defecting foreigner – who, as it turns out, she runs into just being eliminated at Dhiegh's house (the latter being uncle to Dunn's Chinese friend). Further romantic complications abound: Hamilton is in love with his closest associate, dubbed "Soldier" (Joyce Taylor) – while, for plot purposes, Dunn romances a succession of teenage boys away from a 'nymphomaniac' colleague though one of them, whom she realizes is a spy, turns the tables on her and almost offs her from a balcony! Dunn's swift and successful undercover work earns her the name "Kitten" and the anonymous agent is thus sought by all sides – with the oblivious Marlowe urging Hamilton, now back in his superior's good books, to reveal his identity to him and, when ultimately exposed, even the Reds decide to keep it quiet as they would not want it known that they were given a hard time by a mere child!
The film, then, has much of the fun quotient one associates even with Castle's "frightfests" – though, in this case and as with his other comedies, it descends more readily (if perhaps too often) into silliness! The director had obviously channeled Hitchcock before; here, he was unashamedly imitating his durable (and highly influential) comedy-thriller formula. Tellingly, having embraced monochrome for his first clutch of horror efforts, with this and the afore-mentioned THE OLD DARK HOUSE, Castle turned to colour – hoping, perhaps, for a more mainstream appeal – only to revert back to type for his next three straight genre outings and, then, stick to colour for his sparse remaining output!