"The Liquidator" (1965) Rod Taylor plays Boysie Oakes in this James Bond parody. (In fact, it's based on a novel by John Gardner, who later continued the Bond series of books.) ON THE SCREEN During V-E Day celebrations in Paris, Boysie inadvertently saves the life of Intelligence Major Mostyn (Trevor Howard). Years later, when Mostyn needs a hatchet man, he signs Oakes into the Secret Service, thinking the young man is a killing machine. Boysie's assignment is to liquidate security risks among British intelligence -- a job that requires a ruthless assassin who can stare calmly into the face of death. But Boysie is a mild-mannered fun-seeker who is terrified of airplanes and couldn't hurt a fly. He winds up hiring a professional killer to do the dirty work while he zeroes in on his desired target -- Miss MacIntosh (Jill St. John), Mostyn's personal assistant. They jet down to the Riviera for a secret romp, but when they arrive in Nice, foreign and friendly agents plunge Boysie into intrigue. Forced by circumstances to perform unaccustomed feats of valor -- including foiling a hijacking -- Boysie, to his own surprise, justifies the expectations of his benefactor. Variety magazine summed up "The Liquidator" thusly: The vulnerable Oakes is played with plenty of charm and guts by Taylor, though he hardly suggests a character with such fundamental failings and frailties as Boysie. Indeed, watching Taylor is a joy. He's not afraid to look foolish, but his pratfalls are soon followed by demonstration of skill: Strapped into a contraption that turns him every which way while target-shooting, he manages to fire a perfect shot (with paint, not bullet) into the back of Mostyn's skull. Later, an "escape" starts out comically, but it turns serious soon enough as he teeters on the edge of a cliff, fighting off a bad guy. Through it all, he maintains something of a bemused demeanor. He's thrust into a circumstance way above his head, prevails through sly smarts or physical prowess, only to continue on his seemingly single-minded pursuit of the fairer sex. BEHIND THE SCENES Rod's right-hand man during much of the 1960s, Marco Lopez, described one key scene from "The Liquidator" in which Taylor fights a villain while his car teeters over the edge of a cliff: Rod insisted on doing his own stunt fights. This sequence was shot about six or more times. During the shooting, it began to drizzle, and Rod was half-way through the scene. He is knocked over the windshield and is scarcely able to grab a hold of the car. With him doing this stunt several times and the car beginning to get slippery wet, we became quite worried because in actuality the car was teetering over a 400-foot fall. Rod was soon tiring, but luck was with us and we soon had the final shot printed. -- Rod-Lore fan newsletter, October 1965 A fan contributed another glimpse behind the scenes, this time of the tense moments as Boysie Oakes realizes he must land a hijacked airplane. A huge screen was hoisted up beside the plane to give a background effect of sky. ... Rod took his place at the controls of the plane, and Jack Cardiff went through the scene with him. ... Two things surprised me. ... One, the fact that the "plane" would not BE rocked and Rod would have to act in such a way as to give the impression that the was being rocked about. And two, there was no strict adherence to the script and Rod was told to ad lib. It showed what a fine actor Rod is that he mastered the situation perfectly. When the director called for silence and the take was announced, Rod went into action. He conveyed the feeling of panic when he found he had lost control of the plane. His voice and desprate movements were in keeping with the reactions of a man in a lurching plane. -- Rod-Lore fan newsletter, October 1965

LINKS Internet Movie Database: Full cast and credits Liquidator soundtrack: Notes about the movie and its music, from The Songs of Shirley Bassey Web site. Theme to "The Liquidator": Listen to Shirley sing about "The Liquidator" at the Classic Sites' Sound Gallery. Jack Cardiff: About the director of "The Liquidator," "Young Cassidy" and "Dark of the Sun."

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