Fuller Report, Base Stockholm (1968)

Expected more

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

One of the most unexpected things about the "Fuller Report" is that its central hero is NOT a secret agent, but a race car driver who gets caught up in the espionage business purely by chance. So he has to survive more on his wits and instincts rather than his skills. The plot itself is quite intriguing, though a little rushed near the end, with a couple of twists you probably won't see coming. Ken Clark is agreeable as the hero, and Beba Loncar is beyond gorgeous as the Russian ballerina about whom the (now missing) title report has been written and who may or may not know more than she is telling; seriously, even the word "gorgeous" is not adequate to describe this woman. Well-shot in Stockholm, Zürich and London, the film is no great shakes, but for fans of the genre, it does the job. ** out of 4.

Ken Clark is such a lug. All he wants out of his visit to Stockholm is a Swedish girl but luckily for us he gets much more. I say luckily because this is a heck of a fun movie. Clark plays Dick Worth, an American racing driver in Stockholm to put on an exhibition that his boss Bennet (Jess Hahn) hopes will result in orders for cars. At least that's what Worth believes. Worth gets drawn into CIA business when he is mistaken for a spy and takes on the job of recovering the Fuller Report, CIA information about an assassination plot.The entire production is visually impressive especially an interrogation and gunfight sequence that takes place in a lumber yard. It's an outstanding location chosen, no doubt, for the many horizontal lines that accent the action. It was even memorable enough to make it onto the Belgian poster! At the end of this sequence, after Worth and his lady have temporarily escaped the clutches of the bad guys, she says to him `I was afraid they would kill you' and he responds `Yeah me too.'The racing car milieu makes for some fun but the hands down winner here is the killer score by Armando Trovajoli. It's practically non-stop jazzy spy pop that will have you humming long after the VCR has rewound. Look for this one, it's recommended.