Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

....but not necessarily the best. That title still goes to "Murderers' Row", in my opinion. "The Wrecking Crew" is probably the best-produced of the series (then again, after the embarrassing climactic chase of "The Ambushers", the only way was up), and in Elke Sommer it has the sexiest bad girl since Daliah Lavi of "The Silencers". It also has the second best villain in the sophisticated Nigel Green (re-teaming with Sommer after "Deadlier Than The Male") - Karl Malden remains the best. But director Phil Karlson makes the same mistake as in "The Silencers" - he lets several scenes play out too long. However, my biggest problem with this movie has to do with Sharon Tate. Not with the actress - who is beautiful, likable and energetic - but with her character. She is very inconsistently written, alternating between clumsy and competent, sometimes in the same scene. And what's worse, Matt Helm is obnoxiously condescending towards her - I much preferred his equal partnership with Janice Rule in "The Ambushers". This film has gained some fame for having Bruce Lee involved in the staging of the fight scenes: truth be told, they are still quite ungraceful, though at least Dean Martin has added more kicks to his repertoire. My favorite scene is easily the fight between major babes Sharon Tate and Nancy Kwan - unfortunately it is spoiled by a few too many interruptions. ** out of 4.

This certainly isn't up to THE SILENCERS (1966), being too derivative in nature and uneven in tone, but hardly the terrible film most critics would have one believe (though I still give them the benefit of the doubt with respect to the remaining two entries in the Matt Helm series – which I couldn't get my hands on and, consequently, haven't watched).As I said, many of the elements found in the original film (with which it shares director Karlson) are repeated here – from Dean Martin's tuneful (and humorous) interjections to the gadgets provided by I.C.E. (which seem to have become progressively sillier!) and even the love/hate relationship between Helm and his stunning but 'klutzy' partner (played by the ill-fated Sharon Tate: this was her penultimate film). As a matter of fact, the glamorous nature of her character is kept under wraps during the film's first half – allowing the triumvirate of femme fatales (Elke Sommer, Nancy Kwan and Tina Louise) to take center-stage – but Tate's subsequent unforeseen blossoming is all the more effective because of this reason! The villain is also ideally cast: Nigel Green, who wisely opts to play it straight; the character of Helm's superior, then, is now played by John Larch (who even gets in on the action towards the end!). While there's the usual array of car chases and gun-toting action, this entry provides some novelty with its burst of karate fighting (featuring a debuting Chuck Norris and choreographed by none other than Bruce Lee, though he seems to have been caught on an off-day as these mostly come off as lackluster here – including a duel between Tate and Kwan, which was a good idea in itself!). As expected, the film generates considerable steam (notably the bedroom scenes Martin shares with gypsy Louise – whom Green has dropped in favor of chic Sommer and who has now decided to spill the beans about his involvement in a bullion robbery from a moving train – and, later, the scheming Sommer herself); however, the fact that Tate would be brutally murdered within months makes her presence arresting – even when indulging in slapstick situations (down to imitating Oliver Hardy from WAY OUT WEST [1937] by unwittingly walking through deceptively shallow waters!).The fourth entry in the "Matt Helm" series does seem to have managed a more elaborate climax than THE SILENCERS, as the action starts in Kwan's club "The House Of Seven Joys" (at one point, intended as the film's title – the current credits are even accompanied by a song about it!) – which includes a secret revolving panel leading straight to Green's château (this location is then destroyed largely through Tate's clumsiness!), continues with a helicopter chase (built on the spot by Martin, whose parts he conveniently keeps in the booth of his car!) and finally relocates to a speeding train (armed with a trapdoor!) being driven by the fleeing Green. Another solid element here, indeed the best thing about the entire film, is Hugo Montenegro's catchy score (it was pure coincidence that I watched two thrillers scored by him and featuring members of the Rat Pack in quick succession!). Still, there are a number of surefire gags involving Kwan's name (Yu-rang – "No, I didn't", replies Helm at her formal introduction to him!), Martin reversing Tate's victory sign in exasperation when she interrupts his dalliance with Sommer, and Tate borrowing one of Martin's exploding hankies (which she then throws away in panic in the direction of his car, naturally wrecking it completely in the process!).Again, the ending promotes an upcoming Matt Helm adventure to be entitled THE RAVAGERS – but which was never made given increasingly diminishing returns at the box-office (though Helm did return in the form of a TV series starring Anthony Franciosa)! Tying this up with the Frank Sinatra/Tony Rome vehicle LADY IN CEMENT (1968), which preceded my viewing of THE WRECKING CREW, there was talk at the time of bringing together the two Rat Packers once again in the guise of Helm and Rome – but the idea was subsequently dropped and, in any case, the mood of each individual series is so different that it's hard to see how they could have coalesced convincingly

Someone once said that Dean Martin was so laid-back he made Perry Como look like a nervous wreck. It was said if a nuclear bomb went off behind him he wouldn't even drop his martini glass. Martin and his fellow Rat-packer Frank Sinatra were among our few recording giants who achieved in films as well. Although not as good an actor as Sinatra, Martin had a charming presence on the screen and was always entertaining to watch, even when you knew he wasn't taking it too seriously. The Matt Helm films came out at the same time as Sean Connery was playing Bond and have been largely forgotten today. Martin played the reluctant spy with tongue firmly in cheek. The Wrecking Crew was the last of the four Helm films and I feel it was the best. A gold train has been hijacked by a criminal mastermind. The one billion dollar theft will cause world wide financial panic and its up to Matt Helm to save the day. Of course in any spy film of this nature, you have to have beautiful women and there are plenty here. Elke Sommer and Tina Louise light up the screen, but it is Sharon Tate who steals the show as bumbling MI5 agent Freya Carlson. I thought it was so funny how she kept getting Helm into deeper and deeper trouble, even getting him arrested at one point. She tells him "I wont desert you Mister Helm". He says "Do me a favor PLEASE DESERT ME!". However, she comes through in the end and there is a good fight scene between her and Nancy Kwan. (For trivia lovers, Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee helped to set up the fight scenes for this film). People have commented the fight scenes involving Helm are fakey, what do you expect? Dean Martin was 52 when this film was made. Sharon really stole the show in this one, in fact they later based one of the characters in the Austin Powers films on her character here. This was her last film before she was murdered by the Charles Manson family. Its chilling when you watch it and think of how horribly her life ended.

The 4th and final M. Helm film, this is definitely the bottom of the barrel, except for the lovely and funny Sharon Tate near the end of career. There are other babes as well: Elke Sommer (hot for many years), Nancy Kwan lovely as always and Tina Louise who doesn't get to do much. Nigel Green is a noble villain and very creepy. Dino slogs along the best he can under the circumstances and Sharon Tate is just a joy! If she'd ever been given a decent role in a good film, I think she might have surprised a few skeptics about her talent.A 3 out of 10. Best performance = Sharon Tate. All of these Helm flicks are cotton candy at best, but a pleasant reminder of bad fun films of the late 60's.