DEATH TRIP takes our heroes from an LSD-related plot to a hair-raising stunt-driven finale.
1967 while the rest were issued in roughly annual installments, but only the last of these later install- ments was ever theatrically exhibited in the United States. This time, Rudolf Zehetgruber once again relieved Gianfranco Parolini as director and took a parade float of a supporting role, which at one point finds him upstaging Tony Kendall while singing a song and strumming a balalaika on camelback! It’s ludicrous but a very entertain- ing ludicrousness that once again swings this adventure back into the plus columns. The pre-credits scene tips Zehetgruber’s hand, suggesting that some fun might be had at the ex- pense of formula this time around, as Jo Walker’s ever-present theme song—accompanying his swaggering entrance into a nightclub—suddenly has the needle knocked off its vinyl by a thrown punch. Though it’s hardly the sort of job that would be entrusted to a New York police cap- tain, Tom Rowland is hired by NATO to deliver $1,000,000 worth of liquid LSD to the US con- sul general in Istanbul. If this scenario doesn’t sound quite kosher to you, you’re brighter than
the film’s criminal element, because Tom’s er- rand is really just a ruse to tempt the local drug lords, bent on making LSD more widely available, out into the open. He’s met by NATO military ad- visor Allan Hood (Dietmar Schönherr) and Joyce Sellers (Sabine Sun), secretary to the consul gen- eral, who accompany him to the US Embassy where the valuable cargo is locked in a wall safe. Meanwhile, Jo—working independently but on an inevitable collision course with Tom—is in town under cover to suss out a mysterious gang known as The Green Hounds, known to be operating out of a nightspot where he’s recognized as Kommissar X (this is the first film in the series to actually refer to him as such in the English dialogue) and dosed with LSD. Helped to escape by Gisela (Christa Linder, returning), an associate posing as a ciga- rette girl, the woozy Jo eludes capture by leaping off the dock into the sea. Somehow he makes his way to a barge owned by attractive tour guide Leyla Kessler (Olga Schoberová), and hides in her oc- cupied bath water till his armed pursuers are chased away by an armed neighboring barge
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