The Assassination Bureau (Limited)
1969's The Assassination Bureau is a bizarre farcical adventure starring Diana Rigg as women's rights activist and aspiring reporter Sonia Winter who attempts to break the biggest story of a secret cabal of assassins by hiring the organization to kill their own leader Ivan Dragomiloff (Oliver Reed).
This casts Ivan in the role of hero despite him killing many, many of his compatriots (as he seizes on the opportunity to cull the Bureau of those who don't believe in the twisted morality central to its inception). We also get an attraction between Sonia and Ivan eventually leading to romance among all the death and dark humor.
The parts of the film that stood out to me, other than the shock of seeing Reed who I remember almost exclusively from Condorman, are the designs and set pieces of which the creation of the Bureau's headquarters and Zeppelin are certainly highlights. I don't know that its story holds up, but there's certainly some charm in both its stars and its production.
Given the number of high profile assassinations in the United States in the late 60s, Paramount waffled on what to do with the film creating something of a lost cult classic mostly forgotten by history. The film was released on VHS and LaserDisc in the 1990s, and later on DVD. It finally earned a Blu-ray release in 2023.
- Title: The Assassination Bureau
- IMDb: link
