AGENT FOR H.A.R.M.

AGENT FOR H.A.R.M. (1966). Director: Gerd Oswald.

Biochemist Jan Stefanik (Carl Esmond) is trying to find an antidote to an outer space spore that can reduce infected people to fungus. Basil Malko (Martin Kosleck) also wants the antidote, but his plans also include unleashing the spores on the country's food supply. Adam Chance (Peter Mark Richman), an agent for a group called H.A.R.M., flies out to protect Stefanik in California and do what he can to stop Malko. Stefanik's beautiful niece, Ava (Barbara Bouchet), is by her uncle's side, but he doesn't know that she is secretly working with Malko. Will Adam Chance succeed in preventing Malko from turning everyone in the nation into fungus?

(Peter) Mark Richman and Wendell Corey

Agent for H.A.R.M. was actually a failed pilot that was released to theaters wherein the patrons who paid good money for admission were probably furious to see that this was absolutely nothing like a James Bond movie. Agent actually resembles a mediocre episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which was clearly its primary influence. Aside from a couple of sequences, the movie is played straight without the tongue-in-cheek outre quality of UNCLE, and Richman also plays it with his customary serious intensity and eschews the cool cold war spy approach. Although Kosleck was a good actor, he makes an unimpressive villain in this, more like an annoying little pipsqueak than a Dr. No-type megalomaniac. Wendell Corey is more on the mark as Chance's boss and Bouchet is suitably duplicitous and sexy as the "niece" who's been playing on the wrong side all along. Robert Quarry plays an associate of Malko's as does Rafael Campos.

Verdict: Stick with The Man from U.N.C.L.E. **.