Trailer
Plot summary
Count Massimo Contini has arranged for a billion dollars in American gold to be taken while it is transported across Europe, a theft meant to send the world's financial markets lurching and to profit him. MacDonald, the chief of the secret agency ICE, summons his agent Matt Helm to stop the count, and lets Helm's cover be exposed to draw Contini into a move against him. The assignment takes Helm to Copenhagen, where a Danish tourism bureau supplies him with a guide, Freya Carlson. Two of Contini's accomplices, Linka Karensky and Yu-Rang, move against Helm, and Freya's clumsy attempts to help turn out useful in ways he does not appreciate.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Wrecking Crew (1968)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The fourth Matt Helm picture gave two future action stars their Hollywood start: Bruce Lee worked behind the camera as action choreographer, and Chuck Norris made his film debut in a small role.
- Bruce Lee found Dean Martin hopeless, saying he "tried to teach Dean Martin how to kick but he was too lazy and too clumsy" and that stand-in Mike Stone had to do most of it. He rated Sharon Tate and Nancy Kwan much better, and told Kwan she could not afford him when she asked him to teach her privately.
- James Gregory, who had played Helm's ICE chief MacDonald in the other three films, was told the budget was being cut and sent a reduced fee. He refused to take it, and John Larch played the part instead.
- The film ends by announcing a fifth Matt Helm entry, The Ravagers, from Donald Hamilton's 1964 novel, but Dean Martin refused to return in despair at Tate's murder six months later. Columbia held up his share of the profits from Murderers' Row, and the project was canceled.
- Quentin Tarantino brought the film back in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 2019, showing Sharon Tate, played by Margot Robbie, watching herself on screen at the Fox Bruin Theater.
