User Reviews

A nice little Cold War spy comedy with Jack Kelly as the handsome hero, Senta Berger as the beautiful tricky leading lady, and Walter Matthau as the over-the-top bad guy. It is like a great little B movie. It starts in the ski resort in the Alps where Fred Piper (Jack Kelly) is sent to negotiate the release of a captured U. S. scientist by his family. Tom Gregory (Walter Matthau) is a communist agent posing as an American tourist who Fred Piper is meet. Mia (Senta Berger) is a beautiful lady that Fred Piper meets of the ski slope who wishes to defect to the America and needs help crossing the border.

Three charismatic stars: Jack Kelly, Walter Matthau and Senta Berger (in one of her first American roles) bring to life this light-hearted spy movie episode of the Chrysler Theatre, a fine example of how TV can compete effectively with movies. They're as appealing as many a '60s superstar-laden feature film.

The hijinks are linked to international intrigue, with a low-budget version of a deadly chase on skis out of a Bond movie, endless double and triple crosses by spies and jewel hives, and plenty of romance within the limits of a G rating. All three protagonists, at cross purposes, are worth rooting for. And John Williams even wrote the music score!

Kelly is perfect casting as the playboy type American spy -such a smoothie, and contrasts so favorably with the movie star miscasting of Dean Martin in the similarly toned Matt Helm movies soon after. Berger is terrific very early in her American career, and Matthau's tongue-in-cheek performance is priceless. My favorite moment of the cheeky screenplay is in a confrontation late in the show when he has the upper hand, Kelly says to Matthau sarcastically about this international incident: "Can you imagine the movies, with Alec Guinness playing your part?".