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remain alive. In Venice Bureau member Cesare Spado dies after being poisoned by his wife; with the help of her lover Angelo she tries to poison
Dragomiloff and have Baron Muntzof kill Miss Winter. Dragomiloff not only survives the attempt on his life, but kills both Angelo and Muntzof and rescues Miss Winter. Eleanora Spado tries to blackmail the Assassination Bureau for money by using her knowledge of its existence; the Bureau's response is to deem her expendable and General Pinck kills her with his
313:, but Popescu also appears, disguised as a train waiter serving cognac and cigars. He pulls a gun, but Dragomiloff sprays him with fiery brandy, lit by the cigar, burning his face and he jumps off the train and dies. In Zürich the bank manager Weiss pulls a gun on a suspicious-looking customer and throws his bag into the street, thinking it is a bomb. The angry customer leaves, and while Weiss is distracted, Dragomiloff hides a real bomb that kills Weiss.
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Europe, challenging and systematically purging the bureau's senior members. Their first stop is Paris where
Dragomiloff disguises himself as Le Comte and goes to a brothel. Miss Winter materialises and they hide in a laundry room. The staff outside put a gas pipe into the room, but there is a police
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Little do they realise that this is a plot by Miss Winter's sponsor, newspaper publisher Lord
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Far from being outraged or angry, Dragomiloff is amused and delighted and decides to turn the situation to his own advantage. The guiding principle of his bureau, founded by his father, has always been that there was a moral reason why their victims should be killed; these have included despots and
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the couple watch a military parade. A man behind them pulls a pistol, but he is trying to assassinate the
Archduke watching the parade from a balcony opposite. Dragomiloff disdainfully remarks to Miss Winter that had "The Assassination Bureau" undertaken this "assignment", the Archduke would not
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Michael Flint of
Paramount later said the film wound up costing a lot of money "because it was decided that it must be a locomotive", namely, a sort of film which "would really carry weight with exhibitors and eventually television networks buying batches of our films, by virtue of stars or
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In London, in 1908, aspiring journalist and women's rights campaigner Sonia Winter uncovers an organisation that specialises in killing for money, the
Assassination Bureau Limited. To bring about its destruction, she commissions the assassination of the bureau's own chairman,
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tyrants. More recently, though, his elder colleagues have tended to kill more for financial gain than for moral reasons. Dragomiloff, therefore, decides to accept the commission of his own death and challenge the other board members: Kill him or he will kill them!
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where the peace conference is being held. Dragomiloff steals aboard the airship and destroys the bomb, while disposing of Lord
Bostwick and the remaining members of his board of directors. He exploits General Pinck's one weakness, a sword
333:. Their plan is to assassinate all the European heads of state. They attend a secret peace conference where the kings, emperors, and prime ministers of Europe are trying to avoid a possible war over the assassination of a
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in 1910 and used it as the basis of two short stories and a novel. He was two-thirds of the way through finishing the novel (having written 40,000 words) when he died in 1916. The novel was later completed by
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challenge to the death. He is hailed as a hero and later decorated by the heads of state that he has saved. It is implied that
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raid. They escape down the laundry chute, but leave a booby trap that blows the room up when the door is eventually smashed in, killing
Lucoville. Miss Winter is arrested while Dragomiloff sneaks off.
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By
February 1969, the film had not been released. According to Diana Rigg, "the film company is stuck with the rather awkward - for America - title and hasn't made up its mind what to do".
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was restored and released in 1080p HD on an Arrow Films Special Edition Blu-ray in 2023, which included a new audio commentary track and the short critique "Right Film, Wrong Time."
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GOOD-BY MRS. PEEL. HELLO, UH. MARY POPPINS?: The transition may be painful for her fans--but let's let Diana Rigg tell it. Rohrbach, Ed. Chicago Tribune 14 Apr 1968: h48.
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plan to get rich quick by the "biggest killing" of them all, namely buying stocks in arms companies and then propelling Europe into a
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would star in the film. Lancaster, however, pulled out and film rights reverted to Paramount, where it was made by the team of
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This film was issued on LaserDisc in the mid-1990s. It was also released on VHS at the same time and later on Region 1 DVD.
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Backing Britain Taylor, John Russell. Sight and Sound; London Vol. 38, Iss. 3, (Summer 1969): 112.
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Dragomiloff and Miss Winter uncover the plot, which is to drop a large aerial bomb from a hijacked
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for £20,000 after being bankrolled by her employer, Lord Bostwick.
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and with her in tow, Dragomiloff sets off on a tour of
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221:Technicolor
186:110 minutes
142:Ron Grainer
102:Oliver Reed
90:Produced by
80:Jack London
41:Directed by
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1024:Masquerade
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365:Diana Rigg
243:Diana Rigg
170:1969-03-10
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