gridoon2024 Review of The Blonde from Peking

The Blonde from Peking (1967)

Confusing at times, but fairly entertaining spy comedy-thriller

[6/10 · 9 January 2011]

Actually more of a spy comedy than a thriller, "The Peking Blonde" is a little confusing at first, but eventually the story (based on a James Chase novel!) and the various conflicting parties involved in it become more clear. Claudio Brook makes for an interesting hero: he's not a spy, but an actor hired to impersonate the husband of an amnesiac woman, who used to be the mistress of a Chinese missile expert, and help her regain her memory. He has no spy skills and he does not care to acquire any spy skills; he's in it only for the money. Brook shows a lot more life in this role than he did in another spy film he made around the same time, "Coplan Saves His Skin". The most beautiful woman in "Peking Blonde" is neither Mireille Darc nor (even) Giorgia Moll, but a redheaded secretary who, at one point, is attacked in her room by two Russians; she fights like a wildcat before they subdue her. But the single most unforgettable moment of this film (at least for me) involves a deadly Asian girl, her toes, and a phone cord - I'll say no more to avoid spoiling it. **1/2 out of 4.