Where the Bullets Fly (1966) User Reviews

The Second Best Secret Agent is back!

[ShadeGrenade · 7/10 · 2 July 2006]

British scientists have developed a new means of aircraft propulsion - a nuclear unit protected by a lightweight metal known as 'Spurium'. A gang of villains, headed by 'Angel' ( Michael Ripper ), want to steal a sample to sell to the Russians. But 'Charles Vine' ( Tom Adams ) is not about to let them...

The second Charles Vine spy spoof. Adams is his usual laconic self, but Michael Pittock's script lacks the twists and turns of the first movie's screenplay. Ripper was not cut out to play Bondian villains, ditto Tim Barrett, cast as the bowler-hatted assassin 'Seraph'. Though given equal billing with Adams, Dawn Addams is only on screen for the last twenty minutes.

Cameos from Sid James as a mortician, Joe Baker as a Cabinet Minister and Wilfred Brambell as a train station guard liven the low budget proceedings. Lindsay Shonteff, director of the first Vine picture, was replaced by horror specialist John Gilling. The highlight is a thunderingly good prologue in which Vine - in drag - helps thwart a terrorist rocket attack on The Houses Of Parliament. Best among the supporting cast is John Arnatt, back as Vine's harassed boss 'Rockwell'. Vine returned one last time in 'Somebody's Stolen Our Russian Spy' in 1968.

Funniest moment - getting into a taxi, Vine says "Waterloo!". The driver looks baffled. "The station?". "Bit late for the battle!", quips the secret agent.

Where the Bull Flies,off the Vine

[Bogmeister · 5/10 · 25 April 2008]

MASTER PLAN: steal a prototype airplane. It's a rather basic, nuts-'n'-bolts take on the superspy genre - think the James Bond films of the sixties with only a quarter of the budget and no star quality - there was nothing special to justify further films. In this follow-up to "Licensed to Kill" of the previous year, Tom Adams reprises the role of Charles Vine, the 2nd Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World (2nd to Bond, of course). Adams actually warmed to the part here and the tone is slightly more satirical, but the plot is quite dull, even inconsequential. The actor Arnatt is also back as Rockwell, this film's version of M, the supervisor. Besides the slow pace, one scene is even baffling: during a meeting in Rockwell's office between Rockwell, Vine and a double agent, a cat is seated on Rockwell's desk; much of the scene is from the cat's perspective and we also see the faces of the 3 men superimposed over the eyes of the cat. I thought the meaning would be made clear later, but no such luck.

Vine is not very impressive in this story. At one point, he's captured by enemy agents, kept in an odd electrified room which mocks the usual Bond torture scenes and is also drugged, revealing a secret location. His escape is facilitated through the sacrifice of a female; enemy agents proceed to the location Vine gave up and kill the people on-site; Vine follows, punches out a guard - one of the good guys - and, after a long chase, fails to capture the villain. By this point, I was thinking Vine may be the 3rd or 4th best secret agent - maybe even the 5th. In fact, any success Vine enjoys in his struggles, right to very conclusion, stems from the ineptitude of the bad guys. Though much of this is lame, including the strained humor and weird giggling by the main villain, it does retain a bit of the charm of its predecessor. Towards the last half-hour, the focus seems to switch to how many ladies Vine can seduce rather than foiling the plots of the dastards. Dawn Addams, top-billed with Tom Adams, appears late and too briefly. There followed a 3rd film, "OK Y-"something, filmed in Spain, which almost no one has seen or heard of. Hero:6 Villains:5 Femme Fatales:6 Henchmen:4 Fights:5 Stunts/Chases:5 Gadgets:4 Auto:5 Locations:5 Pace:4 overall:5

Terrible unfunny spy spoof

[Serpent-5 · 2 April 2000]

Tom Adams is Agent Vine (not Bond) in this film that is so unfunny that it runs way too serious and makes the film look like a poorman's James Bond clone. The opening scene involving agent dressed in drags, cool opening credit, and the Sidney James scene is the only highlight in this film. Either than that, the film is just plain boring. Adams played the character well, but the script didn't leave him to do much spoof or comedy that he's character runs flat. Very disjointed script. Not recommended.

Bottom of the Barrel Bond spoof

[ianbrown65 · 3/10 · 16 July 2015]

Budget-wise, location-wise and production value-wise, this bargain basement spoof of the Bond films pretty much scrapes the barrel. Actually, though, John Gilling (better known for Hammer horror) directed it niftily enough and in patches even makes it quite witty.

Tom Adams carries off the hero part with nice deadpan aplomb and gets good support from Michael Ripper as main baddie Mr Angel, Joe Baker as an oafish Labour minister, and a Sid James cameo as a mortuary attendant ("Business is perking up here," he says over the phone while ducking from a frenzied shoot-out). Cheesy organ music and locations that include a gasworks and sewer add to the threadbare fun.

Dismal spy "comedy"

[gridoon2024 · 4/10 · 26 September 2011]

"Where The Bullets Fly" is the second of three Charles Vine movies made in the 1960s; based on the two I've seen so far (this one and "Someone's Stolen Our Russian Spy") I won't be in any hurry to track down the other one ("The Second Best Secret Agent In The Whole Wide World") anytime soon, even though it seems to be considered the best of the three by far. "Where The Bullets Fly" never takes off; it is neither funny nor exciting, although the jaunty music score tries to convince you of both. The women have nearly non-existent roles, and as for Charles Vine himself, he is such a smarmy character that he makes Derek Flint look like Harry Palmer. *1/2 out of 4.

Cheesy is often stinky.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 12 May 2022]

Out there somewhere is a film called "License to Kill" which is the first of a series of films surrounding this character, called Britain's second best spy, giving an indication that the writers really didn't put a lot of imagination into creating the idea for this film. The more convoluted the story, the more satisfying to them. A ridiculous spoof of the Bond films (one of many) is a messy plot concerning some sort of contraption that causes weightless nuclear flight, only enliven by a lot of action scenes add a bit of romance between its leads, Tom and Dawn Addams. It's very easy to snooze through this film because the plot is nonsensical, barely existent, although the location footage is well utilized and when they are not dealing with ridiculous plot details, there is a lot going on to keep the viewer amused visually. It's one of those films that plays like a cartoon, and that's not always a good thing.

The theme song is sung by someone who sounds like Dame Shirley Bassey and isn't nearly as memorable as any of the actual Bond themes. It's ironic that the name of the first film of the series would actually be used many years later as the title of a Bond movie, and something tells me that the creators of that did not even know that this series existed. The dialogue isn't anywhere near as sophisticated as what Sean Connery was getting to say, having taken a break in 1966 as the writers of that series spend time in coming up with something clever. Too bad the creators of this didn't do the same. I felt that I just watched a series of action scenes in fancy locations done between opening and closing credits without a story. This can be summed up as a complete waste of time.

Not good

[gregorybquinn · 3/10 · 29 May 2022]

Adams played the Charles Vine character in a series of these films - I'm guessing they did OK business in Europe, because there's no way their UK business would have brought production back after the first one. "Where the Bullets Fly" is pretty bad. Tom Adams early in his career demonstrated that he was a capable actor in the Sturges actioner The Great Escape. It's sad then that he didn't have the opportunity to play in something better than this - when this film was made British cinema was in terminal decline.

Adams mentioned in a newspaper article in the 1980's that when this movie would occasionally play on TV, he'd receive abusive mail - not hard to see why.